This means war!

I guess the sea urchins didn’t like the sea weed I gave them and they took it out on the Tulip Snail.  The urchins we currently have are the ones that are semi poisonous so over night they attacked and killed my sweet little snail (it was actually quite huge).  I’m glad I wasn’t awake to witness the struggle, the pain, or hear the cries of the sweet little snail calling out to me for help.  All I saw this morning was a cloudy fish tank and, where there was once a vibrant, lively and happy little snail, an upside-down shell with goo seeping out.  (That pink thing is it’s body)

Ok…it was pretty bad and disgusting, but oh well.  That’s nature.  I gathered the lump of death and threw it into a jar of rubbing alcohol.  Maybe the kids and I can dissect it next week…maybe not. 

I’m not having a great week with this tank.  First the oyster died (it shouldn’t have been in the tank to begin with), now the snail.  Sadly, I was plotting on how I was going to get the snail safely to Alabama next month so it could continue living with us.  (By the way, we’re planning a move).  It was a really cool critter.  All I have is a big shell to remember it by…cool! 

For now we have 2 urchins, 3 apple murex snails, a whelk egg case with growing whelks, and a shrimp which is almost invisible except for its really big black eye balls but it is probably in the canal across the street after we drained 3/4 of the tank and dredged for goo before replacing fresh canal water.

I hope we can find some hermit crabs again.  Wish us luck.

Edited April 27:  It really bothers me that we are having problems this week.  A few days ago the tank got really cloudy.  My husband and I emptied half the water, went to the canal across the street and brought home some new water for the tank.  The next morning the sea urchin was eating on the dead tulip snail.  Did it really attack the snail or did the snail die from the temperature of the new water?  I still need to replace another bucket full.  I think I’ll let the water sit in the bucket for an hour to get to room temperature.  Hopefully that will avoid further death, if that is actually the cause.  My husband brought some seaweed back from the beach this afternoon for the urchins to eat on.  I noticed he brought back a bunch of little fish/plankton-like critters.  Its fun to watch them.