Starting up new tank for my GSPs

[Hillehaus]

Honestly, to prevent a headache...the general rule of thumb is, when in doubt...nuke it. Better to be wrong and safe than have an infestation.

[Pufferpunk]

If it has a hard base, it is not aptasia.

[Hillehaus]

Poke at it. if it aptasia it will retreat and there will be no skeleton. if it retreats and there is a skeleton, congrats you have a free coral.

May I ask where you got your live rock? Mine was from floridaliverock.com and it had a ton of these on it.

[Maggiec]

Ok, so it's not aiptasia. My niece had also bought me a peppermint shrimp (yes she is a very spontaneous buyer ) and I commuted his death sentence by returning him to the store. This lfs has more display tanks so it was cool to see stuff in beautiful natural settings (my usual store has more inventory but as it is a big online seller, their livestock is all arranged in neat little rows). The pp shrimp were in a tank with aiptasia (with sign saying they'll eat this), and seeing them firsthand really helped me see the difference.

I got a pretty creamy leather frag for an extra $8. The great thing about this store is a lot of their coral is on a nice rock instead of those little disks so when you put it into your tank, it looks great already. This rock had beautiful patches of pink/purple algae plus a little rooted piece of halimeda. Score! I almost got an abalone hiding on the bottom but he was discovered, lol.

So anyhoo, while I had my hand in the tank I gently touched that mystery polyp & it was definitely a hard skeleton. I guess I got a freebie coral, yay! So glad cos it's a cute little thing. Also, I discovered there was a brittle star hiding amongst the zoa. So this 4" piece of rock just has a wealth of life on it.

This lfs is a nice boutique style place with great staff: Aquariums West. Beautiful anemones, but PP, I just admired and moved on

Thanks for all your input btw. So very helpful

[Maggiec]

It hasn't expanded yet

[Hillehaus]

very cool! welcome to the reefing addiction. I hope you don't like money.

Also, in the future wouldn't make it a habit to touch these critters bare handed (if you did). some can pack a pretty nasty sting or poison.

One last piece of advice from a fellow newbie to corals...take a picture of whatever you put in your tank. I neglected to do this and I regret it because now I have nothing to compare growth to.

[Maggiec]

Yes I read about gloves on one of these forums. So much you learn here! I used latex gloves & put a little elastic around my wrist. I'm looking at getting a pair of those really long gloves.

Great idea. Stuff changes fast. Like I'm sure the clowns are bigger already (much more spunky/friendly too). And the mushrooms are way bigger.

Yes, I like money, haha. When I see the amazing things at the store, the prices thankfully keep me in line. I really need to let the tank settle in first. The local reef boards are a much better source price-wise, and I'm always browsing those. Even then, I have to rein myself in. Too tempting to throw a bunch of stuff in the tank now. Like Ariel said, it's a "whole new world".

[Hillehaus]

yeah, I'm kind of bummed I didn't take more pictures. I had a frag of one purple hornet that I swear turned into 11 overnight. Kind of wish I would have monitored its growth a little better.

[bertie 83]

My fowlr also quickly turned into a reef lol

[Hillehaus]

Its crazy how easy it is for that to happen. In hindsight, I wish I would have just started a reef originally. I swore I would only have a FOWLR. Now I'm replacing equipment like lights and skimmers...sigh.

[Maggiec]

Well, I woke up to find that my little halimeda sprout was completely eaten up. Sigh. C'est la vie, eh. I think the culprit was the blue-leg hermit, who was scaling the vertical wall (he loves to do this, I keep hearing the Mission Impossible music) up to that area when I turned off the lights. Against my better judgement I have given the hermits names (Merry & Pippin) and have probably jinxed their lives now.

No, don't say that. I'm only going to put a couple of leathers in, I swear.

ps. the bristle worms are really starting to overplay their welcome. They are just EVERYWHERE. I don't really want to add another fish (a wrasse is what I was thinking but I'm scared of what a pain they might be). Maybe I will try that nylon trap thing.

[Pufferpunk]

I never trusted blue-legs. Killed snails for their shells, too.

[bertie 83]

Most wrasses are fine to the best of my knowledge, only the six lined wrasse are murderers I believe. Mine was an out and out killer. Bristle worms will self regulate, part of your cuc just don't put your bare hand in to handle rock.

[Maggiec]

I don't know why I have so many bristleworms. I'm definitely not overfeeding. I put their food in with the chopsticks & watch while they eat - very little goes uneaten. They are even in the zoa colony There were a bunch on the glass in one corner & I just scraped them off with the net. One minute, I think "I'm gonna get me a 6line wrasse" then I read about them and I get spooked.
Big day tomorrow. Puffers going in. Any advice re the drip acclimation?

[bertie 83]

The worms are likely more visible due to lack of food. Probably searching for it. Just take it slow with the drip line, and keep a close eye on them and the salinity of the tub you are using. Set your drip line into another container whilst you loosen/tighten it to get the flow rate right.