A brief fishy update

Well I know a lot of my blog has been about zombies of late, but that's purely because a lot of my life has been about zombies of late!  In fact I'll have another post to follow very shortly with regards to my filming session on Thursday and Friday.  But right now, this is a quick post about my lovely fishy friends.

It's been about a year now since I bought my maroon clownfish, Fulgrim, and since day 1 I've really wanted to get her an anemone to host.  I did get an anemone last summer, but sadly the clowns (as I did have a pair back then) didn't take to it, and it died later on.  When the second clown died I put the anemone on the back-burner, as one of the main reasons I wanted one was that they were a mated pair and it would encourage them to breed.

But now that my tank's fully stocked I decided it was time to bite the bullet and get that anemone, so I picked up a beautifully vibrant red bubble tip anemone, which I have named Cthulhu.

He was pretty expensive, setting me back £50, but I'm hoping he'll last a good while.  The most important thing is getting the clown to host him, as she'll make sure he gets fed and look after him in general.  Once I'd got Cthulhu into the tank he spent a couple of hours moving around, trying to find a nice spot, and by luck he settled into just the spot I was hoping he'd choose, as it's right in the middle of Fulgrim's territory.  After he'd been there for a little while Fulgrim started to swim up close and take an interest in the new addition, and a short while later I looked into the tank to see this...

 

So it looks like they're going to get along just fine.  This photo was taken around 4 hours ago, and Fulgrim hasn't spent more than a few seconds away from Cthulhu at a time since then, so hopefully this'll be the start of a long and happy friendship!





More invertebrates

Well the tank is continuing to progress nicely. I'm still waiting for an anemone for the clownfish, but the only one they have in the store is too big for my tank, so I'm just waiting for the next batch of stock to arrive in a fortnight.  In the meantime, I've expanded my cleaner crew with 4 new members.

 These guys are a pair of Pom Pom Anemone crabs, also known as Boxer crabs. It's fairly obvious to look at them how they got their name. The 'pom poms' are actually crab-claw anemones, which live in a symbiotic relationship with the crabs.  The crabs use the anemones to pick up uneaten food and general detritus off the tank floor, and also for self-defence against predatory fish.  The one on the left is named Khan, and the one on the right is named Lorgar.

This little guy is a white-legged hermit crab. He's quite a bit larger than the two red-legged hermits I also have, and has noticabley larger claws which he uses to defend his shell.  The most striking part of this little guy is his bright blue eyes, which as really beautiful. I actually bought a much larger crab originally, but sadly he died after about 48 hours so I returned to the shop and bought this guy as a replacement. His name is Roboute Guilliman.

On top of these guys I also bought a large orange-spotted sand-sifting snail.  I haven't been able to photograph him because he spends his time buried in the sand at the base of the tank.  His function is to keep turning the sand over to keep it aerated, whilst also cleaning up general detritus. His name is Vulkan.

So that's the latest tank update. In two weeks time I head back for my next water change, and hopefully they'll have an anemone I can bring home for the clownfish as well, but we'll just have to wait and see!