My starfish has died :(

I have some bad news guys... Seems it is indeed very hard to keep marine invertebrates in aquarium. My starfish has died last week. I did not notice anything at all and it happened almost overnight. What really struck me was that the starfish was perfectly well the day before, and on the day it died, it simply started to 'melt'... Yeah, it seemed to me that it was melting and disappearing in the process, leg by leg... I counted the leg from 5 to 4, 4 to 3, 3 to 2, 2 to 1 and finally nothing... And all this time, it was still alive and moving about... I was totally battled by this scene guys... However, I do not have any more information on what happened or why it happened. I have some of these big snails which has a small trunk... I watched some docs on television and I remember they are predators and have a toxic sting which they use against their prey... I have not idea what happened, it could be that the starfish was stung by one. However, I am really sad and sorry about this.

The good news is, I have introduced some live aquatic plants in the tank and they seem to have settled down in the bed and have started growing... I hope they will render the water safer for the animals by sucking the nitrates and other nutrients from it and prevent them from contamination the water. Let us see how it goes.... Maybe, after that, I will go and look for another starfish as it was really the eyecatching point of my aquarium.

Sea Urchins

Today I brought 4 sea urchins which I picked from the shore and put them in my fish tank hoping that they will help with the cleaning up of the wastes. They are quite nice to watch sliding around on the bed and sometimes the stick themselves the the glass and you can actually see the mouth of the sea urchin as well as FIVE TEETH! I did not know sea urchins had teeth.... the mouth with the teeth are scary. I am learning things with this saltwater fish tank. The marine life is very interesting and distracting to observe. I also noticed that some kind of algae grew all over the tank and therefore, the glass became a little blurry, so I also brought around 100 small snails from the shore and I hope they will wipe the glass clean :D

So far, things are doing good...

Sea Urchins

Homemade Protein Skimmer is working fine

I have finally decided to make a video of the homemade protein skimmer in action as it was too great. It is working very well and the foam that is getting out is really yucky. It is really shocking how much hidden waste there can be in perfectly clear water. The foam coming out of the protein skimmer catches the pollutants and dissolved chemicals from the water and segregate them in the collecting container. The color of the water coming out will tell you everything about what it contains. Hope you will like the video.