My Fish Tank

This is my fish tank. I actually have a fish in there. I've seen him one or two times. He's a little goby and lives in the oyster shells.

It's not a very exciting tank. If you look closely though, I have some cool critters in there. I've collected them on field trips and locally in Biscayne Bay.Find the mud crab. She's gravid. Perhaps we have some baby crabs in our future?
Connor put something decent on for the photo shoot. This is his original shell. I dug it up the other day while trying to release some of the built up hydrogen sulfide from the sand. Nasty little anaerobic bacteria produce hydrogen sulfide--which gives off a characteristic rotten egg smell. The gas gets trapped below the sand and if large enough pockets build up, it can break free and kill aquarium animals. So I try to stir it every once in a while.

My brittle stars, Stumpy and Stella. They're new additions, came in with the mud crabs.

Laura and I attended a lecture about invasive lion fish tonight. They're a major problem in the Caribbean. Word on the street is that during Hurricane Andrew several of them were accidentally released into local waters. The rest is history. Luckily they haven't established themselves in the Keys yet. I hope to never cross paths with one in the wild--they are aggressive and cause painful stings--but the lecture did make me want to keep on in my house. I'm not sure if that was the point of the talk...

We've got a 20 gallon tank just hanging out in the spare room closet... Maybe I'll find a lion fish floating around at Hobe beach or something.