Some updates! The tank is looking much more filled-out.
Big shoutout to
@nlopedota for giving me a Kessil to use. It's beautiful, and does everything I need. The shimmer is unreal. I'm very grateful, and I'm confident it'll draw color out of the corals that were masked by my previous light.
At
@Invictus's recommendation, I got myself an acan from Clear Water aquarium. As a result of shipping stress it's a little bleached, but I've got it on the sandbed and have been feeding it regularly.
At Saturday's Coral Farmers Market I kept finding really good deals that I couldn't pass up. I got two pieces of Alveopora, a bucket list coral that I've wanted for its really cool texture from before I had a tank. I got a nice green ($10) and a lovely warm cream one ($30). The green one hasn't
fully opened yet, so here's a picture of the cream one (color rendition isn't as accurate as I'd like, but you get the idea.)
From the same seller I got this nice Duncanopsammia for $10, which has now taken residence in the bottom left of the tank, adding visual interest and movement to a spot that used to be overshadowed by the hammers just above it.
Speaking of hammers, I also got this lovely piece from the CFM for just $10.
At Clear Water today I fragged all the large heads off of a colony of splatter hammer, and found a ton of tiny polyps on the skeleton, which I thought was neat. I got it using some old store credit from trading in a leather, which is so worth it.
On the topic of weird reproduction, I also saw this plate coral, presumably
Heliofungia fralinae, which is budding a couple babies on the right-side fringe of its skeleton.
I've been so wrapped up in this cool coral and that new fish that I haven't taken a breath to just look at how far I've come.
I have
Acropora and macroalgae and other things I didn't think I would discover a passion for. And I have so many things that, as a newbie, I saw and instantly fell in love with - Alveopora, when I saw it in an online post. A Banggai Cardinalfish, which caught my eye in a tank showcase. Fox coral which I thought was so puffy, and rainbowy Tequila Sunrise mushrooms lining the sand, both of which I saw the first time I ever stepped into a local fish store.
I can still remember watching my first Coralfish12g video.
Here's an up-to-date picture of my small curated slice of the reef
