Okay... a short update and some new pictures. Yesterday I noticed a small aiptasia on the backside of one of the rocks... not really in a reachable position. We decided to get a single Peppermint Shrimp and a few more blue-legged hermits. Not surprisingly, the Peppermint Shrimp, which my daughter has nicknamed "Pepperme" has started exploring all the hiding places in the aquarium first.
On the other hand, I've started noticing other hitchhikers in the aquarium, which is quite exciting... but as always, it's a "Oh! That's new... I wonder if it's good or bad." There's a number of things, but the two I was able to take pictures of was the anemone that I had first found when we rearranged the live rock into its current configuration.
Here's a pic of it, but you're going to have to look carefully. It's smack in the middle of the pic, and it's essentially nestled into a hole, with just the edges of its tentacles sticking out. The tentacles are too short and wrong colour for aiptasia, but I'm not sure what kind this one is:
The second picture shows a number of tiny white polyps on the upper part of our top piece of live rock. They're really small, and I'm not sure if this is eeensy aiptasia growing, or if these are polyps from a surviving piece of coral. Any guesses?
I've also noticed some feather-like bits sticking out in silhouette in various nooks and crannies in the rock... at least two species of starfish of some sort... plus these long white tentacles that periodically extend from various tubes in the rock.
Looks like we got lots of hitchhikers... Still don't know if that's a good or bad thing!