As promised, here is a shot of my tank...sorry the quality isn't top notch...it's very hard...and i was running out of patience. especially with Bluefish...he won't hold still.

Anyway, you can see my coral banded shrimp on the far left, just below him are the star polyps, above him are the zooanthids, directly below them is a mushroom coral, and there are some button polyps next to those two things. The green plant is caulerpa, the hermit crab's shell can be see below it...he was being shy, hiding behind my new clove polyps. The rock on the right has a purple mushroom, which wouldn't open all the way for me right now. Below that, on the sand bed are two more mushrooms of varied variety. :o) There's Bluefish, not cooperating...he is a Fiji damsel. If you look really closely, you can see my 3 legged micro starfish on the rock a little ways below the purple mushroom (he's whitish) he used to have 6 legs...and either 3 got eaten off...or he split, and there are two of him in there. I really don't know. Oh yea, down in front of those empty shells is my new sally lightfoot crab. Not pictured are Magellan the brittle star, my tiny porcelain crab, and the nassarius snail.

I want one so badly for my tank...but no info anywhere to be found on the internet about keeping them. I am worried that I can't...but I really want to try. I don't know why, but I really think they are awesome. More info

The big move is complete...(no, not a new house) we moved my saltwater fish tank from my mom's house over to our apartment on the other side of town. I ignored the directions of Kwesi the fish guru, and opted not to disassemble "Bluefish's" habitat. I just took out about 2 gallons of water, leaving the tank half full, the corals covered with water, and reducing just enough weight for Chad to awkwardly carry it. I didn't see the point of moving all the rock, animals, and 5 or so gallons of water into a 5 gallon bucket, when the tank was only 6 gallons to begin with. Granted, the bucket would have had a handle, but I think that would have stressed out the critters a lot more. And it would have taken me at least 20 minutes to get Bluefish out. He has learned, that whenever I open the lid and the light is still on, it means feeding time...but when I turn the light off, it means I'm going to reach my arm in the tank to fix something or try to catch him...and he immediately darts under the rocks. He is so funny, I never knew fish could express such personality...but when he is hungry (which seems to be all the time) he will swim right in my line of sight...so that I have no view whatever else I'm trying to see in the tank. It's like a puppy that won't stop jumping around your ankles and trips you with every step.
Magellan (my brittle star...see photo) managed to get into the filter area of the tank again. This is a real pain, because there are three compartments back there, as deep as the tank, and barely wide enough for my hand to fit. Forget about having any kind of control over the motor functions of your fingers. All the filtering media makes it easy for him to squeeze to the bottom, ensuring that i can't reach him. I finally got him out by pulling all the bioballs and carbon bags out, and using a chopstick and my hand to nab him...all the while holding a mini-maglight in my teeth, so I could see.
I bought some new coral frags and introduced them after the move...I made out like a bandit at the fish store. I asked about a large piece of rock that had one purple mushroom on it, and was slightly outside the "$10 frags" line drawn on the tank glass...they guy said "well, if that's the only thing on it...then I'll do $10 for you." (which it was) With the price of rock...that should have cost way more...and the piece is nice with beautiful purple algae all over it...and some seaweed growing on it, which my hermit crab is happy about. I then asked him if a certain mushroom and some clove or star polyps were one piece or two since they were practically on top of each other...he picked them up and they came apart...but he said "lets call them one piece." Then I asked for one more mushroom, and he threw in a little rock frag with some tiny button polyps on it. :o) Made my day!
So I have all the new things in, and the water is clear, and everything is doing really well, and seems happy. I'm only having a problem with one mushroom that doesn't seem to want to attach itself to anything. Since the flow in the tank is so strong it kind of tumbles around, and I'm worried about that. I've been wanting to take some pictures...so I will try to do that of my tank (the photo below is not mine). Sorry about the long fish post...but that's really the most exciting thing going on right now.

Settling into our new routine...working and keeping house. It's not so bad. Nice to have each other's company. Tonight I will get to see Chad since he worked day shift today. After this though he will be on second shift, and I will spend my evenings alone most of the time. We will see how that goes...I am just taking it one day at a time.

I just figured out how to do a cool trick with my DeviantArt account...if anyone feels inclined to buy us art for our new place...you can browse the prints on my wishlist at the bottom of this page. They are all created by fellow artists on DA, and they would truly appreciate the support!

WOW! This week has been so awesome! It is absolutely gorgeous here. Everyone told us we would love it...and we do...we have fallen in love with this little island! Things started out a bit rough (especially running on 36+ hours with no sleep), but now I don't want to leave! I have so many beautiful pictures of St. Martin...I will try to share some when we get back. Problem is, we don't have internet access at home yet...so updates and photos might be slow coming. In the meantime...my cousin took some wonderful shots of the wedding...and she is working on getting them edited and online. They can be viewed at numine.com, Emily's Wedding Album. That's all for now.