Tired
2500 Club Member
Just got my order in. I ordered a Package that came out to about 26 pounds of live rock and 13 of sand, shipped all in one batch instead of in the usual two shipments. I also asked if I could have a porcelain crab instead of the snails and hermits, as I'm handling the cleanup crew on my end.
Tampa Bay more than delivered! I got all sorts of cool stuff on the rock; miscellaneous crabs, decorator crabs, snails, porcelain crabs, what looks like at least three species of brittle star, a very strange gastropod of some sort that I can only describe as "if a nudibranch was wide", barnacles, hidden cup corals, starlet corals, macroalgaes, tunicates, sponges, a thing I can't identify aside from "looks like an animal". The only all-out pest I can see is a single aiptasia, which is an easy fix.
They didn't ship me a porcelain crab instead of the snails and hermits. They shipped me FOUR porcelains, a pincushion urchin, and a handsome cerith snail. The pincushion urchin will probably go to my LFS when I transfer my corals to this tank in a couple months, as those seem to be hit-or-miss in terms of reef safety, but for now it's really cool and will be good algae control until I get my CUC.
Check this out! A tiny orange decorator crab, a hermit crab, and a very long-armed brittle star. I'm excited about this decorator- it's going in my HOB 'fuge to see what it grows into. It's one of three, and it's the only one that's orange.
Can't wait to see what else crawls out of this rock. I'm going to let everything run for a couple months after I get my CUC to let any potential ich (on the CUC, not the rock, I know the rock from here is ich-free) die off, and I'm going to keep popping bottle traps in periodically during that chunk of time. I think I heard a pistol shrimp in here at one point.
Love the critters. Thanks for everything!
Tampa Bay more than delivered! I got all sorts of cool stuff on the rock; miscellaneous crabs, decorator crabs, snails, porcelain crabs, what looks like at least three species of brittle star, a very strange gastropod of some sort that I can only describe as "if a nudibranch was wide", barnacles, hidden cup corals, starlet corals, macroalgaes, tunicates, sponges, a thing I can't identify aside from "looks like an animal". The only all-out pest I can see is a single aiptasia, which is an easy fix.
They didn't ship me a porcelain crab instead of the snails and hermits. They shipped me FOUR porcelains, a pincushion urchin, and a handsome cerith snail. The pincushion urchin will probably go to my LFS when I transfer my corals to this tank in a couple months, as those seem to be hit-or-miss in terms of reef safety, but for now it's really cool and will be good algae control until I get my CUC.
Check this out! A tiny orange decorator crab, a hermit crab, and a very long-armed brittle star. I'm excited about this decorator- it's going in my HOB 'fuge to see what it grows into. It's one of three, and it's the only one that's orange.
Can't wait to see what else crawls out of this rock. I'm going to let everything run for a couple months after I get my CUC to let any potential ich (on the CUC, not the rock, I know the rock from here is ich-free) die off, and I'm going to keep popping bottle traps in periodically during that chunk of time. I think I heard a pistol shrimp in here at one point.
Love the critters. Thanks for everything!
