29G Brackish

[Happy Crabber]

WOW! Wonderful. These are fantastic.

[CrabbyMom33]

That looks great! Love all the pics and seeing the MHCs.

[wolfnipplechips]

Cuteness overload with those tiny MHC's.

[aussieJJDude]

wow, your tank gets better every time

[SoulLonely]

Adorable!

[wodesorel]

A happy update and a very sad update:

I found the mid-sized male dead today. I'm not sure what happened but I'm guessing he got too big and the huge male challenged him for territory. There are now only two males left in the tank - the huge guy, and the very small one. I'm not sure what will happen, and I'm weighing my options on what I can do for the little one. My recommendations would be only one male per 2 feet of tank based on what I've witnessed. Two similar sized males might be able to co-exist as they could hold their own, but mixing sizes does not work! I plan on only keep one male at a time from now on. (Which breaks my heart since I had to walk away from six gorgeous ones tonight.

The other bad news is that my favorite guppy - the silver and orange one - died somehow. He'd been acting a bit odd the last few days and kept away from the group and was kind of listless, so when I didn't see him today I pretty much knew what happened. I did not expect, however, to find what was left up on the land section. I do think there was something wrong and he either passed away on his own and was scavenged or he became weak enough to catch. Hubby was horrified, I was just sad.



The really awesome news though is that after a month of looking I found five more females! Well, four definitely female and one that was missing a claw that I think may be a female. The harem thing works great and the girls don't give each other any trouble, so I know they'll be okay. That gives one very flirty guy either 10 or 11 ladies all to himself. (Since there's still one teeny male and the unknown gender I brought home today.) I am a bit concerned about the new gals, as usual they weren't in the best conditions and when they got into the water I noticed they were a bit fuzzy. I'm hoping it was just debris and not a fungal infection. They looked to be much cleaner when I checked on them later in the night so I'm hoping it was something that washed off!

And two of the MHCs are doing excellent. They hang out with each other on the same rock all the time. I'm not sure where the third one is as I haven't counted three at the same time since that first night. The fish ignore them, and the fiddlers are sharing the same area without even noticing they're there.

[aussieJJDude]

WOW, you have even more crabs!

[wodesorel]

I can confirm that two of the MHC are still alive. I only ever see two at a time and I can't tell the three apart, so all three may still be okay. They're kind of slow and inobtrusive. I'll give a few more months and if they're still doing well I would really like to pick up some more.

The new hiding areas have actually led to seeing less of the fids. I'm sad about that, but happy at the same time since it means their happy.

I'm down to three guppies - two females and Fishbait. The blue male disappeared earlier this week.
Guppies + Fiddlers = Don't Work

However ------- BABIES! There are at least four little guppy babies swimming around in there. I have no clue if they'll survive the crabs, but if they do it will be nice. I'd set them up on their own, but I don't have anything to put them in, so we've decided to just let nature do it's thing.

[aussieJJDude]

Do you have any updates?

[wodesorel]

Still the same. Four babies are still roaming around the upper reaches.

At the moment I'm trying to figure out how to safely do a water change.. Don't want to suck any of them up!

[aussieJJDude]

get the window sreen thing and place it over the end, or use the wool filter media?

[wodesorel]

Surprisingly the babies are staying near the surface, so cleaning has been easy. They really like the shallow water that ramps have created and I can often find them resting right at the water's edge.

The Moms had more babies each, so now there's like 20 little ones in there. I got a good video of all them swimming around. One of The Moms keeps darting through it: https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/j ... directlink


And one of the MHCs was doing something odd the other day:



And it was like that for hours. I don't know if it was molting or what? It's fine though.

[SoulLonely]

the baby guppies are so cute! makes me miss having them

[aussieJJDude]

Awww
babys (3 of my guppies are having more babies, grrrrr)

[wodesorel]

Wow.... so... where to start!!!


I redid the tank, cleaning it up and moving some stuff around. I finally found a floating plant to use on the filter outtake, so the water flow is up to the maximum and there's very little running water sound!





I still have to do some paint touch-ups on the stand (thank you furry children), but it looks really nice now. I'd like to put something up on the ledge on the right-side, but I can't figure out what I want there. Otherwise, the tank is done-done.

Unfortunately none of the marine hermit crabs made it. I have no idea if it was the salinity, or their tank mates, or if they're like our hermits and suffer from PPS. I won't be trying any more.


Stopped at Walmart on Thursday and of course had to check the fids. They had PINK ONES! I was ecstatic and talked hubby into letting me get all four of the females that were there. I really wanted one of the males (of which there were many more) since the hot pink claw was so awesome, but I was worried about bringing another make home since we've had issues before.

Realized after some research that these are Uca pugilator (sand fiddler) rather than the Uca minax (Red-jointed fiddler) or Uca Pugnax (Atlantic marsh fiddler) that I already have. (I think I might actually have both as I think there's two different species there, but I don't know which the males are as I can't find a reliable ID source.)

We were back at Walmart tonight and I was determined to try one of the males since they were a distinct species whose ranges overlap in the wild, so I thought perhaps the males would be alright with each other. Went back to check, and all the males were still there, and all the Sand Fiddler males were dead in their cups. The other males were dying. I was so upset. One of the employees heard me tell my husband they were all dead, and he was all "Ew, that's gross, someone should do something about that", to which I shot back "That's SAD - those were living creatures." Next thing I know as we're walking away the employees start shouting to each other - "This lady said all the crabs where dead!" "What? All the crabs are dead?" So at the very least all the other customers heard about it. It was really depressing though.

But, I am even more happy that we did bring the females home, even if my hubby was grumbling about it at the time. They are incredible!

















They were STARVED.


[Video of the crab below eating.]





The big male that we got 10 months ago molted again and is looking spectacular:


I fished his old claw exo out when we cleaned - it's huge!



The other females are molting as well. They get just as hairy as hermit crabs!



The teeny male that I didn't know was a male cause it was missing a claw when I got it, eating:

You should see him do the Hey Ladies! dance. It's hysterical! And he can do it standing right next to the big guy since he's absolutely no threat.

The guppies are doing great. Babies are getting bigger and the moms are about ready for more. :roll: I'm not used to having them, so I'm really taken with them.


[Video of guppies being guppies.]