Isn't that a lot more work?

[Reefing102]

Looks like the orange Zoa may be a Bam Bam but not certain (unless the colors are off in the pic)

 

[Dustin07]

Like @griss said, inspecting for acro eating flatworm bites/ scars is wise and a must with any new acro curious if you had a chance to do that? IME valida is one of AEFW favorite species to feed on
The scars they leave behind look like little white poka dots.

nstead of doing a PVP / betadine dip or Revive - (which Revive is great for softies/ LPS but is quite stressful to Acropora)
Id recommend sourcing some food/USP grade potassium chloride, it's very safe and the least stress inducing dip for Acropora Bulk supplements is a trusted brand, dissolve 1tblsp/ 16g in 1 gallon of aquarium water and dip with light basting for 7min, if there are FW present you will see them come off pretty quickly.

thats good advice, although too late on the revive. I actually did give it a revive dip last Friday I think, and I removed the portion that was turning white out of an abundance of caution. It may end up being a live and learn scenario as it's my first acro. I've had a lot of luck with easier SPS like pavona and montis. actually, we have this cool frag.. I snipped 3 small pieces off a pavona we had on our old tank as an experiment and plunked into my 4g nano. I'm glad I did because they survived our big tank crash and are now in the new tank. They're growing really well already and I find it interesting that they're encrusting over the plug first which I never noticed on the mother colony. I"ll try to get a picture later.

thank you for the compliments, and I'll look into the cholride solution! in the revive dip, I saw a number of critters come off that I did not recognize. but from pictures I see on the internet, I may very well have shook some AEFW off, as well as a brittle star I think. I didn't even know I had a brittle star, it's amazing how such tiny buggers can hide on even an SPS frag...

Nice progression, also this thread is just a reminder of how addictive this hobby is, I'm impressed you were able to stay away from it for 10 years, all it took was a 10gallon gold fish tank it sounds like

isn't that funny? today I was just thinking for the first time since January I'm at work and pretty excited to get home and check on the tank, feed the tangs, dabble with stuff.