We found someone who wanted the wolf eel, lunar wrasse, niger trigger and chocolate chip starfish!! Now we have reef corals in our aquarium. Tommy did not really want to trade the predator fish...but once he realized the things we could have in the tank without the "pesky" predators, he was ok with it. So, tonight after he and I rummaged around in the refugium and got the shrimp and crabs out and put them in the big tank, he was excited. Now we can watch the crabs, shrimp and snails crawl around.
There was lots of excitement about this and as we dropped the last shrimp from the refugium into the tank, the lion fish decided he needed (more) dinner. He got a $7.99 dinner. A coral banded shrimp. More expensive than what I had, probably. As you can imagine, my kids were not happy. That leads us to the discussion of the circle of life. Think a 3 year old, 6 year old and 8 year old completely understand that? No, not a chance. Now all they see is a mean lion fish that ate the shrimp.
So, we can now enjoy the corals and "cleaners". And watch the lion fish swim around looking for more dinner.