TD2K
Active Member
The only thing I have left in the 55 gal tank is live rock, some mushrooms that I've been selling back to my LFS a few at a time, and a couple of snails & hermits. I moved all of the coral and fish over to the big tank several months ago and just haven't figured out exactly what I'm gonna do with the 55 yet.
I was doing some maintenance on it last night (I choose to call it maintenance, when in actuality I ran water over into the floor while topping off because I got distracted - I shouldn't try to multi-task while topping off). ANYWAY, while I had the lights off, I noticed something moving around in the tank. I looked in and saw THIS:
I could see at least 6 or 7" of this guy, and the rest of him was inside a big shell I had thrown in years ago. Now, all of my live rock in this tank is about 12 yrs old, so he must've moved in as a tiny critter on a small coral colony or something, and then managed to hide out and grow for who knows how long. I haven't been feeding this tank so I'm sure he came out looking for food when the lights went off.
I moved things around a bit and got him to go back inside the shell, then removed the shell with big tongs. I took it out in the garage and smashed the shell with a hammer, then pulled him out with tweezers. He's GINORMOUS. Now I know what must've happened to my filefish I put in there a few weeks ago, here I've been blaming OJ The Stone Cold Killer Tomato Clown for his death. (OJ lived in solitude in the 55 for several months because he ate everybody I added into the big tank, I had him for about 12 years, and finally re-homed him)
Here he is right after I got him out of the shell:
And here slightly stretched out in a 5 gal bucket of tank water and a shrimp I was gonna use for bait in a trap if I had to. I bet he could stretch the length of this tank as big as he is. *shudder*
My LFS guy said to bring him by today and we'll feed him to a bunch of hungry triggers. Ima get video of that!
I was doing some maintenance on it last night (I choose to call it maintenance, when in actuality I ran water over into the floor while topping off because I got distracted - I shouldn't try to multi-task while topping off). ANYWAY, while I had the lights off, I noticed something moving around in the tank. I looked in and saw THIS:
I could see at least 6 or 7" of this guy, and the rest of him was inside a big shell I had thrown in years ago. Now, all of my live rock in this tank is about 12 yrs old, so he must've moved in as a tiny critter on a small coral colony or something, and then managed to hide out and grow for who knows how long. I haven't been feeding this tank so I'm sure he came out looking for food when the lights went off.
I moved things around a bit and got him to go back inside the shell, then removed the shell with big tongs. I took it out in the garage and smashed the shell with a hammer, then pulled him out with tweezers. He's GINORMOUS. Now I know what must've happened to my filefish I put in there a few weeks ago, here I've been blaming OJ The Stone Cold Killer Tomato Clown for his death. (OJ lived in solitude in the 55 for several months because he ate everybody I added into the big tank, I had him for about 12 years, and finally re-homed him)
Here he is right after I got him out of the shell:
And here slightly stretched out in a 5 gal bucket of tank water and a shrimp I was gonna use for bait in a trap if I had to. I bet he could stretch the length of this tank as big as he is. *shudder*
My LFS guy said to bring him by today and we'll feed him to a bunch of hungry triggers. Ima get video of that!
