Saltwater Tank
I've been wanting to post pictures of my new saltwater tank, but there was nothing in the tank :-P Now I've put some things in the tank so I'll show you.
This is the full tank. It's a little sparse because the fish store gets their shipment of Live Rock today so I haven't put a lot in there yet. It's inhabitants include 7 mollies (these were freshwater but now they are saltwater muahahahahha), 10 blue-legged hermit crabs, 2 peppermint shrimp, 1 cleaner shrimp and a mangrove tree!
Here are some shots of the Cleaner shrimp. He is really the main attraction in the tank now. Also at $20 he is the most expensive by almost 3 times!! The mangrove tree was $8 and it's the second most expensive thing. But rest ashured that there will be much more to come.
This black mollie is really an attention whore.
Here are some crabs. They are cool little things. I hope to get some bigger crabs for show like an emerald crab, but these guys are really for cleanup and not for show so much.
Hiding in the plant there is a peppermint shrimp. He is also cleanup crew. His job is to eat Apstasia which is a pest anemone. There are two of them. The other one is hiding in the rock in the above crab picture.
Here are some more pictures of mollies. These are a really cool fish despite being $1.99. They are sold as freshwater, but they have the ability to be transitioned to saltwater because they live in areas that are inlets from the sea. Pretty cool if you ask me.
Here is the mangrove tree. It's a wee little seedling at the moment. It will grow a very cool looking arial root structure as it grows up. It's an interesting tree as well. Just like the mollies the mangrove needs freshwater but can survive in salt water. They have the ability to block salt from being sucked up by their roots. They also excrete salt through their leaves and trunk to get rid of excess salt. So they need daily mistings (rain) to wash the salt off. That's really cool!
Here you can kinda see its roots developing.
Behind my tank sits a smaller 10 gallon tank. This tank is the support system for the larger tank. There are two parts to it. There is the "sump" on one side and the "refugium" on the other side. A sump is a place to hide things like a heater and other things like that. A refugium is a place for macro algae and creepy crawlies to have a place to grow and reproduce without being under attack from things in your main tank that would eat them. Eventually they will move through the return pump to the main tank where they will be eaten. I need to fix my plumbing. The return pipe doesn't need to be that big. I was setting it up and I didn't want to cut any more pvc so I used what I had. I will fix that this weekend.
Here you can see the Refugium. The big ball of stuff is macro algae. It's like seaweed I think, but I'm not sure. You can also see some worms in the algae if you look close.
Well that is my tank. Thanks for looking. I will hopefully be updating when I get more stuff!
This is the full tank. It's a little sparse because the fish store gets their shipment of Live Rock today so I haven't put a lot in there yet. It's inhabitants include 7 mollies (these were freshwater but now they are saltwater muahahahahha), 10 blue-legged hermit crabs, 2 peppermint shrimp, 1 cleaner shrimp and a mangrove tree!
Here are some shots of the Cleaner shrimp. He is really the main attraction in the tank now. Also at $20 he is the most expensive by almost 3 times!! The mangrove tree was $8 and it's the second most expensive thing. But rest ashured that there will be much more to come.
This black mollie is really an attention whore.
Here are some crabs. They are cool little things. I hope to get some bigger crabs for show like an emerald crab, but these guys are really for cleanup and not for show so much.
Hiding in the plant there is a peppermint shrimp. He is also cleanup crew. His job is to eat Apstasia which is a pest anemone. There are two of them. The other one is hiding in the rock in the above crab picture.
Here are some more pictures of mollies. These are a really cool fish despite being $1.99. They are sold as freshwater, but they have the ability to be transitioned to saltwater because they live in areas that are inlets from the sea. Pretty cool if you ask me.
Here is the mangrove tree. It's a wee little seedling at the moment. It will grow a very cool looking arial root structure as it grows up. It's an interesting tree as well. Just like the mollies the mangrove needs freshwater but can survive in salt water. They have the ability to block salt from being sucked up by their roots. They also excrete salt through their leaves and trunk to get rid of excess salt. So they need daily mistings (rain) to wash the salt off. That's really cool!
Here you can kinda see its roots developing.
Behind my tank sits a smaller 10 gallon tank. This tank is the support system for the larger tank. There are two parts to it. There is the "sump" on one side and the "refugium" on the other side. A sump is a place to hide things like a heater and other things like that. A refugium is a place for macro algae and creepy crawlies to have a place to grow and reproduce without being under attack from things in your main tank that would eat them. Eventually they will move through the return pump to the main tank where they will be eaten. I need to fix my plumbing. The return pipe doesn't need to be that big. I was setting it up and I didn't want to cut any more pvc so I used what I had. I will fix that this weekend.
Here you can see the Refugium. The big ball of stuff is macro algae. It's like seaweed I think, but I'm not sure. You can also see some worms in the algae if you look close.
Well that is my tank. Thanks for looking. I will hopefully be updating when I get more stuff!