#Saltwater Aquarium

[shrimpin-aint-easy]

some srimp for ur enjoyment

[ouzel-time]

Happy pride month from this yellow-headed wrasse, who at the moment is transitioning from female to male! Wrasses are sequential hermaphrodites and change sex as they age.

[megaten-and-other-polls]

Shrimp Tournament Submissions

Rules:

IRL SHRIMP ONLY, no shrimps from movies, shows, comics, etc.

All kinds of shrimps are welcome! Freshwater, saltwater, brackish water, aquarium, and wild.

Colloquially known shrimps are welcomed too! They don’t need to be known as shrimp scientifically.

(UPDATE) Please don’t submit a place, activity, or someone simply called shrimp, shrimpy, etc. Only submit aquatic crustaceans that people call a shrimp.

Submit your shrimp HERE

Also the direct link: https://forms.gle/6aX1ax8yb9rPZ7Mt7

(UPDATE) SUBMISSIONS CLOSE MAY 15TH @ 8:00 PM CST

[garbage-empress]

Have you posted any full tank shots? I'm so curious! I had some texas-native sacoglossans for a while (as hitchhikers) but within two weeks they eliminated all the algae in the tank the struggle to feed them is real...

It's been a while since I have so I will post some now! That's really cool about the sacoglossans, do you have an idea what species they were? But yeah, I think everyone who hasn't actually kept one (me included prior to like March) hears that they can do some photosynthesis and assume this means they don't eat much, but that's so not true. I've been throwing in chunks of bryopsis mats every other day for Gigi and she kinda just plops onto it and she won't leave until she's devoured the entire thing.

Anyway here's my cluttered tank! My nerite snail keeps leaving little egg casings all over the glass if you're wondering what the white spots are.

[boggedybloggedy]

I was researching how to take care of mangroves, and I discovered this handy guide for saltwater aquarium folks. It never even occurred to me that you could grow red mangroves indoors, let alone inside aquariums!

Anyway, this seems like a handy resource for restoration ecologists, nursery growers, and fish enthusiasts alike.

[leonide-poet]

[clonemedickix]

That torch coral action, adds so much movement to a captive reef.

[sadboygrim]

Blue 🦀

[copperbora]

Meet Purrling Reef, aka the 13.5 gallon Fluval Evo reef aquarium that I forgot to tell you all about before: in today's episode: in which Moby scares the sh-! out of me (he's good at that.)

This is Moby, my baby Amphiprion ocellaris clownfish, who, providing that he survives my relative incompetence may live 15+ years. Clownfish are known for being quite hardy fish and people used to use them to cycle their aquariums which is now recognized by many reef aquarists as mild animal cruelty. (Therefore I cycled Purrling Reef using pure ammonia instead.) Along with my (probably female) yellow watchman goby Clyde, Moby has been in Purrling Reef for about a month now.

Things are going well; ammonia is at 0 ppm, nitrates are usually at 0 ppm, phosphates are usually at .25 ppm, salinity is stable at 1.025, and my PH hovers at a somewhat soft but okay 7-7.5. Having at last gotten through the worst of the summer heat and having finally figured out how to set up my inkbird temperature properly, Purrling Reef's waters stay a comfy 25°C (78°F,) all day and night long.

Things are going well, so naturally Moby opted to scare the crap out of me this morning by acting like he was dying.

WTF MOBY.

Terrified for his life I promptly did a water change and dosed the tank with Seachem Prime (which detoxifies ammonia as well as chemicals like chlorine,) then Seachem Stress Guard (which soothes fish.) My ammonia was at zero but I thought that the Prime was a good idea anyway.

Moby promptly stopped looking like he wanted to be crab food, so I went to work; when I came home he was back to his annoying ol' habit of chilling by the filter outflow.

WHY FISH.

After testing all of my water parameters again and finding that all seems well I turned my attention to my newest addition to my reef: Spook the Halloween Hermit crab. I actually call him Captain Spook because he is rather overwhelmingly the least useless member of my cleanup crew. Usually, since I got him he clams up at my approach, sucking as much of his body as he can into the enormous conch snail shell which he adopted as his mobile home.

Chances are he murdered the original inhabitant of this shell.

Today though Spook decided not to spook at my approach which I have two theiries for:

1. The vast anti-Keplar fortifications that I set out around the aquarium double-sided tape traps are working! Yay! (Keplar must not be scaring my aquarium inhabitants as much anymore.)

2. My water is still screwed up so Spook is feeling weird. Given that I have only been at this for like three months... yeah, I can't ignore this possibility.

It was rather remarkable getting to see his white carapace up close for once. While it reminded me that he is in fact a sea bug, but I refuse to hold this against me due to his janitorial awesomeness and the fact that he is much less anxiety inducing than Moby. (Although I live in fear of him eating one of my two puny dwarf hermit crabs.

I can't wait until I can adopt more livestock; Purrling Reef definitely has a job opening available for an emerald crab! (Captain Spook does not like salad.)

Also, here's

Also, here's Clyde the yellow watchman giby who would like me to mention her job a for a pistol shrimp; in the wild watchman gobies live with these shrimp.

If she gets a pistol shrimp friend maybe she'll coe out of her den more often.

[maerynaire]

Aquarium tips!

There is no difference between a tank made for a saltwater aquarium and a freshwater aquarium. Same with heaters, filters, bubblers, pumps, and other 'hardware' (outside of protein skimmers). They're literally the exact same just branded differently and the ones 'for saltwater' are more expensive.

The actual construction of these things do not change just because the water its housing/heating/pushing around is a different salinity.

These are the EXACT SAME TANKS. But no matter where you find them the reef one will be at least 10 dollars more expensive. I own both of these and they are EXACTLY THE SAME from lights to filtration! Both are empty as of me writing this and I honest to fucking god cannot tell you which one is which. You know the pink tax? This is like that but the genders are freshwater and saltwater.

[shrimpin-aint-easy]

my boss’ anemone in her 16 gallon at work. i don’t know what kind though, sorry!!

[le-faon]

no art today just my clownfish lo and mein :))

[maggotwithalittlepinkribbon]

i would just like to say how much i love my clownfish sh is so silly and likes to chase her tail, play with her reflection, eat kelp, and follow me when i walk near her tank she is just really cute and i know that she loves me even though everyone else is convinced that she's just a stupid fish

in the mornings when i come downstairs to go to the rink she comes and greets me and it makes me so happy to have a little friend and when i say her name she pokes her head out from her rock

also she has the cutest little markings, in some places her white part bleeds out of the lines so she looks like a toddler coloured her :)

[stevegifford]

1/5/23

[catn1p]

It’s really cool having a fish tank because you get to see how intelligent fish really are. My fish recognize me. They know I’m the food giver and swim to the top of the tank when I greet them in the morning. When I look at them throughout the day they swim over to say hi and get a good look at me too. They make eye contact! Truly so fascinating and rewarding