At long last.....

........I have my first fish!! Meet Krusty the Clown fish!! Cost me £17.95 from Swallows Aquatics in Colchester on Saturday! I have to say it was worth the wait and very rewarding to see him take to his new home so quickly and not immediately float to the surface dead! He seems to like it in there although he looks a bit lonely so im looking to get a second fish fairly quickly, what fish i don't know but until then Krusty will have the whole tank to himself, obviously minus the Clean Up Crew.

What the hell is that!!!!

It would appear that we have a new hitch hiker on board. I first noticed this "thing" a couple of weeks ago but didn't think anything of it, thought it was excess Algae growth or some kind of Coral. A few days ago tragedy struck! I noticed that one of my Peppermint shrimp had completely dissapeared, and it coincided with me really noticing movement with this "thing", with me panicing trying to find out what it was i searched the net! Got a couple of shots here.

So the search continued, and finally after checking about 20 different websites on Live Rock hitch hikers, it is called a Mossy Chiton, a form of sea slug. By the looks of it, completely harmless and a good cleaner although i am yet to have that confirmed. It moves pretty slow though so i doubt it will cause much of a threat to the other tank mates. As for my lost peppermint shrimp, i don't have a clue where that has gone! No sign of it at all!

I get my first Fish this saturday, a Percula Clown, to most people out there a "Nemo" fish. Hope he likes his new home!!

Another 2 weeks down!

Well people, it's been a couple of weeks since my last post, been a bit busy, but my boss has been bugging me to put another post on so he has more material to take the mickey out of me over, although secretly i think he is a bit jealous and is really getting tips on how to set his own tank up.

Since i last posted we have had some big changes, the main change is that finally, after 4 weeks of nothing much happening, the clean up crew is in!! YAY!! The crew consists of:

1 Cleaner Shrimp (I named him Jack)

2 Peppermint Shrimp (Pepper and Mint)

1 Red Legged Hermit Crab (Scarlet)

1 Blue Legged Hermit Crab (Bluey)

2 Star Snails (errrr called.......Snails!)

Here i have a lovely array of photos for you to look at and see how cool these creatures are!

This is the climitization process, the shrimp in the bags, adjusting to the temperature of the water. A tip is to add half a cup full of water to the bag every 5 minutes for about 20 minutes. Then disguard the water they came in and fish them out of the bag in a net.

Then this is the little guys in the tank getting to work and having a good clean up!

This is one of the Peppermint Shrimp.

I left the tank for a week and let the shrimp settle in then got hold of the crabs and snails. So that the crabs could move home if needed i added a few empty shells.

This is Scarlet the Red Legged Hermit Crab.

Hard to get a picture of Bluey but this is as good as i could get. There is a peppermint shrimp in the background trying to get in on the shot as well. Turns out they are posers, just like those idiots that stand behind news reporters, although the shrimp isn't able to give you the W****R sign!!

These are a couple of the extra shells i put in the tank incase the Hermits wanted to move home. As you can see, Scarlet the Cleaner Shrimp wanted in on the action as well.

Last but not least is a shot of one of the star snails, he is sitting on the rock slap bang in the middle of the photo. Note, he doesn't resemble a Star at all, more like a cone!

Water tests on Friday night showed that everything was absolutely bang on, and that i could probably put some fish in now however im going to wait another week or 2 just two make sure everything is spot on. My PH level is slightly high at the time of writing this so i have actually just finished doing a 10% water change which will hopefully reduce the PH a bit.

There you go Steve, that should give you a bit more ammo!!

Over the weekend!

Everything seems to be happening at once which is great! Found another crab on Saturday before going to watch palace beat Luton 2-1.

The hole above the one i have circled house a small crab as well so i think i have about 4/5 crabs in the tank at the moment, maybe even more. All freebies with the rock! Happy Days!

This is my favorite photo so far, spot the little crab on his own rock! He wasn't scared at all with my big ugly mug up against the glass staring at him although as soon as he got the chance (when i wasn't looking) he did a runner and im yet to see him since but still i managed to get a cracking shot of him!

All of my levels are absolutely bang on now, PH, Ammonia, Nitrite, nitrate, SG, it's all spot on so im going to leave it for a couple of more days just to make sure it's stable then im going to put a couple of Peppermint Shrimp in to eat the Aiptasia. It'll still be a few weeks or so until i get any fishes though. But it's all abou patience which is something i have had to learn in the last two weeks. I usually hate waiting for things but this doesn't seem to be so bad, possibly because it's so interesting.

Not long now!

The last few days have been pretty fascinating and having worked out how to take close up shots with my digital camera i thought i'd share some wicked shots with you, all of which taken of my tank!

I happened to spot this little guy eating away at all the algae and carefully venturing out once in a while but as soon as i moved to get the camera he shot back in so this was the best shot i could get of him. Not bad though!

I came home from work on Friday to find that one of the crabs had got very adventurous and actually shed his skin/shell (whatever it's called) you'll probably need to enlarge the photo to see it properly.

Test Results 2 weeks on

Having come home from a pretty busy day in the office a tank gazing was called for, after about half an hour of staring at rock and watching my freebie crab eating algae i decided to do some tests on the water to make sure everything was going to plan.

SG - 1.022 - Good
Nitrite - 0.1 - Good
Nitrate - 5 - Good
Ammonia - Less than 1.2 - Not good but getting better
PH - 7.5 - Not good needs to be a bit higher so may need to get some buffer.
Phosphate - 0 - Good

All in all things are on the up, just got to get the ammonia down and the PH up and keep everything stable then it's time to add some live stock! Im hoping to get the levels sorted by the end of next week so i can get a couple of peppermint shrimp in there to take care of the Aptasia pest!

Until next time!!

All is not as it seems!

An update to my followers and all tank owners. The "Button Polyps" are actually Aptasias as discovered by Stone Cold on the FishKeeping forum. These pest anemones reproduce quite quickly apparently and can be a right pain in the arse if you are looking to keep corals, which i will be eventually. They have a sting in them that will cause a lot of distress to Coral and eventually kill them.

Obviously im not looking to keep these little gits so have two options on getting rid of them, i can either wait a few weeks until the tank is cycled and get a couple of peppermint shrimp who eat Aptasias but this will increase the risk of them spreading as i will have to wait or i can venture out to my local fish shop and get some Joes Juice which you feed to the pest to kill it off then safely remove it from the tank. I'm not entirely sure what im going to do at this stage, i think i'll go down the route of Joes Juice as Peppermint Shrimp aren't reef safe shrimp so i wouldn't want them in there once they have done the job i want them to do which would be a waste. Hmmmmmm