Bristleworms spawning; new eel purchased

I went to Dallas Marine today because they were giving away the eels they had, and picked up a Snowflake eel. Another club member has one in his reef tank, so I felt it wasn't a huge risk. Still, it is going in my son's 29g where it can't cause too much trouble. Hiding in a piece of LR (live rock), I decided to see what else came with it:

• Emerald crab
• Blue legged hermit crab
• some type of fuzzy starfish that had a diameter big as an Oreo (Yes, I'm hungry right now...)
• One eel. I was told there could be as many as three babies in there, but I'm hoping it is just the one.

I picked up 9 peppermint shrimp to go in the 55g reef, to work on my ever-growing aiptasia problem. Because there are so many in the sump as well, I'm wondering if the shrimp should be released in there instead. Hmmmm...

A new blood shrimp is acclimating now, to be added to my 29g reef. The only other crab-like item in that tank is an Arrow Crab, but I think they'll get along fine.

A small piece of Tonga branch came with a nice Ricordia and 5 babies. Hopefully they'll color up nicely in the 29g.

Pictures will be posted as the opportunity exists.

- - - - - 2 hours later - - - - - -

I just did a 20g water change on my 29g. I siphoned the crushed coral substrate as 10g of water was drained out of the display, after moving the Maxima clam and various zoanthids. The other 10g was drained from the sump and refugium.

After adding 20g of pre-mixed Oceanic saltwater (48 hours of aging), I restarted the pumps and noticed that a whole bunch of bristleworms were out around the anemones. As I watched them, one by one they expelled pink fluid. Apparently it was a spawning event, and it occured in several parts of the tank over the next 15 minutes. I did try to take a few pictures, but it was near impossible. Turning on the lights made them quickly retracted into the rockwork, so I had to work in lesser-light conditions.

The new Blood Shrimp was added and stood proudly for a few minutes on the Psammacora coral until all the water changing activity occured. Hopefully he wasn't harmed during that procedure.

The eel is now in my son's tank, but still hiding in the LR it came with. Two emerald crabs were in that rock, it turns out. Nice freebie hitchhikers.