Wanna see my crabs?

This is the arrow crab... we call him Slim. Unfortunately, we're thinking that Slim is going to have to be traded in on a smaller version of himself. He's starting to look at the fish and get a little excited.


One of the many blue legged hermit crabs. They are a vital part of our tank's natural clean-up crew.


The largest of the red legged hermits. My 5-yr-old calls her Ruby.


And, finally our tank comedian. This little sponge crab likes to take pieces of the sponges in the tank (only the orange ones, mind you) and place them on top of himself as camoflauge. After a few days, he tires of that particular piece and spends a great deal of time trying to hide the evidence. If you walk up to the tank and startle him while he's trying to dispose of the piece of sponge, he quickly places it back on his back (and also does a bit of under water whistling).

Now... wasn't that better than another puppy or kitty thread? :rofl:

You made me want a tank. I gather these are salt water. How much trouble is the tank to maintain?

So, it's probably much more work than I perceive it to be. :)

I think the beginning is the worst. I didn't want to cycle the tank with fish, so I used live rock and sand instead. For weeks here sat this beautiful tank with no fish or inverts. It hits hard when your friends come over and scoff at the empty tank and you remember "damn, I've already dropped $700 bucks and I don't have any freaking fish yet!"

Now I have three tanks up and running -- a 45 is my reef tank; a 29 is fish only; and a 10 which serves as quarantine and medicine tank. I do a minimum of 10% water changes every week to 10 days. I add chemicals and vitamins during those changes and calcium supplements with top-off water. Since all the tanks are well established, I only do water testing roughly once a month (probably more like every six weeks).

All the other stuff (switching out lights, filtration, etc.) is scheduled on my computer. I found a great little shareware program called reefcon which is excellent.

I think once saltwater tanks are well established, they are easier to maintain than freshwater. It is rare for the tank to develop a problem that doesn't have a natural solution. For instance, I had some pests known as bristle worms lurking in my live rock. That's the reason the arrow crab joined the family. He's a natural predator.

All of that is probably more than you wanted to know, eh?

bristle worms are a great asset. I have HUGE ones in there.. never caused a problem ever. I havent seen a decline since my arrow has been added.. I think the huge ones I have in there would eat him before he ate them :)

Another benefit I saw, is when I had a yellow tang.. for some reason he was doing beautifully... the next day he died (have no idea how.. the other tangs are fine). Couldnt find him, so the bristles had a good dinner that night.

How did you attach your computer to your tank to trigger the events? X10 units?

Hubby was incredibly busy ast work this past month, only had 2 waterchanges in that time frame.. now our white sand has a diatom bloom and a red patch of algae growing on the back of the tank. Daily water changes for a week will take care of that, but cant happen again!!

I'd do them, but being 5 mo pregnant, its kinda impossible to carry buckets and lift them to do it.. or they would've been done.. my back hurts bad enough already :)

I'm a geek, but not that great of a geek. I might put a bug in my hubby's (the megageek) ear. :D

I've got nassarius vibex snails living in my sand bed. (aka "elephant nose zombie snails) They sit under the sand with their long nose up like a snorkle. When any food hits the water, they surface and go running around the tank (really fast for a snail). They also take care of anyone who might unexpectedly meet his/her demise.

I don't blame you for leaving the water changes to hubby. I definitely didn't feel up to toting water and heavy lifting when I was five months along. Best wishes with your pregnancy -- the baby will love sitting in front of the tank and watching the water & lights.

I wish I had the ability to keep a saltwater tank going but I'd tank at it. Those are cool.

I'm doing it so it can't be that difficult. ;)

Another saltwater geek here I see!!!



My arrow crab..

Heres my male clarkii and my blue tang.



I currently have a 75 gallon.. In process of putting a 240 gallon in a wall.

Does yours use his blue claws to sometimes clean off his own head? My kids just laugh their heads off when they catch ours doing that. LOL!

Have the clark and tang developed a relationship, or did you just happen to catch them together? Our "Nemo" seems to be especially affectionate toward the watchman goby.

A 240? In the wall? You're a brave one! Here's hoping you're doing it with a huge sump in the basement and an auto water change system of some sort. :) Wow. I'm jealous!

and chasing off our Goby.. Its hilarious watching him eat brine shrimp!!

As for my 240 gal.. its going to be in my basement.. Its going to be in the wall in my main living space. The room right behind it will be my "wet room", where all the filtration, the auto top offs, etc.. It's going to be a closed loop system so that means I have basically no chance (if i did it right :scared:) of it overflowing during an outage. Its also going to be able to be locked up so the kids cant get into it.. When my son was 2 1/2 he dumped a whole bottle of food into my then 55 gallon and I lost nearly everything except for my urchin and the Scopas.

My male clarkii doesnt bother anyone.. he just bums around and does nothing... the female chases anything that comes remotely within her territory. I'll stick my finger in the tank and she'll nail it. The little bugger hurts.. theres teeth in that mouth! She also bites and chases the mag float lol.

My Blue Tang is buddies with my Scopas tang... he almost died last week, caught him sucked to a powerhead when I came downstairs. Good thing I caught him in time or he'd been sucked up within a matter of minutes.

I'll take a pic of the tank we have.. its huge.. I can stand in it :)

I've never seen one like that. and I love the story of your sponge crab!!!

Unite! Death to the great satanistic bourgeoisie swine pigs of the sea...

Namely Aiptasia anemones...

Us aiptasia are imperialist pigs. We're growing behind your liverock as we speak!

Boo!

in the back of my tank yesterday!!! Need some Joes juice to kill the sucker. Nothing like watching it shrivel up after squirting the mystery liquid in it!

One dark night and they'll have all of it gone -- then you can keep them or return them to the fish store.

started out with 5. My female clarkii likes to pick them up and take them to her anemone :)

This aipstasia is WAAAAAY too big for these guys.. thats why they need my assistance. Grr..

Love the sponge crab. :)

Thank you for sharing.

I'm not allowed pets where I'm at, except fish, but I wouldn't be able to maintain an aquarium for sure. It is nice to see other folks' pets and whatnot though.

As soon as I'm in an area where it's possible, I'll be getting a turtle. It'll be awesome.

It would be great if you could put up a video of the silly little guy in action!

I wish we had a salt water tank but after not doing too well with a 95 gal goldfish tank, we kind of gave up. Mr Fuzz was the instigater, I am too lazy and distractable to even try. Now he's too busy.

Anyone want to talk to me about buying a nice 95 gal tank with cabinet/stand and filters?

I cant find them ANYWHERE around here.. I want one now!!