Carnage

Salvador is dead. Pierrot is dead. The likely reason, according to the men in the aquarist shop is that Minnie killed Pierrot. She didn't seem a bully to me, but then perhaps her 'playful' chasing games were not at all what they seemed. We found Pierrot under a rock on Friday night - it was really sad.

Salvador, on the other hand, has completely vanished - likely eaten by a pistol shrimp. These desperate times called for desperate measures. Brutus was sent to Biorbopolis II where he has settled in with a new tank mate - a fire shrimp named Diego. We changed some of the water in Biorbopolis and shifted the rocks about a bit. The elusive pistol shrimp remains elusive. We have never seen him or her, but it is the only reason we can attribute to the sudden, sad death of Salvador or even, perhaps, Pierrot. However, there is a small cave in one of the pieces of rock in the tank, which goes back quite a way. Perhaps the pistol shrimp lives in there. We have food with which we will attempt to lure him out. I'm not sure what we will do with him after that, though.

Minnie has been behaving. We are keeping a close eye on her. She, too, has a new tank mate who replaces Pierrot. Lola is an orange striped clownfish and is bigger than Minnie. She has been put into the tank as a trial, to see if Minnie and she will get along. They have a week to form a tolerance of one another, and if it goes wrong, Lola will go back to the shop. But all seems well. Lola and Minnie are ignoring one another which, although seems a bit antisocial, is better than the bullying antics that Minnie engaged in with Pierrot.

For now all is calm. After three months of peace, everything seemed to come to a head over the course of a week. Hopefully Biorbopolis will return to a social, stable community once more.....

All is not what is seems...

Brutus has emerged from his self-imposed period of brooding, but still hasn't moved very far. Perhaps he will be happier once he is moved to the new tank - Biorbopolis II - in a few days time, where he can dominate until he gains other tank mates.

All appears to be quiet this morning. As I sit here peering into the tank, I can only see Minnie weaving prettily in and out of the rocks. However, peaceful though it may seem, there are strange popping sounds coming from Biorbopolis. These started a couple of weeks ago now and were quite sporadic at the outset. Now, though, they are far more frequent - happening once every half an hour or so. When we first heard it we thought it was one of the crabs losing his footing on the rock and taking a tumble. George and Orwell have a reputation of being apalling rock climbers and frequently need rescuing from difficult situations. It's not unheard of for either of them to get wedged somewhere. But I digress..

After deciding that no crab could be that bad at climbing, we began to wonder what on earth could be making the sound. The mystery remains. There is one, quite menacing, theory that we have pistol shrimps in the tank. These creatures possibly hitched a ride on the live rock that we put into the tank at the very beginning of it colonisation. Apparently, these pistol shrimps have a claw that they cock like a gun. Once they snap their claws together, it makes a sharp popping sound from where the water is compressed. Quite impressively, but also worryingly, the miniature shock wave can stun other animals very easily as the shock reaches very high temperature for a very short time. I saw a video of this on YouTube - a pistol shrimp stunning and killing a cleaner shrimp! Poor Salvador and Vincent!



There is one sticking point, though. These pistol shrimps, from what I have seen in pictures, are big, and we can't see anything that looks anything like one in Biorbopolis. Perhaps they are still small and still growing up. Maybe that's why they pop and there are no negative effects. But wait!! Could it be, could it just be possible, that a pistol shrimp was responsible for the cold blooded murder of Sebastian Teal?

Yet more reason to keep an eye on the fragile population of Biorbopolis! Not only is there a killer on the loose, but the mystery of the popping sounds goes unsolved.

The calm before the storm

Brutus has not moved for a day. His full name is 'Brutus the Almighty,' on account of the fact that electric blue-legged hermit crabs are meant to be 'lively,' 'entertaining,' 'boisterous.'

Since Brutus's arrival in Biorbopolis on Saturday, he has been pretty boring. He did move around a bit - Sebastian hitched a ride on his shell for a while, opting for the less strenuous mode of transport. Since yesterday morning, however, Brutus has been sitting on a piece of rock at the front of the tank, firmly inside his shell. He is still alive, we have checked, but I get the distinct impression that he is sulking about something. It's ominous. He's like a baddie in a James Bond movie - he sits and broods contemplatively and then strikes.

I worry about who will feel his wrath. He'd better not try it on with Oliver or Maul, because they are pretty hard nuts themselves!

A death at the beginning

You'll see from the cast of Biorbopolis that one of the hermit crabs we have is called Sebastian. Originally there were two Sebastians. At first we called them Sebastian 1 & 2, but we kept getting confused as to who was who so we ended up giving them surnames: Sebastian Teal and Sebastian Blanche, on account of the predominant colours of the shells they lived in.

Unfortunately, last Tuesday, Sebastian Teal died. We're not sure how or why. It's a bit of a whodunnit, with a few key suspects. I don't know when I last saw Sebastian Teal alive, but on Tuesday, I saw Salvador (the shrimp) swimming through the tank, carrying Sebastian's naked body, minus the shell. Maybe this was a funeral procession - an announcement to the population of Biorbopolis that their neighbour had died. Who knows. Maybe Salvador did the killing. Perhaps Sebastian looked like a nice lunch. It's still a mystery. All I can tell you is that Sebastian came out of his shell at some point in order to shed his exoskeleton and never made it back into his home. Can you imagine dying and then being paraded through the streets naked? Poor Sebastian. We removed him quickly - onto a piece of kitchen towel where a post mortem, with inconclusive results, took place. He had a bin burial.

So, you may hear mention of Sebastian Teal, now deceased, in future Biobopolis updates. For the time being he has not been replaced and we're monitoring the crabs closely, first to make sure they don't take the death too hard, and secondly with the awareness that the possible killer may still be at large. My money is on Oliver - he has a destructive way about him, but I don't want to point the finger of blame too soon.

Introduction

This is a blog about an aquarium and its inhabitants. It's not a very big aquarium and there aren't that many inhabitants, but what goes on in it is a never ending source of fascination.

The creatures who live in this Biorb, (now known affectionately as Biorbopolis) will become familiar to you as time goes on, but it seems right to introduce the crew at the outset. So here we go:

Pierrot - Black and white striped clownfish

Minnie - Orange and black clownfish

Al - Neon blue gobie

Oliver - Black longspined (poisonous!) sea urchin

Ken - Feather duster tubeworm

Sirius - starfish

Salvador & Vincent - 2 scarlet cleaner shrimp

Sebastian & Maul - 2 red legged hermit crabs

George & Orwell - 2 blue legged hermit crabs

Brutus - Electric blue hermit crab