Leather corals and Montipora

The red Montipora sp. coral has grown to a nice size. I placed two different colored leather corals near its base to create a color complement. The tank is still "re-cycling" and re-adjusting since I repositioned a lot of the live rock a few weeks ago. I've had to siphon out bluegreen algae (BGA) here and there during the water changes. Over time, I've noticed that the BGA's growth has slowed down. But, now, there's an increase in green hair algae. I'll manage that by manually removing it over time and the tank should be back to being well-balanced in a few more weeks.

Oh, and since the introduction of a dozen peppermint shrimp, I noticed that all my Aiptasia have been eradicated. It took a few weeks before the shrimp actually managed to wipe out all of the pests.

Red Hot Chilli Pepper Montipora

I tried snapping another macro photo of my pet RHCP Montipora coral. I'm still not too satisfied after the 50th attempt, so I guess I have to try 50 more attempts to get that one perfect photo.

I noticed that the polyps each have 6 tentacles. I've seen other photos where Montipora polyps contain 2X that number. I wonder what this implies as far as classification is concerned? With another coral, I recently learned that Goniopora have 2X more tentacles surrounding the mouth than Alveopora. Both are known as "flower pot" corals, though. I still haven't figured out the difference between Montipora foliosa and M. capricornis.

Coral Shopping Spree

Living on the West Coast has its benefits...

Yesterday, I was able to pick out some corals at AquaSD. It really was like being in a candy shop. The variety of colors and shapes dazzled my eyes and piqued the right side of my brain. And, I nearly drained my wallet to the chagrin of the other side of my brain. I at least had enough money left over to purchase food for the new animals!

I was in a rush to acclimate the corals because I had a class to attend within an hour. So, I equilibrated them to the temperature of the tank by floating the bags for 10 minutes. Then, I added some corals to the main tank and some to the refugium.

This is just an example of the corals I purchased: War Coral, Japanese Blue Snowflakes, Red Goniopora, and a Montiopora/palythoa combo (correction: Porites/palythoa combo).

Here are some of the zoanthids and palythoas. Some of them aren't so colorful, but when the numbers increase, they can create an interesting pattern. The SPS frag may take several weeks before it reveals any colors in my tank.