Hello to everyone who has been following my reef tank through it's start-up phase.  Things have been going well on the reef end of things, but poorly on the fish end.  Right after my last page, I introduced a large sea slug into the tank and chaos broke out.  Within the first hour, I watched it plummet into an anemone after falling off the glass, had to pull him out of the filter intake a few times, then all was lost when he got sucked in again over night.  Just like magic... some of my new fish started to die off (I haven't added them to the pages, but will create a RIP page soon for ID purposes).  In addition to that, I decided to add a few little fish into the tank a week later and a case of ick broke out.  Here is when I realized that there was absolutely no use for my hospital tank as there was no catching them at all until they were close to death.  I had to keep a sharp eye on the tank and get them out as quick as possible and now I only have one left which shows signs of the dreaded fish disease.  Now I just have to wait it out before adding any additional fish, but that didn't stop me from expanding the coral and anemone display along with a few oddities and a large cleaner crew of 20 hermit crabs.  I did catch the lunare wrasse before all of this happened and now my safe crab army has nearly decimated the algae bloom that was present just 2 weeks ago.  To help with the water quality, I changed out 1/3 of the water instead of my little 30 liter changes for my first large partial.  Things are going well.  Here are some new things as of now.

The root of all my evil.  This giant sea slug didn't make it long even though it was exciting to start.  Mistake #1:  Cover all intakes very well and keep away from anemones.  This critter wasn't so smart on that end and a hard lesson learned.
RIP

A red anemone, a Feather Star also called a Feather Lillie, and another anemone that I got in a trade for the lunare wrasse

2 more varieties of mushrooms. Hairy Mushrooms and Bullseye Mushroom corals (right).  Just added them yesterday.

A Devil's Hand Leather Coral (left) and a Bubble Gum Leather Coral (both on the right) about an hour after I added them to the tank just yesterday.

Two shots of a Sea Apple that I added last week.  One of the smaller ones available and the most colorful one they had.  This can be a big undertaking as it gives off poison to defend itself, but I have nothing in the tank that attacks it.   Decided to stay put right where I set it down.

A pair of Sea Horses that have added a nice touch to the tank.  They happily swim around the tank playing in the top current.  Proved to be hardy eaters once I fed the tank with small brine shrimp too.

The long nose file fish seemed to be getting lonely and I ran across another which had a larger orange and black spot across it's belly.  I was hoping that this was a mate, but I am not sure.  Either way, they are inseparable in the tank now.   A good shot of the Carpet Anemone spreading wide (right).

A better view of my anemone corner when all of them come out of their caverns (left) and a long distance view from the side of the tank for a better perspective on how the flow really is.  Looks kind of cramped from the front, but everything really has room separating them.

My RIP from the slug disaster and ick infestation:  1 Tomato Clown, 1 Cleaner Wrasse, 1 smaller clown, a new box fish, a new multi-band pipe fish, a new yellow tailed blue damsel (that got it's eye eaten out), the Bicolored Goatfish, and soon to be the 2nd of the Tomato Clowns.  A few hermits are being hunted by the Dwarf Hawknose too.  Other than that, all remaining fish seem to be healthy.  I am monitoring the tank very carefully and been adding Vitamin supplements along with some Trace Element supplement for the corals.  The hospital tank is being converted into a Freshwater Tropical Plant tank at the moment and I also picked up 3 Samurai Bettas which have their own bowls with top plants decorating the kitchen.  Soon to have their own pages too.