Snorkeler's Cube

This is the last "telling yesterday's story" post :-) . Thank you for your patience.

I will condense in this post two things that happened in the tank:

1. Put the Yellow Polyps in the tank, Mithrax crabs did try to eat them.
On June 3rd I decided to move the Yellow Polyps into the DT because my Mithrax crabs had been behaving well, weren't eating Zoa polyps anymore... so... well, the night after I added the Yellow Polyps they attacked. In the morning the shell on which the polyps were on was smashed to pieces (didn't get a picture of that, sorry) and some polyps were loose, some were missing. I took a batch of three that were loose and glued them to the live rock. Until today they have survived:


The light patch on the right hand side is where the epoxy paste I used to glue the original shell with Yellow Polyps was. I removed the epoxy after it was all that was left after the crab's attacks.

Today in fact I found some of the other who were missing growing out of the substrate. I guess the crabs tried to eat them, weren't successful, then let them go in the current and they landed on substrate. I'll try to pick them up later and also glue them to the rock.

2. Added 5 Green Chromis to the tank
For quite a while I was courting the idea of adding a shoal of Green Chromis to my tank, but held myself back out of fear it might be too much for my tank size. Well, after seeing dozens of small tank pictures in forums with a lot more fish and corals than I have, pictures of tanks that were a year or more old, not newly established, I decided it was time to try.

My tank scores zero on Nitrates in test kits, almost zero in Phosphates (there must be some NO3 and PO4 for I have some algae), I have a deep crushed coral substrate base, skimmer works well, refugium with algae (which needs some improvement but we'll get there), and vodka automatically dosed... so I'm pretty confident the tank will take the new bioload well.

Here they are arriving home:




Then in their new home:




In these first two days the clownfish seemed to clash with them a little, charging them when they got too close, which I guess is positive. I've read a lot about them fighting each other to death when there are no other dominant fish making them afraid of the environment. When they're afraid they group together and forget their differences, so it seems.

Also, the DT is visible from 4 sides, and right in the middle of my family room with people passing close to it all the time. They notice people, group together and swim away defensively when we walk close to the tank. That should also help keep them focused on their survival as a group, versus their pecking order.

We'll also try to feed three times a day now (being careful not to add too much at a time), to ensure nobody is left hungry and anxious to kill competitors.

They were a great addition to the tank, so active and beautiful! They added color and movement, the tank seems lighter and vibrant now. We're very happy with them, my two kids (one is still a baby, mind you) love to watch them swim around quickly!

Snorkeler