Work and changes to 60 litre aquarium

Tuesday and yesterday I did some work on the frag/crab aquarium again. I got my new pumps in from Fish-street.com, 2 Sunsun JVP102A pumps and one Sunsun JVP201A. One small thing was a small miscalculation from my side. I came at more then 100x the current in litres, which is a bit too much. Besides that the pumps where rather big in size as well, so I ended up using only the Sunsun JVP201A. One of the JVP102A’s was for the Red Sea Max, so that one will go there when we start working on the RSM again.

So now I have a 6000 l/h pump on the bottom and a 600 l/h pump on the surface. The water flow is perfect now.

I also started moving some corals into the frag part from the Red Sea Max, we believe one of the reasons the RSM isn’t going well is because of the overdose of corals in there. I moved all the Kenya Tree frags, most of the Star Polyp frags, a small mushroom and the rock with Purple mushrooms, Xenia and star polyps into the frag part of the aquarium.

Yesterday I did an extensive feeding round, frozen artemia for the fish in the RSM, frozen fish for the Bulb Anemone in the RSM and frozen coral food in both aquaria. Also in the Crab tank I put a frozen shrimp for the crabs, but when I put the shrimp on the sand the sand started moving a the Babylon Sand snail came out and claimed the shrimp. I will add a movie of this soon, it was an awesome thing to see!

Crabs of the Xanthidae family

Currently I have two members of the Xanthidae family located in my little crab aquarium, and I have been observing them and finding information about these “unwanted” creatures.

The Xanthidae family is one of the biggest crab families, it is divided in 13 sub families containing over 500 different species. These species are poisonous to eat since their toxins can’t be destroyed by heating/cooking. The Toxins come from bacteria living in symbioses with the crab, both from the Vibrio genus. There is no antidote for these toxins either and they will cause Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning. But on the other hand, they are not venomous, so they have no way to introduce their toxins by stinging or biting. Some species however do have hairs on them that can cause allergic reactions.

They can become anywhere between 5 and 10 centimetres and some of them are beautifully coloured. They move slowly and hide most of the times. Most of them are opportunistic feeders, the ones I have don’t bother much with any other invertebrates around them but do eat frozen shrimp and fish when provided. They once went for a smaller hermit crab but gave up when they noticed it was too much trouble. I do think they would go for fish or invertebrates that are alive but weakened.

In most aquariums species for this family are no threat. They could be a threat when you have animals that could feed on them, since I haven’t found any information on the effects of the toxins on other animals.

According to some websites they are not reef safe, but the only non-reef safe thing I noticed so far is that they enlarge their hiding spaces, making holes in life rock. This will of course weaken the rock making your reef weak with the risk of collapsing.

The two species I’m testing with are the very common Actaeodes tomentosus and the less common, but very nice looking Lophozozymus edwardsi. Both of them behave in the same way as far as I can tell so far and both fit in the description given above. Both live together with 2 smaller hermit crabs, 2 smaller turbo snails, a Babylon sand snail and a horseshoe crab. Only saw them take a swing at one of the hermits when it ran into them. Both are about 4 or 5 centimetres now, so actually rather big.

Lophozozymus edwardsi

Update on RSM

The RSM is still overcrowded and messy from all the frags that are still located there. And in the past days it only became more instead of less. I needed to save some corals from the expending starburst polyps. So I removed some pieces and placed them on rocks to hope to get some frags from them. But after 9 days they still haven’t attached to the rocks.

Also I cut of a blue mushroom from underneath the rock with green star polyps and placed it in the shot glass. Only problem was that he attached himself to the bottom of the glass instead of a rock. So yesterday I went to try again.

And then there is the Kenya Tree that is spilling frags, on May 31 I got 1 that I attached with some rubber band. This one is now attached to the rock. 2 days later I got 2 others, these I put in the shot glass where they have attached yesterday. Then June 5^th I got another one that I dumped in the crab tank, still hanging loose. And last I got 2 new ones yesterday, one is in the shot glass and one is attached to a rock using rubber band.

Update on frag/crab tank

Been silent for some time around the aquariums, but this doesn’t mean that nothing happened. The crab tank has 4 new inhabitants by now. All are there for cleaning in the aquarium.

First is a Babylon shell snail, this snail keeps the sand clean. I only got a picture when I put it in during night time, so the picture doesn’t look to good.

Second one is also for cleaning the sand and is a Horseshoe crab. This little crab can grow pretty large but is currently a nice small size and running around full speed. He also often digs himself in the sand so he is also not always visible.

The last 2 new inhabitants are Turban snails, they are there to help clean some of the algae from the aquarium. I introduced one the frag side of the aquarium and the other on the crab side. Both are still on the side I have put them, but I’m sure they will move around.

And last a nice nightshot of the Edwardsi Crab, who is still doing good. I saw both him and the Mud Crab moving around last night.