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For longer than I've been alive, my home has always had a freshwater tank or two in it. Over 25 years of fishkeeping, we've had almost everything--piranhas, gouramis, livebearers, goldfish, bettas, barbs, tetras, loaches, frogs, the whole gamut. I can keep anything freshwater alive. My question is, how do you keep a saltwater tank clean? Every fish store or display I see has the three non-viewing walls covered in some sort of algae, the water in half the tanks looks gritty and weird little invertebrates leave their shells caked on the filter pipes. You don't get the convenience of dechlorinating tap water and using that right away, and I can imagine extended vacations are a nightmare because of all the chemicals needed to simulate the ocean. How do you keep that tank beautiful down to the last coral polyp?
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Jun 10, 2008 23:37
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That's all fine and dandy, general maintenance and common logic, but what happens when the fish and bacteria don't get all the grime? They'll slow down the buildup, but eventually you just gotta get in there with a scrubby pad and wage nuclear war on some filth. The worst I've had is a pissed-off corydoras catfish with a sharp spine to match his attitude. I don't want to think about tiptoeing around upset lionfish or puffers.
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Jun 11, 2008 07:33
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I work at a small public aquarium that also rescues critters from time to time. (You'd be amazed at how many terrible people ditch their hedgehogs/corn snakes/sugar gliders/bearded dragons/etc. upon moving or going to college!) We recently got this freaky dude in quarantine, and I've been trying to look up his species to no avail: He's fully aquatic and probably the size of a baseball not including the decent-sized conch shell on his back. Is anyone here a hermit crab expert enough to pick him out of a lineup of 1100+ species? Every time I think I come close, the eyestalk color is all wrong or some other subtle feature is entirely off. And the more I look at this picture, the more I think this Cthulhu-Facehugger-AD&D reject monster is about to eat my soul. Those are the worst eyes I've ever seen on any living thing in my life. Either that or he wants to sell me Krabby Patties with those cute little eyelashes.
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Aug 25, 2011 06:40
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Thank you. All my searching for hermit crabs gave me the same thousand sites on the three species you find at the mall being sold as throwaway pets to uneducated teenage girls.
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Aug 25, 2011 20:20
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arioch posted:Fun thing to do: lift it up out of the water, it will extend itself out of the shell quite a bit, then snap back into the shell, with enough force to nearly jar the shell out of your hand if you weren't paying attention and had a loose grip. Hahaha, the biggest thing this job's taught me is how to handle an animal so deliberately it stops fighting back after the third attempt. Paying attention comes with the territory of wrangling an armadillo, anteater, or Dumeril's boa. (Yes, we have non-fish too.) And I'm still wary about the other marine hermit crab that took a chunk out of my pinky the last time I showed him to a tour group. On the other hand, our horseshoe crab couldn't hurt a person if it tried.
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Aug 26, 2011 04:13
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