Invasion of the sponge!

I have a rock that I've wanted to move from the fuge into the display tank and this weekend I finally got around to it. I put it into the tank and suddenly noticed about 30 sponges! I had no idea they were even in the fuge. Anyway, not sure if they are pinapple sponge or QTip sponge but either way there's a ton of them. The rock itself is a tad bleached out but it'll purple up soon under the lights of the DT.

New Stuffs & Additions

Hello! Lots of new happenings in my tank...


Today I picked up this green star polyp coral! I can't wait for it to attach to the rock and take off. They are the fastest growing coral and I've more than once heard them referred to as a weed. I hope it covers the entire huge rock at the top of my tank, they have a vibrant green center.


Invasion of Hair Worms! Here's one outside of the sand.. this little guy broke in to 4 separate pieces and then all 4 went back into the sand. I figure at that rate they'll have taken over the house by February.




Shrek is getting HUGE! He's about twice the size he was when I first got him and now he has hairy legs... so the name fits.



My Zoo's are really doing well! They don't look it in this picture because I touched them.. what I wanted to show is the black sponge growing on their rock. I'm going to have to knock that off soon though or he'll take over.


Butterfly is doing the same! She and Rocky have come to a tiny truce.



He now likes to hang out in this round recess in the rock.



Hercules and The Little Mermaid are growing too! They are so hard to catch on film.. buggers swimming with their hind tails just wiggle too much but that's part of their charm. Hercules has actually turned into the male of the pair so at least we named them correctly.



Tank Shot.



My baby shrooms are growing! The main mushroom actually twisted and cut in half so now there are 2 big ones.. one hides under the other though but the flowered one is slowly moving off to the side.



One of our new inhabitants... he's a coral banded shrimp and should help keep the hair worm population down. So far he does nothing but stand in the back of the tank and eat fish food though.. hrm... lazy bugger. We haven't named him yet, I don't have a good track record with shrimp.

Brown brown brown

I have the brownest, most boring dingy tank! One suggestion was to move my black background around to the blue side... course I can't afford Metal Halides and that would brighten things up. I also have an odd amount of algae and it's covering everything! I can't wait til I have a pretty tank...


Anyway... new baby mushroom! I now have 3



This one rock is TONS of pink coralline

I'm getting purple streaks on the back glass... the tank is at least starting to get some color

Zoo's still doing Grrrreat

My Xenia is slowly dying =/

Kenya tree... same ol same ol...

The dying Xenia branches.. no reason... just dying while everything else is flourishing. This picture was last night and as of today it's even worse.

A Few Pictures

First off is our new little emerald crab, his name is Shrek.. he's going to help with the Algae issues.


Thanks to an outbreak of ich, Hercules and the Little Mermaid are in Quarantine (yes my quarantine is dirty.. darned hard water)

Baby shrooms! If you look behind the purple mushroom there are 2 babies.. yay!

I also have new Zoo's coming in (the grey-ish tubes at the bottom of the rock)! Wow the tank does a lot better when there's no electrical current, go figure.

Rocky perching as usual.

Lots and lots of the dark purple coralline is coming in. I have a few spots of the pink but mostly the dark purple.

My Kenya Tree has opened up.

Jaq mainly stays in his little cave but will come out to eat... and he eats upside down.

My one problem area.. there are hair worms in all of that algae so Rocky won't go near it, I'm hoping Shrek will take care of it. There are also tons of bristle worm tracks in the sand (below the surface).

Been a while

We've now gone almost a month without anything dying! It's a record... course... no electrical current helps.

Got some new fishies today... they are both false percs and are such a gorgeous color. Problem is trying to catch them holding still! Here are some fuzzy pictures of them.




Here's Rocky.. a face only a mother could love.



My Zoo's are doing GREAT!


Butterfly is in a huff still. She lost her home to Rocky and has been really skiddish and hiding a lot since.


Got a purple Kenya Tree today too, isn't it pretty?!?



Not a clue what this is! I have these little trail jobbies in my sand.


I love my little stars... I think I'm up to 4


My Mushroom is growing fast!

New Lawnmower

No no, not THAT kind! I got a lawnmower blenny today. Hopefully she'll take care of my algae issues. Ain't she gorgeous?? Ok.. so she's ugly as sin but she does have pretty blue eyes. No name, yet... bad luck I'm learning.. We'll name her later.



The one problem is.. the blenny stole Butterfly's house. It's not been pretty! Butterfly keeps backing into the crevice and flapping her tail around.. in essence... beating the blenny. Funny thing is that the blenny isn't budging and Butterfly is all in a tiff.



Shhh.. the Xenia is sleeping! LOL Funny how tiny and squat it gets when it's sleeping.



Now what's up with the snail?? We aren't sure... never seen a snail burrow in the sand.

Electrical Current

Sooo.. it's all come forward... the reason for the Tank Crash in June... why I can't keep anything alive... why I have so many problems with the tank... electrical current! Last Sunday we were doing a water change and Darren stuck his hand in the water and got a BAD shock! We shut everything down and found the heater was cracked. So it's probably been cracked for a while, sending small (maybe too small to be felt by me) electrical currents into the water and finally the new water change cracked it the rest of the way.

Good news? Nothing except 1 crab and all my pods died... things are going a lot smoother now and at least there's an explanation to why I've had so many problems.


Here's my Xenia... I epoxy'd him to a rock so the crabs would stop knocking him over. He's turned at a weird angle from before but he's happy as ever, pulsing away.



Here's a quandry... I was scrubbing algae off of my bi-vavle and dropped the toothbrush and now I can't reach it... hrm.... well here are my ever growing orange Zoos.



Dang my mushroom must have found something WAY yummy to eat! He shut up tight while he ate.



All done eating...



Another "thing" growing in the tank... not a clue what it is.



Tank shot! I moved some rocks around today... I'm starting to like my rock work finally. Butterfly has adopted a hole in the purple rock as his new home and he loves it! He's always hiding in there now.