Riona's 40 breeder <3

[DevilDuck]

Have you tried checking out the tank at night an hour or two after lights out? You'd be surprised how many things are active at night!

[Riona]

I might do that tomorrow evening (I work a few hours from my tank.  Thank goodness for auto topoffs 😄 )  I know I've seen my corals' feeders out, so perhaps I could catch a little fish out and about as well.  Or if I'm lucky, maybe she'll have found a spot I can see her at by the time I get home.

 

Thank you for the suggestion.

[Riona]

Still haven't seen any little flashes of purple and yellow.  Boo.

 

Something I HAVE seen, though, and am wondering how I missed her for so long, is a red mithrax crab???  Where the heck did she come from?????  Well, the keys, obviously, but I'm amazed I'd not seen her until about 5 minutes ago.  HUH.  Was staring at the tank and noticed that there were little pointy legs and scoopy claws and moving bits on one of my rocks.  At least she's not a xanthid crab.  Those things are the devil (and yes I know they're in the same family).  Plus, she's not eaten (yet at least) any of my LPS, and is on the rock next to it, so for now no issues with her. 

 

Maybe this means there's hope yet that some of the clicking in my tank is a mantis 🤞

[Jakesaw]

Some crabs are masters at hiding in rocks.  I have 2 emerald crabs.  Thought my original one died and bought a replacement.  Turns out, he was just molting and the dead claw I saw in the sand had grown a new. 

 

Now I've got 2.  Hope they don't fight over territory too much.

[Riona]

Haven't had the chance to bring it in, and need to finish the screen lid for the top and get more water first anyway, but finally got an overflow and the stuff to (I hope!) make it work.  Will be grabbing some stuff from Lowe's or the like to make a stockman standpipe for the overflow to hopefully make it a bit quiet-ish.  It was a royal pita to get the fresh tank off the stand.  I'm gonna kill myself (erm, not literally.) if I decide to change this thing up again.  Also got a mini goniopora and a couple Stylocoeniella, though they're not open and happy yet, so no pics (also the one has fallen behind the rocks so I need to find it before I can take a photo.  Sheesh.) 

 

Terrible pics, but eh, that's what you get with me 😄

 

FTS from a few weeks ago.  Best shot I've gotten of one of the damsels.  Flash which I didn't notice I had on, but all 4 fish in one shot.  Woo!***  All 3 rics, looking fine.  The biggest bristleworm ever.  Haha, he likes to come out when I feed the tank.  Still kinda hoping these are corkscrews since there's a second one now (same rock at least) under one of my candy canes.  Occasionally the zoa next to it gets irritated if it's open, sometimes the zoa doesn't care.  If it looks like they want to spread or be nasty I might move my little echinata frag nearby and see if it'll take care of them before I resort to something drastic.  The fresh tank.  Not looking so hot at the mo since nothing has grown in yet, but it'll change.  Random thing I woke up to a while back.  One of the scarlet hermits had crawled out and up onto the magnet, but got stuck?  I dunno, I moved the mag, it fell back into the tank, and hasn't seemed to have problems since.  Silly inverts.  Best shot I've gotten of the wrasse, blurry as it is.  One of the blue legs, because I can't show off one without showing off both species.  They're equally cute.  And today's FTS.  Lol, the tang loved the hell out of that ogo.  I still have a couple bits left hiding out in the other algae, so hopefully I can get a nice bush of it growing in the sump when I've got it set up so I can just keep popping pieces in there as she finishes the bit she's got.

 

*Yes, I've got a tang.  No I'm not anywhere near as ashamed of that as I should be.  I read an article on a different forum about sizing fish/tank sizes which says that this should be just big enough for her given all the open space I've got at the top of the tank plus how open the rockwork is (she likes zooming around in it).  Wanted a convict, but the one they had in the store was not quite as healthy/active as this one (two spot bristletooth) looked, and was a good bit bigger, so I took a chance.  Would rather have had something like a tomini for this species since this one'll get a bit dull, but eh.  She's got tons of personality so far, so as long as she doesn't run out of food and not eat anything I give her (she loves the pellets the others get) or get aggressive or pacey I am not too worried.  Worse comes to worst I can always trade her for store credit and a smaller one, or who knows, maybe have saved up for a slightly bigger tank by that point.