Please identify a few items

[jayotte2002]

I am new to reefing, and love it! I started out with 45 lbs fiji lr, crushed coral and regular narragansett beach sand (no bashing me please). I know I took a risk using beach sand but I tried anyways and had no problems what so ever. The tank has had LR in tank for 2 months and all tests were execellent. I keep my temp at 78-80, and salinaty at 1.023. Anyways, this is now the third month and have many new life to my tank which I do not know what they are. I purchased two corals from a LFS without the owner knowing what they were. Next great thing I have is 49 sacks of snail eggs. I have 26 Nassarius Snail, 2 huge Turbo Snails, 1 Banded Coral Shrimp, 5 purple mushrooms, 4 brown/green button polyps, feather dusters growing everywhere, one blue damsel and one yellow tang (unfortunately it has ich) and unidentified corals.

[jayotte2002]

More to come.

[jayotte2002]

I also found what I first thought to be a spider in the tank. It was almost clear in color and was tiny as the snail egg sacks. It had 6 or 7 legs almost looking like a baby star. Like I said it looked like a spider but moved like a bristle (not sure if spelled right) star. The legs moved like a wave to get around. It was too small to take a picture.

[Mikeaveli21]

The pic below the tank is an alveopora (a.k.a flower pot coral). I don't have any experience with them, but have heard that they can be difficult to keep. Hopefully someone else will chime in with some more info. on them. The last "spider" thing you talk about might just be a brittle star (not a bristle star) which is definitely a good thing for your tank. HTH

[steve1s]

The ones in the first pic look like Ricordia's but seem a little bleached, so I'm not possitive.

The egg sack, no clue... :?: What types of uni-vavles or crustaceans do you have?

The sponge is a common hitchhkier and will come and go in variuos places in the tank.

Alveapora as mike says, is a challenging coral to keep. They seem to prefer very nutrient rich water which would suggest frequent feedings of fine foods. Just be extremely careful of water quality. You cannot risk the health of the tank.

The ones with the button polyps are not corals. The wee white ones look like either hydroids or sedentary polychaetes.

Nice score on the mushroom rock. That is a great price.

Does your spider look like this...?

Cheers
Steve

[reefrunner]

The only thing I would have a differing opinion of in Steve's post is the first pic. Looks like common wagon wheel mushrooms (discosoma sp) to me, and rather than bleached I think the pic is over exposed.

[jayotte2002]

The whites ones had the 260 watt compact light plus the video camera light on it. So that is why it was so white. Otherwise they are not that bright.

The picture you showed of that strange legged creature is not what is in my tank. The one in my tank has only 6 legs which are visible. There is no color as of yet, but if I were to give it a color, currently it is tan.

I have one coral banded shrimp which molted twice. And I just picked up a Scarlet Skunk Cleaner Shrimp for $16 today.

As for snails, I have 26 turbos, and 5 Nassarius snails.

I now know they are snail eggs, I caught one in action.

Mike, Steve and reefrunner, thank you very much for the replies.

[jayotte2002]

here is a better picture.

[Mikeaveli21]

Glad to help. Just one last word of caution, if your cleaner goes missing...suspect the coral banded shrimp as they are known to munch on other shrimps. Besides that good luck and keep us updated. :D