Unfortunately, the Flame Angel had a case of nerves and wouldn’t stop fidgeting and sit for his photo.  So, you get one of our Peppermint Shrimp, instead.

This guy is something of a hero in the tank, since he and his buddies took care of a noxious weed known as Aiptasia.  You see him here collecting his just desserts–he’s stolen a bit of fish food and will high-tail it back to his hideout and enjoy a feast.

That green circle (or is it green eggs and ham?) next to him is Sam, of Sam-I-Am fame.  He hangs out on the bottom of the tank and wows all the kids with his bubble-mouth trick.  Never challange Sam to a pie-eating contest–he swallows his whole.

Our second fish is a sand-eater, another kind of utility fish.  He is a Yellowheaded Sleeper Gobby, but he answers to Kin, which is Japanese for gold, I understand.

We’re crossing our fingers that these two last.  Our marauding crab, who has been dubbed Ghost, is growing in size and getting bolder.  This was another hitchhiker that caught a ride into the tank on our live rock.  Hopefully some time soon we’ll have the holding tank set up, and can remove his rock to said confinement until further steps can be taken.  He’s still relatively small, but we all know that size is relative.

Down with all feasters on our fish!

In the bottom left-hand corner you can also see a purple mushroom we transplanted a few weeks back.  The mushroom’s been interesting because it took a long time to get it attached (and we had an unsightly plastic container in the tank for the duration) and since then the silly thing hasn’t held still for more than a few days.  Perhaps we should call it The Wanderer.

Then I fell in love with the tank, and discovered it was for me, too.  My favorite date is to the fish store, and I’d rather study or write with the sound of the circulating water in my ear than anywhere else.  Saltwater fish are actually interesting, and unique, unlike most freshwater fish I’ve seen.  But it seemed a bit late to start blogging about it.

A few months passed, and our first (and only) fish disappeared.  A mysterious clicking sound resounded from our rocks.  Our hermit crabs started showing punctures in their shells, and little puffs of sand would appear out of the rocks, accompanied by more clicking.

We had a Mantis Shrimp.

Only instead of being bright and colorful and wanted, our Mantis Shrimp was drab and grey and unwanted.  It was a murderous fish-eating hitchhiker that would prove truly obdurate to get out of our tank.

We tried the traps, both homemade from a two-liter bottle, and store bought.  We baited them with various delicacies, including fresh whole frozen shrimp, but all we caught were our own snails and a few hermit crabs.  We tried videotaping the tank at night using the infrared setting, to see if we could pinpoint where it was, but our mantis shrimp had scotophobia.  We moved rocks around and generally disrupted the whole tank looking for the silly thing, to no avail.

Weeks passed, and by know I knew I should be blogging the whole experience, but still wasn’t.  Maybe it just seemed a little silly.  We had a tank, but no fish, because any fish we put in would just be a shrimp-snack.

Finally, we set up a container beside the tank and bought two big bottles of club soda.  We’d read that you could pour soda into the rocks where the bugger was hiding and shock it out.  Of course, it can also kill the stuff living on the live rock, but we were desperate.  We pulled out any likely rocks, once again making a total mess of the tank, but got nothing.  We were ready to give up, or maybe buy a shark and see which of them came out alive.

The next day, my dh was sitting in front of the tank, staring morosely.  And out of the rock just in front of him poked a little mantis shrimp head.  He called me in, and I went into berserker mode.  In maybe two seconds, I had the container set back up, the long glove on, the tank open, and had yanked the rock out of the tank and slapped it down in the container.

We poured on the club soda, and sure enough, out came our dear little mantis shrimp.

Long story short (or somewhat shortened) we soon had our tank up and running again.  We now have two lovely and personable clownfish named Izzy and Jeff, a Lawnmower Blenny named Moe, several mushrooms and corals coming along, and will be adding more over the weeks and months to come.  As soon as we conquer the glare-on-glass problem, pics will follow.

It’s official, and I’m blogging it.  We have a tank.