Rant - The Best and Worst Part About the Hobby

[p3rmafrost]

Is the inhabitants of the tank.

 

Fair warning, this is mostly a joke, but I wanted to rant a little bit.

 

I enjoy my tank a lot. I spend time tinkering with it every day, checking parameters, staring at every coral, attempting to measure growth, and laboring over every detail. I get excited when I pick up a new frag or an invert to add to the system, and I'm happy when the tank is happy.

 

The problem is, when the inhabitants are happy they have a habit of making someone else unhappy.

 

A few details to illustrate my point:

 

• I have a pistol shrimp. He was unable to find a roommate he was happy with until I got him a rather chunky yellow watchman goby. Now those two redecorate my tank every single night. Every morning they have moved pounds of sand. They make the rocks unstable, so I have to take them out and glue them more securely, or reinforce the rock work. They have certain corals that are near the sand bed that they bury every night, so I have to rearrange the corals (which they do not love by the way) or move off the bed. There are other corals that they straight up steal and use as doors to their cave. These two are having a regular Thomas Crown Affair.
• I needed something to stir up my sand bed. I get a lot of sediment that settles on top (see my post about buying new powerheads). I picked up a knobby creeper conch to help with that. One of my crabs decided that was the ultimate shell. He stood on the creeper for 3 days trying to pull it out of the shell. He finally pulled it off and took his prize. I now refer to him as The Highlander (there's only one creeper shell in the tank). The other crabs want the shell so they fight for it when they get to a semi-appropriate size. Semi-appropriate being the operating term here. Whoever the current highlander in the tank is isn't quite strong enough to haul the shell, so they mostly drag it around the tank. They knock over corals and in the case of my acan, tore the flesh by dragging it over the top. This set off the dinner alarm for my coral beauty who devoured it. I'm now down an 8 or 10 polyp acan that was one of my favorites. Holler if you got one for sale!
• My green bubble tip anemone has been living against the back wall of my tank for well over a year. There is nothing near it, and it never harms anything. Recently, it decided to go for a walk. It came down, walked right across the largest montipora in my tank, and decided to take a break (walking is hard when you only have one foot). He stood there for a day or so and now the monti has a large bald patch. Then, it moved to the front of the tank, stung up some acros, moved back to the monti, came back to the front, and finally settled in a cave. Over night it extended, stung my porites (which was doing great) and decided it found it's new home. I had to move a bunch of corals away from it, so now they're bent out of shape.
• I had a cyphastrea that was about the size of a hockey puck. It was toward the back of the tank (I was hoping it would attach to a rock back there) so I didn't notice that the goby had buried half of it. I apparently didn't notice for long enough that the covered half is now dead.
• One of my hermits (not the Highlander) parked in the middle of a dragon soul favia to "clean it" I guess, and ripped the flesh on it. I'm sure the coral beauty will find it soon.
• My tuxedo urchin (now named Coco Chanel) has removed an entire zoa colony and a blue mushroom which it is using as  fashion accessories.

 

To me the absolute best part of the hobby is watching the creatures in your tank thrive. The worst part is when the creatures in your tank thrive and start doing creature stuff. When you create a stable environment that includes a food web I suppose that life, uh, finds a way.

 

 

[AlanM]

Too funny. Sounds like you need to get some crabs into a fuge or something. They are troublemakers.

[p3rmafrost]

4 minutes ago, AlanM said:

Too funny. Sounds like you need to get some crabs into a fuge or something. They are troublemakers.

They're punks. When Highlanders drops that shell it's coming out of the tank. My current setup is a Red Sea Reefer 250. The sump, in my opinion is undersized and doesn't have a lot of room for a legit refugium. My next tank (hopefully this year) will have something more appropriate that can serve as a penal colony for my pint sized miscreants.

[howaboutme]

Haha. Pretty funny. Just make sure your rocks are resting directly on the bottom of your tank and not on sand. Som people put rocks on egg crate, which then rests directly on the tank bottom. That works too. Either way, you don't want your rocks moving.

[p3rmafrost]

They are now. After Dig-Dug and his buddy did so much rearranging I lifted them up, blew away the sand and set them on the glass. Honestly, at this point, I have adapted to their antics. I expect it and keep things away from the entrances and exits of their little cave system. They still outsmart me here and there. I have some unknown coral I picked up, I think it might be a chalice. It's purple with yellow bumps on it. Anyway...that's one of their favorites. They ****** it every day. I decided to glue the frag plug to a large rock and set it on the sand. I figured it would be too big for them to move/carry. They started burying it instead. I pulled it out of the sand and put it back. I found it wedged in the "door" of their cave a few hours later. On the upside it's easier to find since it's now as large as a gas station bathroom key.

[WheresTheReef]

So true. They definitely keep you on your toes.

[p3rmafrost]

29 minutes ago, WheresTheReef said:

So true. They definitely keep you on your toes.

Every. Single. Day. 

[Origami]

Sometimes it has to make you wonder, "Are they toying with me?"

Sent from my Note 10+5g using Tapatalk

[p3rmafrost]

12 hours ago, Origami said:

Sometimes it has to make you wonder, "Are they toying with me?"

Sent from my Note 10+5g using Tapatalk
 

There are absolutely days when I go look at the tank in the morning and go "well, that looks intentional". I haven't been downstairs yet today, but I'm sure they pulled some kind of hijinks overnight.