(New) Fish and Frags [No Longer 56k Friendly =x]

[Hypostomus]

Well, I finally have our official second fish (official fish do not include a certain pair of damsels purchased on a whimsy by my mother that were then returned to the store ), a flasher wrasse. It's a handsome little male that is currently hunkering down in one corner and giving the evil eye to passersby- I bought him last Thursday and picked him up today from the LFS; he was very active and eating there, so hopefully there won't be any problems with him getting used to the tank. I've put some plastic wrap over the only gaps in the eggcrate as a temporary method of keeping him from taking a nice little surf on the floor.

I also met another local reef-keeper recently and went to his house to buy some frags today. I got xenia, anthelia, three different kinds of zoanthids, a purple gorgonian, and he gave me two M. digigata frags to "experiment" with for free. I don't know how they'll do, but I'm pretty confident about the rest of them. The zoanthids are already out and the xenia and anthelia are moving a bit, though the xenia looks very "sad" at the moment (the stalks, not polyps, are drooped over- should I prop them up or let them rise up on their own?).

I've put the montis as high up as I can, though I need to grab some extra glue from Home Depot tomorrow to fix them into place. I sent my dad to buy the glue today and he bought the wrong one (sigh ). There were also two brittlestars that hopped off one of the frags when I put them in, though I don't know how they'll do because I only acclimated everything for about an hour and I know people have problems with starfish dying quickly that is usually related to acclimation time. I'll probably never know, as I won't be able to find white starfish in a white substrate.

I'll post some pics tomorrow, provided the fish and corals involved will cooperate. =)

 

[MT79]

should I prop them up or let them rise up on their own?).

Leave them alone, let the corals acclimate for a few days.

There were also two brittlestars that hopped off one of the frags when I put them in

Sounds like you got some free micro-stars. I'll think they'll be fine w/ an hour acclimation. The micros seem hardier than most others. They reproduce fairly quickly, so hopefully in a few months you'll have a nice population of them, if you don't already.

 

[Hypostomus]

I don't have any stars yet, but it'd be cool if those little guys populated the substrate. Certainly welcome to.

Here are some pics. I just realized I should have posted this in the New Acquisitions forum.. Anyway, I forgot to take a picture of the xenia, but I'm sure you all know what that looks like. Unfortunately most of these pictures were taken with a flash so you can't get a real idea of what color the coral is. Sorry.. =)

Zoanthids (the first one is the only pic taken without a flash, but I thought some blurriness was okay because the very nice color of those zoos was mostly preserved):

Some anthelia...still trying to figure out what to do with itself...

The Monti freebies that I got to see if I can keep them alive. There's actually one just behind the big one in front- the one in the back is orange and the one in front is brown, and yes I still need to glue the brown one. The polyps aren't all the way out because I took this pic after moving them around a bit.

The one whose name I can't remember at the moment... Would it be totally off to say Kenya tree coral?

And lastly, a purple gorgonian frag. I like this one a lot and it's probably the smallest of the ones I got.

That's all for now..

 

[mrmarine]

Nice!