Critters

Purple Pincushion Urchin "Sonic" 5-3-08

The urchin is one of my favorite critters in the aquarium. My buddy and I wild caught him and a few other larger urchins. He is about 1.5" in diameter.

He pretty much just eats algae and can be hand fed Nori. He has mowed all of my coralline algae off the rocks, leaving behind a comical trail of fresh chewed rock and poo pellets in his wake.

He is seen in the pics below covered in various bits of junk. They do this to camouflage themselves against predators and to keep the sun off them. You can see in the first pic all of his feelers sticking out looking for things to grab on to. He also uses his feelers for movement as well.

Here he has grabbed one of the hermit crabs (bottom of his collection)

In this pic you can see he has collected an entire colony of zoas on a frag he came across. I had to glue all the frags down as he would pick one of them up and carry them around each day. He also collects snails too. I usually just pick them off each day and hold up an empty shell or a small rock for him to grab.

Here are all the urchins we caught. Sonic is seen in the very center sitting inside an upside down shell covered in small shells.

Bubble Tip Anemone "Oscar" 4/13/08

Emerald Crabs "King Kong & Spiderman" 4/23/08

Cerith Snails 4/23/08

Peppermint Shrimp "Pierre" 3/25/08

He hangs out mainly on a lower outcropping of the live rock and when its time to feed, he starts to do this funny dance as he anticipates the food.

Once I drop the food, he waits until some is just about at his level, then he does a football superstar dive off the rock to catch a piece of food, falls to the bottom and then crams the food in his mouth as fast as he can. He then scuttles along the sand to grab all the pieces that feel the to bottom, grabbing food in ever single claw and stuffing his mouth as fast as he can until every last piece is gone.

Here is he being bad, trying to eat one of my new snails at the time.

Hermit Crabs 3/25/08

Crusty

Crusty is the only hermit crab we named since he is the largest of all the crabs in the tank and is easy to spot.

The gray shell he has in the first picture is the reason why he was given to me. This shell used to belong to one of my friend's good snails.

The white shell he has in the second picture he somehow found while sifting through the sand and now proudly prances around the tank with his new find.

Other Hermit Crabs 3/25/08

There are about another 8 or so hermit crabs living in the tank. They spend all their time sifting the sand in search of food or climbing on top of the live rock in hopes of finding a piece of food that the fish and shrimp missed.

I have identified most of them as Scarlet Reef Hermits, Blue Leg Hermits and there is also a couple black and white colored hermits as well.

Other Critters seen on the liverock:

Large Stomatella Snail

Brachiopod

Asterinid Starfish

Bristle Worms

Not pictured

 

 

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Recent Updates

[05/03/2008] My buddy and I wild caught quite a few critters this weekend over in St Pete. Critters I added to my own tank include the Purple Pincushion Urchin, Nassarius and Cerith snails.

[04/13/2008] My buddy had a Bubble Tip Anemone that he gave me. He seems to be doing quite well and has settled in nicely after moving to a spot in the liverock for better lighting and water flow. I am hoping my clownfish will eventually host with it.