Harlequin shrimp 3 gallon nano

I've been up to a lot of things, once again.

First and foremost, if you haven't snagged a copy of my detailed and engrossingly controversial book on starting your first nano tank, now's the time! I'm going to be affiliated with Clickbank soon and will be raising the price to 24 dollars. (I'm also making a DVD so you'll get video along with the book!)

Grab a copy now while it's on the cheap -- $12! That's right, only twelve! It's a digital book with full color, high res pictures. As it's downloadable, you'll get it instantly.

Click here to check it out, along with a sample movie of my ten gallon nano.

Remember my 3 gallon Eclipse system? I originally set it up for guppies and a fiddler crab -- it was brackish. Then it briefly was a quarantine tank, and for more than two years it housed my African clawed frog. (You can read all of these stories in the articles section of my site, joshday.com)

Anyway, I moved my big frog girl to a ten gallon dedicated strictly to her and let the Eclipse air out for a couple months. A couple weeks ago I had an idea to make a how-to video on starting a nano tank so I cleaned out the Eclipse and soon it was filled with saltwater, coral rubble, and a couple pounds of premium live rock.

I filmed every step of the way -- from mixing the saltwater, checking salinity, employing a powerhead, running water tests, acclimating inverts, etc.


As you can see, it's a work in progress. Still need to put up a backdrop, which will be a cut-out rectangle of a black plastic garbage bag. I'm also going to add a couple more pounds of live rock and go all out there as this tank will never have a fish in it and shrimp don't exactly swim around for fun in the water column.

Rather than reinventing the wheel and posting about the care of a harlequin shrimp, I'll just point you to this link that contains a wealth of info:

http://home2.pacific.net.ph/~sweetyummy42/harlequinshrimp.html

In other news, I completely dismantled my desktop pico vase. The hair algae was in the process of a massive die-off and there was about a half inch of detritus collected on the bottom. Scrubbed the live rock pretty well, removed as much hair algae as I could.

Unfortunately, I'm worried about my emerald star, which I've had for three years. If you recall, I picked it up at a store when all of its tentacles had been mauled off. Emerald stars grow to be huge and I don't recommend doing what I have done and keeping one in such a little tank -- though I have seen one with a disc almost as large as a human head that lived strictly in an algae scrubbing fuge! It's really all about the water quality, diversity of food, as opposed to space with this variety of starfish.

Anyway, his limbs have been stiffening up lately and he's not eating. Good news is his color is right on and the central disc is fully intact. Doesn't look TOO emaciated but it doesn't look good either.

Several things could have brought about the star's decline:

1. Poor water quality over an extended time
2. Treated tap water (I should listen to my own advice and strict only to R/O, right?)
3. The introduction of a reef hermit and/or an emerald crab.
4. The massive water change and cleaning out of the vase may have been the final nail on the coffin.
5. A diet of mostly freeze dried baby shrimp and krill with a very rare treat of frozen scallop or other meaty fare.
6. Cramped conditions and stunted growth.

I've taken the crabs out of the vase and am giving the star some time. What concerns me most is the fact it's not taking foods at all, and its tentacles are stiff and serrated at the ends. These are both bad signs.

I'll wrap up. You know, talking about this star I've had for a pretty long time has made me think of all the diseases and problems I've had with my aquatic livestock. Ich with freshwater, internal parasites with clown loaches, the two years of keeping a green mandarin in a ten gallon, the loss of my ray, dentistry on my puffer. I'll have to dedicate a whole entry to the successes and failures I've had over the years.

- Josh