Fishy Friends: 12 months on

Well this weekend marks 12 months since my little marine aquarium first had life introduced to it.  It's been something of a rollercoaster, mainly hopping between wonder and heartache, but I haven't regretted having it for a moment.  Here's how my tank as a whole is looking today...

The only thing about a full tank shot is that you can't really see any of the critters living in there, so let me give you a lineup.  As of today my tank contains:

• 2 black hermit crabs
• 1 red hermit crab
• 1 stripe-legged hermit crab
• 1 emerald crab
• 1 maroon clownfish
• 1 firefish
• 2 blue/green chromis
• 1 green brittle sea star
• 1 sand-sifiting starfish
• 1 coral banded shrimp
• 1 dancer shrimp
• 3 turbo snails
• 1 sand-sifting snail

And a brand new addition to the tank today:

I'm still trying to find out which species of hermit this is, but I've named him Jim and he's an absolutely magnificent specimen.

So overall the tank's doing well. I've sadly lost 3 fish in the last year and a number of invertebrates, but on the whole everything's thriving.  I'm thinking about getting a Coral Beauty at some point in the next couple of months, but at the moment I'm very happy with the way it's looking on the whole, and am looking forward to another 12 months of marine fun :)





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!