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!





First corals

When I first set up my fish tank at the beginning of February there were only three things I particularly wanted for it; a clownfish, a cleaner shrimp, and a piece of coral.  Obviously as the weeks and months went on my ambitions grew, and my aquarium is now host to a whole undersea menagerie, but out of my initial wishlist the only thing still missing was some coral.  This wasn't down to any kind of supply problems with the store or anything like that - indeed they have an entire 10 foot tank filled with nothing but coral!  The simple problem was that corals need an established and settled tank to thrive in, and it's not recommended to add them into any tank until it's about 6 months old.

So on Sunday when I went in to get the salt water for my fortnightly water change I ended up picking up a couple of very interesting and beautiful specimens!  To be honest I went in hoping to get this elusive anemone for my clowns, but they were still waiting for stock to arrive so I ended up with my nose in the coral tank instead.  Here's what I ended up with:

I went with this two pieces of mushroom coral, which were together on this lump of living rock in the tank.  They're a type of soft coral and are apparently quite hardy which makes them well suited to beginners such as myself.  I've named the one on the left Sigismund, and the slightly larger one on the right Ahriman.

Then there was this guy.  I missed it to start with, as it was anchored onto a very small piece of rock, and is simply a very thin, green spiral, looping its way upwards.  As it didn't have a price on it and it wasn't like any other type of coral I've ever seen I wasn't sure what it was!  I asked the guy who I usually deal with in the store and he didn't have a clue, so he took the default option of offering to sell it me for £3 (whenever I discover strange and unexpected things in their tanks, they just offer them to me for £3 and I usually go for them!).  Obviously for that price I couldn't resist another new addition for the tank so I took it home, got it settled in and started Googling.  It didn't take me long to find out that this is a piece of spiral wire coral, which is a type of hard coral.  Since this photo was taken I've repositioned it to have a high up, central position in the tank, and it looks quite spectacular!

So there we are, my first three corals!  I may get another one in a few weeks, but due to the size of the tank I should probably leave it at that.  Now I'm just waiting for the anemone for my clowns, and a mandarin to round off the group.  Stay tuned for more pictures!



Another new addition



So another week goes by and my little marine community gains another new member.  This week we have a sand-sifting starfish who goes by the name of Malcador, and here he is!  I caught him earlier investing the water surface and it seemed the perfect opportunity for a nice clear photo.  Normally (being a sand-sifting starfish) he spends his time burrowed under the sand in the tank, so photo opportunities are rare. In fact this was him literally moments after being first released into the tank...

Five minutes after this was taken he'd completely buried himself and I didn't see him again for 24 hours!

He's a very funky little guy, but they do have quite the appetite so I'll need to make sure I'm supplying the tank with enough food in the coming weeks. I only have 5 occupants really who eat the fresh food - the two clownfish, the two chromis, and the cleaner shrimp - but I have a lot of detrivores in the tank who eat leftover, uneaten food.  This is great in terms of keeping the tank clean, but of course it also means I have to work out how much to overfeed the fish so there's enough leftovers to go around.

It hasn't all been good news this week though, my suspicions that Roboute Guilliman (white-legged hermit crab) had died were confirmed when I found Lorgar (pom pom crab) munching on his remains.  It was a shame, but I hadn't had him long enough to get attached, so I wasn't too gutted by his death.  I won't be getting another one though - both of my white-legged hermits only lasted a few days, so either they're a little too delicate for a beginner like me, or they had a bad batch in the shop.  Either way, with the addition of the starfish I think my cleaner crew's big enough now.  Any further fatalities will be replaced, but I won't invest in any new clean-up critters.

So at this stage my tank is almost complete.  Hopefully this weekend I'll be able to buy (or at least reserve) an anemone, and then in another few months I'll get a psychadelic mandarin to finish the tank off.  In terms of naming, I've now run out of primarchs from Warhammer 40,000 (I've already reserved Corax for the anemone and Horus for the mandarin), so I'll need a new theme for the next generation of critters.  I'm thinking Mass Effect, but hopefully everyone will live for a good long while, so I won't have to give it any thought for at least a couple of years.

Fingers crossed for more fishy friends!

Well the Clownfish are settling in nicely, and the next planned addition to the tank was to be their anemone, but a quick visit to the pet shop has changed everything today.

Originally today's visit was just to reserve myself an anemone to pick up next weekend, but they had a lot of stock in which I hadn't seen before, and some which they only get in very rarely.  The rarity was a Mandarin, which I've been wanting to get as the final fish for my community.  They only have the one in, so tomorrow I plan to speak to my regular guy there and see if I can reserve it for next weekend and place the anemone on hold for a fortnight.

The exciting new additions were rather large sand-sifting snails, and also pretty big white-legged hermit crabs.  A snail I'd definitely love to have - I already have a turbo snail, but the sand-sifter would help to eliminate the algae problem I'm having in the substrate.  The hermit on the other hand is a bit more iffy.  Very beautiful creatures to be sure, but I know that some hermits can have a bit of a rough temperament, so I don't want anything that will upset my small red hermits, or either of the snails, so tomorrow I'll be asking about how compatible one of those would be with the other tank members.

At the very least I plan to add the snail to my aquarium tomorrow, and if all goes well I'll be adding the snail and a nice big fat hermit crab as well :) And then it'll be a week until the Mandarin, a fortnight after that until the anemone, and then my little tank community will finally be complete.  Altogether I'm feeling quite excited at the moment.