OP
OP
Only 2 weeks gone by and yet many changes for this tank. Some very depressing, others less so. I also see everybody is way ahead of me on journal updates...I have some reading to do!
My posting dropped to nil because I have been having amazing times with the worst case of norovirus I have ever had and probably flat out the worst contagious illness I have had in at least 10 years. That event also meant tanks had to pretty much just wait. Params held great - but I can't say the same for other aspects.
Rundown of what has changed...
1. No more Dardanus megistos in this tank. I have removed the two that are in and will not be adding more of any large species. The female I have is currently the largest animal I have ever seen of this species, and recently demonstrated that she can SMASH ROCKS. By that, I mean splitting through the middle of a rock with a cross-section ranging from 1-3" across. I don't want 40lbs of nice rock turned into 1" chunks. This also means she probably wouldn't just be able to break a finger, but rather take one clean off. Making that even better, she is not really afraid of my hands, readily threatens me when I walk past, and follows my hands around when in the water. Cool in some ways, but frankly not safe. The sudden increase in strength with her last molt worried me, and my husband echoed those concerns unprompted. The consensus is that this animal is no longer safe to be in this tank and needs to be somewhere that can be maintained without my hands getting wet, much in the way I have kept large true crabs that are equally destructive with finger-breaking potential. If she interacts with me, there always needs to be a pane of glass between claws and me. I simply cannot enforce that with such a deep, large tank. New home:
It is a 10gal with "wormy" rock from my broken-down tank. She is deworming it. The male is with her but still has his strangely peaceful, loner personality. They have been at peace for some time in the 55gal so my hope is that the habitat shrinkage won't set anything off. It hasn't so far. The tank is 10gal because that is frankly all I had room for. If space ever opens up, I will upgrade them to something with more floorspace.
What I think I have seen with this particular female is a bit of the "super crab" phenomenon I have seen in a few other species. As I think I've already mentioned in other posts, she dwarfs the late Mr. Hairylegs, and most of the other individuals that slowed down and showed old age before they reached anywhere near her size. My experience with some species is that every now and then one will just skyrocket in size beyond the expected maximum - which I can check in some cases by just going and looking at the wild populations. It's also possible that there are odd, rare giants out hiding in deeper water where they are simply harder to find and therefore go undocumented. After all, someone did recently haul up a giant lobster (40something pounds I think? Wasn't the world record, but not too shabby), so it could just be an observational shortcoming for wild populations and their documentation. At any rate, if this female grows larger I will actually start to have a hard time finding shells for her. I used to think that the rare remarks in the hobby of 12" individuals were down to either incorrectly IDed animals (specifically Petrochirus diogenes) or were the result of faulty measurements. I'm less confident of those assumptions at this point.
Aaaand that was another thing in the back of my mind: "oh dear god, what if that crab ever takes an interest in the tank sealant?" The tank wouldn't stand a chance. I have had inverts in the past that became oddly fascinated with sealant (snails and crabs), they were just never big enough to do anything about it. When I saw that line you posted here (although I still need to get journal reading to see the details), I realized that among other things, 50gal of water on the floor is something I do not want to play with. One more reason to move the crabs out...just under 10gal of water on the floor is something I can more reasonably deal with if my paranoia is ever validated.
More things that have changed...
2. No more Heteractis aurora anemone...not moved, just...no more. I am still very depressed about it. While I was alternating between puking my guts out and being passed out on a bed, something happened in the tank that I still can't fully piece together. All I know is that when I fell ill the anemone looked magnificent, but when I finally dragged myself out of bed and into the tank room a few days later, I found the anemone shriveled and detached. I isolated it and it promptly barfed up an enormous amount of sand, detritus, and very sharp rock fragments, one of which I presume to have been the culprit in a giant hole punched through its side. The rock fragments were from the destroyed rocks thanks to the crab, but I see no evidence that the act of rock smashing itself injured the anemone. I do not believe the outcome was due to either a mixed anemone environment or a deliberate act of predation/aggression on the part of the crab. There are many things in this tank the crab could have obliterated with its strength and it is frankly remarkable how benevolent it has been in that respect. Obviously there is an indirect causal relationship (e.g. maybe it would have been fine if there hadn't been sharp fragments for it to eat thanks to the crab smashing rocks), but, if the crab was going to have a go at the anemone in a predatory way, I would have just found shreds of flesh around the tank. I do not know how or why the anemone ended up fully ingesting so much sharp, dirty junk. It died a few days later from a systemic infection that it couldn't overcome. As far as I could tell, the anemone was thriving and growing right up to this...no warning. Freak event I guess? I am sure getting tired of this kind of thing.
3. Following the loss of the nem, I decided to look at what I have done well and also SAFELY (in terms of capacity for physical damage and toxicity) with my tanks more broadly and try to just do those things again with this tank. I came up with the following: small hermit crab species and medium-large Clibanarius hermit crabs, Gastropods, some soft corals, and some LPS. So...that is where I am headed with this tank. Boring? Maybe. But, as my recent experiences have shown me I do not have the capacity to appropriately look after such a large, potentially volatile system. I need something more predictable at this point.
4. Crab removal posed another problem. One grapefruit-sized crab is probably worth at least 50 (or maybe even a hundred) standard small CUC hermits. Taking out those two hermits removed almost all of my CUC, although it also dropped the bio load substantially. Still, I am trying to ad-hoc stock to fill in the gaps. I need rock and sand cleaners. First round has been 12 Clibanarius virescens, 1 conch, and 1 sea urchin. I tried a CBS too to serve as a worm-thumper, but apparently I apparently bought it too close to molting and the transport stress didn't end well; that is always a risk with shrimp unfortunately. Being honest, it's been so long since I've had that issue with a shrimp it had completely slipped my mind. Most of the time they are able to delay it successfully if it's too close to "the time," but sometimes everything goes south. I will try another in a while, hopefully one where I can find out when it's last molt was and time pickup accordingly now that the issue is back on my radar.
Happier pics...
Elegance - doubled in size and mouth count since I got it. Really needed to be moved to the sand (which I also couldn't do with the big crabs around) since it outgrew the platform it was on much faster than I thought it was going to. In fact, it had pushed against the side and snapped the glue bits...it was just balancing! Yikes. Obviously it's much safer now.
Nephthea (?) frag from local frag farmer's market. The guy said it was Nephthea and I see live aquaria has an identical-looking thing listed as Nephthea, but I have frustratingly seen identical-looking things listed otherwise in the past. I feel like now that I now have two sources that say the same thing I can probably assume it's Nephthea. But then I have another thing that is also supposedly a Nephthea that is really very different-looking...yarg.
Stock for the future depending on how the tank responds to decreased nutrient input (still the same amount of filter food, just less everything else):
- Some brittle/serpent stars
- Almost certainly something else to churn sand.
- Maybe some more filter-feeding bivalves or a worm...there is plenty of filter food to go around.
- More peppermint shrimp.
- More corals. Not sure what yet, but now I can acutally put stuff on the rocks. The lack of a skimmer probably means I'm still in LPS/softy territory, although I know Borneman hates generalizations at that level. I should dig out that book again and have a look.
My posting dropped to nil because I have been having amazing times with the worst case of norovirus I have ever had and probably flat out the worst contagious illness I have had in at least 10 years. That event also meant tanks had to pretty much just wait. Params held great - but I can't say the same for other aspects.
Rundown of what has changed...
1. No more Dardanus megistos in this tank. I have removed the two that are in and will not be adding more of any large species. The female I have is currently the largest animal I have ever seen of this species, and recently demonstrated that she can SMASH ROCKS. By that, I mean splitting through the middle of a rock with a cross-section ranging from 1-3" across. I don't want 40lbs of nice rock turned into 1" chunks. This also means she probably wouldn't just be able to break a finger, but rather take one clean off. Making that even better, she is not really afraid of my hands, readily threatens me when I walk past, and follows my hands around when in the water. Cool in some ways, but frankly not safe. The sudden increase in strength with her last molt worried me, and my husband echoed those concerns unprompted. The consensus is that this animal is no longer safe to be in this tank and needs to be somewhere that can be maintained without my hands getting wet, much in the way I have kept large true crabs that are equally destructive with finger-breaking potential. If she interacts with me, there always needs to be a pane of glass between claws and me. I simply cannot enforce that with such a deep, large tank. New home:
It is a 10gal with "wormy" rock from my broken-down tank. She is deworming it. The male is with her but still has his strangely peaceful, loner personality. They have been at peace for some time in the 55gal so my hope is that the habitat shrinkage won't set anything off. It hasn't so far. The tank is 10gal because that is frankly all I had room for. If space ever opens up, I will upgrade them to something with more floorspace.
What I think I have seen with this particular female is a bit of the "super crab" phenomenon I have seen in a few other species. As I think I've already mentioned in other posts, she dwarfs the late Mr. Hairylegs, and most of the other individuals that slowed down and showed old age before they reached anywhere near her size. My experience with some species is that every now and then one will just skyrocket in size beyond the expected maximum - which I can check in some cases by just going and looking at the wild populations. It's also possible that there are odd, rare giants out hiding in deeper water where they are simply harder to find and therefore go undocumented. After all, someone did recently haul up a giant lobster (40something pounds I think? Wasn't the world record, but not too shabby), so it could just be an observational shortcoming for wild populations and their documentation. At any rate, if this female grows larger I will actually start to have a hard time finding shells for her. I used to think that the rare remarks in the hobby of 12" individuals were down to either incorrectly IDed animals (specifically Petrochirus diogenes) or were the result of faulty measurements. I'm less confident of those assumptions at this point.
Aaaand that was another thing in the back of my mind: "oh dear god, what if that crab ever takes an interest in the tank sealant?" The tank wouldn't stand a chance. I have had inverts in the past that became oddly fascinated with sealant (snails and crabs), they were just never big enough to do anything about it. When I saw that line you posted here (although I still need to get journal reading to see the details), I realized that among other things, 50gal of water on the floor is something I do not want to play with. One more reason to move the crabs out...just under 10gal of water on the floor is something I can more reasonably deal with if my paranoia is ever validated.
More things that have changed...
2. No more Heteractis aurora anemone...not moved, just...no more. I am still very depressed about it. While I was alternating between puking my guts out and being passed out on a bed, something happened in the tank that I still can't fully piece together. All I know is that when I fell ill the anemone looked magnificent, but when I finally dragged myself out of bed and into the tank room a few days later, I found the anemone shriveled and detached. I isolated it and it promptly barfed up an enormous amount of sand, detritus, and very sharp rock fragments, one of which I presume to have been the culprit in a giant hole punched through its side. The rock fragments were from the destroyed rocks thanks to the crab, but I see no evidence that the act of rock smashing itself injured the anemone. I do not believe the outcome was due to either a mixed anemone environment or a deliberate act of predation/aggression on the part of the crab. There are many things in this tank the crab could have obliterated with its strength and it is frankly remarkable how benevolent it has been in that respect. Obviously there is an indirect causal relationship (e.g. maybe it would have been fine if there hadn't been sharp fragments for it to eat thanks to the crab smashing rocks), but, if the crab was going to have a go at the anemone in a predatory way, I would have just found shreds of flesh around the tank. I do not know how or why the anemone ended up fully ingesting so much sharp, dirty junk. It died a few days later from a systemic infection that it couldn't overcome. As far as I could tell, the anemone was thriving and growing right up to this...no warning. Freak event I guess? I am sure getting tired of this kind of thing.
3. Following the loss of the nem, I decided to look at what I have done well and also SAFELY (in terms of capacity for physical damage and toxicity) with my tanks more broadly and try to just do those things again with this tank. I came up with the following: small hermit crab species and medium-large Clibanarius hermit crabs, Gastropods, some soft corals, and some LPS. So...that is where I am headed with this tank. Boring? Maybe. But, as my recent experiences have shown me I do not have the capacity to appropriately look after such a large, potentially volatile system. I need something more predictable at this point.
4. Crab removal posed another problem. One grapefruit-sized crab is probably worth at least 50 (or maybe even a hundred) standard small CUC hermits. Taking out those two hermits removed almost all of my CUC, although it also dropped the bio load substantially. Still, I am trying to ad-hoc stock to fill in the gaps. I need rock and sand cleaners. First round has been 12 Clibanarius virescens, 1 conch, and 1 sea urchin. I tried a CBS too to serve as a worm-thumper, but apparently I apparently bought it too close to molting and the transport stress didn't end well; that is always a risk with shrimp unfortunately. Being honest, it's been so long since I've had that issue with a shrimp it had completely slipped my mind. Most of the time they are able to delay it successfully if it's too close to "the time," but sometimes everything goes south. I will try another in a while, hopefully one where I can find out when it's last molt was and time pickup accordingly now that the issue is back on my radar.
Happier pics...
Elegance - doubled in size and mouth count since I got it. Really needed to be moved to the sand (which I also couldn't do with the big crabs around) since it outgrew the platform it was on much faster than I thought it was going to. In fact, it had pushed against the side and snapped the glue bits...it was just balancing! Yikes. Obviously it's much safer now.
Nephthea (?) frag from local frag farmer's market. The guy said it was Nephthea and I see live aquaria has an identical-looking thing listed as Nephthea, but I have frustratingly seen identical-looking things listed otherwise in the past. I feel like now that I now have two sources that say the same thing I can probably assume it's Nephthea. But then I have another thing that is also supposedly a Nephthea that is really very different-looking...yarg.
Stock for the future depending on how the tank responds to decreased nutrient input (still the same amount of filter food, just less everything else):
- Some brittle/serpent stars
- Almost certainly something else to churn sand.
- Maybe some more filter-feeding bivalves or a worm...there is plenty of filter food to go around.
- More peppermint shrimp.
- More corals. Not sure what yet, but now I can acutally put stuff on the rocks. The lack of a skimmer probably means I'm still in LPS/softy territory, although I know Borneman hates generalizations at that level. I should dig out that book again and have a look.
Bonkers, all clown fish are! 
