New tank checklist

[Kinetikx]

And another batch of zoea have been released. They number in the "I have no idea" amount now. Its kind of hard to get a count. And after seeing another female with the strange looking eggs, and then doing some research its clear that eggs about to be released kind of hang strangely. So that's one mystery solved.

I'm starting to get a good crop of algae growing on the walls of the tank so I've stopped removing the snails... For now. For the most part they've been congregating on the macroalgae and that's just fine by me. They seem to keep it clean and have eliminated the prior problem of hair algae. I'm slowly working toward some semblance of balance in the tank.

[Mustafa]

It's always great to read about reproduction, and in your case it seems to be continuous at this point. Do you have any updated pictures of your tank?

[Kinetikx]

Sure thing. It's so difficult to get good shots through the curved acrylic. It took some tries but here's the best of the worst. I tried repeatedly to get a shot of the floating zoea with no luck. Then when I was taking a couple last shots of a snail a post larva shrimp just happened along. This is the first one I've seen, they must be hiding well because for the past few days the numbers of zoea have been diminishing. And then as if on cue a full sized shrimp came along and joined the party. Luckily the macro on my camera decided to stay in focus.

Not much has changed since the beginning. The macroalgae keeps getting bigger though




One of the dwarf blue-leg hermits in the largest shells. From a distance and zoomed so there isn't much to see


And one of the blue-legs in the MTS shell it came in. Sadly the colors just don't come across.






Post larva says "hello"

[KenCotigirl]

Thanks for the pictures. How about one a distance so we can the whole tank.

[Kinetikx]

The first page has one. 5th post.

[dndvictory]

I really like your tank design. Very calming and pleasing to look at.

[Kinetikx]

Thanks, I appreciate it. I spent way too long picking out rocks, using aquarium epoxy to make the tower of black lava on the right, and arranging everything. Arranging tall rocks inside a sphere is a challenge all on its own.

[KenCotigirl]

Missed that. Unique. Thanks again for the shots.

[ShrimpyShrimpShrimp]

Sure thing. It's so difficult to get good shots through the curved acrylic. It took some tries but here's the best of the worst. I tried repeatedly to get a shot of the floating zoea with no luck. Then when I was taking a couple last shots of a snail a post larva shrimp just happened along. This is the first one I've seen, they must be hiding well because for the past few days the numbers of zoea have been diminishing. And then as if on cue a full sized shrimp came along and joined the party. Luckily the macro on my camera decided to stay in focus.

Not much has changed since the beginning. The macroalgae keeps getting bigger though




One of the dwarf blue-leg hermits in the largest shells. From a distance and zoomed so there isn't much to see


And one of the blue-legs in the MTS shell it came in. Sadly the colors just don't come across.






Post larva says "hello"

Can you update us on your tank?

[Dch48]

The Hermit crabs are living in the brackish water?

[seuadr]

Can you update us on your tank?

last time they were active was in 2014 so... probably not.

[Dch48]

Okay so make it "were". I thought those hermits needed full strength seawater.

[seuadr]

Okay so make it "were". I thought those hermits needed full strength seawater.

so for what it is worth, i had them in a reef tank but i did find some anecdotal information suggesting that they might survive in 1.010 to 1.025:

https://www.fishforums.net/forums/brackish-forum.48/

http://brackishfaq.blogspot.com/2016/08 ... rates.html

https://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/vi ... a68eaa67c1

bear in mind though 1) while they are generally recognized as reef safe, there is no guarantee that any individual crab won't opportunistically feed on other tank residents and 2) the goal parameters of a supershrimp tank are in direct conflict with the parameters of what is typically considered a clean up crew component - the former is to keep parameters in check by introducing little nutrients to control algae and other tank problems where the latter is meant to live on the excess nutrients introduced to a tank as a means of avoiding tank problems.

i believe that if you feed the tank well enough to keep the hermit(s) fed and happy that the parameters will be off for typical supershrimp balance of the nutrient cycle, and if you feed them as infrequently as the supershrimp they are likely to starve or turn the shrimp and/or eachother as a food source.

they will also pick on each other for shells as they grown and could potentially push the tank further towards a crash due to introduction of dead organic matter if they aren't eaten in time (and/or not completely eaten)

just my 2 cents.

[Mustafa]

seuadr is absolutely right!