Hi there Cetus! Good questions! I'll answer as well as I can!Beautiful tank! Have a few questions myself.
1.) Since most things are collected from the wild, have you had any issues with the introduction of parasites or problematic invaders? In reef tanks you can get ich, aiptasia, asterina starfish, or a whole other host of pests.
2.) How is the long term husbandry of these creatures? It seems that it's mostly luck of the draw for whatever gets put into the tank and I assume because of that, some last longer than others. Are there creatures you just cannot keep consistently while others last for the a long time? What animal has been in your tank the longest?
3.) Do you ever have compatibility issues? Do some invertebrates like the crabs ever target mollusks or have your anemones proved problematic with fish? Or are you sure to pick out what you know to be compatible at least?
1. There have been some creatures that has shown up from time to time that I didn't intentionally put in there, but nothing that has caused me any major problems, or anything that I've struggled to get rid of.. (Except for a bit of an algea explosion atm, because of a poorly planned placement of a growlight for a cucumber winter growing project of mine in a window close by the tank...)
2. With a few exceptions, I mostly put in stuff that won't grow too big for the tank. You are correct that it's somewhat of a "luck of the draw"/survival of the fittest thing going on in this tank. Inhabitants sometimes gets caught and eaten by others. Like the stalked jellyfish, and the sea spider that I have images of in the opening post, both got eaten. (At some point I'm hoping to get a tank which can hold these two creatures alive, as I think both are incredibly cool.) I've also had sea stars that I've caught eating other sea stars, and the nudibranch I have a picture of in the opening thread, I eventually took out, because they eat anemones. I did put in a few nudibranch in the early days, and none of them survived long term. I found out that they are picky when it comes to diet, so I'm staying away from them now. My regular topknot's favourite food is gobies and shrimp, so they don't last long... Seastars, (bigger) fish and crustaceans generally do quite well, and the bigger they are, the better they do is the general rule in this tank.. My "oldest" creature in there is a seastar, closely followed by one of my norwegian topknots and some hermits have been with me basically from the beginning too.
3. As mentioned, my crabs have had it's share of "kills" in this tank, so has my regular topknots. My seastars are basically feeding on scallops and clams, and my painted topshell have eaten it's share too, including some wicked looking hydroids I had for a few days only... I've never had any issues with anemones eating, or injuring fish, or anything else that I've noticed. I have had to remove some inhabitants (mostly various crabs) because they cause too much trouble in there. Smaller stuff though, like mysis, shrimp, small fish, clams/scallops/snails and small squat lobsters I put in there for my bigger creatures to eat. Though there's been some mishaps along the way, I am starting to get the hang of what goes with what in there now.
Hope that answered most of your questions, if there's anything you want me to clarify, please ask, and I'll answer as best I can! Thanks!
Thanks
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