What an awesome photo of future reefers. Enjoying watching your progress.I put in a hermit crab last night as a canary to make sure everything was good to go. Kids are losing their minds now watching this little guy. Little do they know that a pair of clowns and the clean up crew are showing up tonight. They have dubbed him, "Shelly Krusty Boat". Am looking forward to the other names they create for the fish.
Love the progress. I have a nice barnacle piece that I was going to use when I set my up but decided against it as it looked like a great place for detritus to settle. May still add it with a barnacle blenny. Good luck with your fire shrimp. I had one that set up its cleaning station in the rocks and wouldn't come out except to eat. Someone suggested it needed a "mate" so I bought another. Turned out to be a mistake. Although they are fun to watch one of them is very aggressive and picks on my zoas and mushrooms all the time. Hope your single shrimp will leave yours alone. You have some beautiful zoas with lots of potential.I gave in, turned the lights down a bit, and mounted the frags straight to the rock. Everybody seems to be happy and doing well, but in my haste I managed to let super glue get into a couple of the true blue hornets. I know I nuked atleast one, but am still holding out hope for the others.
There is a tailspot Blenny in there now (Sheldon) along with a Fire Red Shrimp (Lady-Glitter-Sparkles) and everything seems to be doing well. Sheldon seems to have taken up residence in the barnacles, is hesitant to come out when we are near the tank, but the minute we walk a few feet back he comes out and starts pecking at the rocks. He's very interesting to watch. He seems to be eating mysis, but won't touch small algae strips when in the tank. The fire shrimp just hides all day.
With the exception of putting a net cover on my tank, I think I'm going to sit back and enjoy the tank and not mess with it again until at least March. The only things left I'd like to do is add a pink streaked wrasse, springiri dottyback, yellow clown goby, and maybe a skunk cleaner shimp. However, I think the best thing to do right now is be patient and wait until next month before adding the pink streaked wrasse and maybe the yellow clown goby.
I think I'm going to let the green button polyps and yellow polyps grow out on their little island for a few months, then trade them in (and some cash) for some Ricordia frags.
All in all, everything is healthy.
I'm dumping in a capful of Iodine once per week (per instructions) feeding pellets every other day with Mysis the alternating days, doing a 5 gallon water change bi-weekly, feeding reef roids sparingly 2x per week, adding 1 teaspoon of Kalk to every 5 gallons of ATO and wiping down the glass daily. Water quality is so far pristine.
I am enjoying the tank and if I can keep my hands out of it for a while, am looking forward to enjoying my tank with relatively low maintenance for years to come.
My first official polyp count/ census will come the first week of March.
