Half way there!!!
Hi,
I have rehomed all but a pair of clownfish and three damsels. I have added a Sinularia coral and a featherduster worm as well as some green polyps, which should spread hopefully! Also, I found an amazing piece of live rock with mushroom corals, various sponges & sea squirts, snowflake polyps, coralline algae, sargassum algae and I added some turbos and red legged hermits. Unfortunately, I have a bristleworm hitchhiker but every time I have tried to catch it, it either tries to bite me (very aggressive!!) or escapes. I also have many crab hitchhikers which will hopefully be food for the octopus in the future. Almost everything is perfect, nitrates are on the high side so I will need to stock the tank with macroalgae and probably use a 'nitrate absorber'. The tank is very well oxygenated, with a a V2 skim 800 blasting O2 into the water and an Ocean Runner 2500 placed near the surface to create a strong surface current with waves. Today I managed to buy a 90 litre tank for £5 which will be used as either a Kreisel or deep sand bed under the tank. I am also planning on building a large refugium under the tank which will be home to mangroves, macro algae and corals. There will be a portion of the refugium which will be out of the water to keep land hermit crabs and possibly attempt to breed them. I have so many ideas at the moment, and I am looking forward to perfecting the tank this year! I have also found how frustratingly annoying it is to get hold of an octopus in the UK!! I am thinking hummelincki or cyanea at the moment! Joe, I will have a lot of work to do escape proofing the tank, the top of the tank is really strange with support bars all over the place, creating lots of holes to somehow block securely! :L The tank is still only half full, I really need to fill it up soon!!
Thanks
James
Below are some pics of the tank taken today. Sorry for the salt creep on the glass!!