So it's been about 5 weeks, and quite a bit has happened in my little lagoon. Here's the tank on 2/18/13



A few new pieces of coral added, and some significant changes to the ecosystem.



There are many things going on here. First off, the great surprise. See those little red guys under the heater? Those are peppermint shrimp. I picked them up hoping they would eat all the aptasia before the mantis ate them, but guess what? That was a month ago. All five are still here, and at least one has completed a molt. The aptasia problem has been completely eradicated, and these guys do a great job breaking down garbage on the sand bed. I am astounded that this is working. Your mileage may vary. Fun fact, with the cleaning station being right there up top, you can stick your hand in the tank and get a pepermint pedicure. I bet in LA I could charge a hundred bucks for that.

The lion and lamb situation led to other problems. The mantis stopped eating the hermits too, which left them very overpopulated. I pulled about 20 over 2 weeks, which is a whole lot for a 40B. They were roaming in gangs and disturbing the coral. I kept about 6 nice big ones and gave the rest away. The whole system is a lagoon environment, so waste is "managed" rather than removed wholesale. As you can imagine, and environment that supported all those crabs got messy without them. I took a two pronged approach.

First, new equipment that I am very happy with. That's a second biocube prop fan, and a Fluval 105 with a custom intake. Every filter I've tried so far has attempted to murder the caulerpa one way or another. This one does very well. The canister only moves 125gph, and the inlet diffuser has a 4" drilled section. 100% Seagrass and anemone safe. I added the canister last week with pretty impressive results. Polyfill and carbon only, but it keeps detritus to a dull roar. The carbon turned out to be very beneficial! The GSP has been lousy and struggling for a month, but it's been perking up day by day since the canister came online. Lesson learned. Canister has a light touch, representing only 20% of circulation.

Step two is just adorable. (OMG look at his little face!)





The blenny has been a model citizen, and loves to eat the new things that have been growing since the crabs took off. (little brown blobs on the caulerpa in the picture above) As a bonus, the perching stirs the junk from the rock and suspends it where it can be eaten or filtered away. In the second picture you can see the new zoas, and the new growth on the daisy polyps. Their freaky and rapid method of expansion has earned them the nickname "Tetsuo." It worked out its strategery, and now it's on the move. Everybody else better hurry up if they want a place in the daisy patch. Curious to see what happens when it hits the rock anemone. It's encroaching on the baby already.



The new fancy pants Zoas doing not so hot (not enough light I suspect), the Kenya Tree doing great, and a sprig of dragons breath doing nothing at all. I had to remove the turbos to keep it from being eaten, but it just con't compete with the caulerpa beast. Just sitting there waiting for the blenny or urchin to get bored enough to finish it off. Oh well. I relocated the palys to give them better expansion opportunities. In the background you can see early construction on the 'Lizard Lounge,' a 6' wet enclosure for water dragons



The tube anemones always get shortchanged in the FTS, being on the night crew. Just before lights out, in all of their glory. You may have noticed the absence of the clownfish. The big tube anemone is the culprit there. The clown was always a little cavalier with that thing, it finally cut it just a little too close. Real bummer, as he got eaten the day I brought him those mushrooms to sleep in. I was hoping to settle him down and keep him away from the dangerous stuff.



The cardinals use them for shelter in the late evening, but they're smart enough to hang out below the mouth, not above it. You can also see what the GSP looked like for a month. They are finally in recovery (they prompted the crab purge), so we'll see.

That's enough for today. I want to give it another week or so to see what happens, but I could just about post an update on just the weird stuff emerging from the live rock in the past few weeks. Hopefully it won't be a month this time