I know you said you've never stacked before but now the "rock crushing hermits" are gone why not try and stack some LR in the ends of the tank and leave the middle mainly open but with the shelves on different heights?
The rock-throwing hermits may be gone, but there are other issues now that would make it difficult/risky. One is that there are a bunch of sea urchins in there now that could easily undo a stack - and they have thrown me some real curve balls with what they have been able to move around at times, particularly when two get in on the action at once. There are actually new rocks going in because of the urchins, since they are a significant force of erosion. So, there will be rockscape change over time, just nothing sudden. When they break down a couple of the rocks on the side a bit more, I'll be able to place a big rock on the right if I want. The other thing preventing me from stacking stuff even if I took the urchins out is that there are pretty stationary critters (fan worms, Bivalves, etc.) that have picked locations that make it hard to stack anything without risking accidentally crushing somebody.
I personally wouldn't risk the anemones going on a parade around the tank lol.
On the one hand, staying put is stability, but...even if I wanted to, I can't safely unload any of them to other tanks in the current state. Part of me hopes that I'll walk in one day and see one of the clones on a different rock finally.
Ballsy. Those things are so aggressive. They produce copious amounts of secondary metabolites.
This is probably a less-than-nice tank and probably a fair bit of a chemical soup between the now three anemones, tree corals, and other inhabitants. I'm actually going to have to move my Blastos to the frag tank this week while I figure out what else to attach them to, since the Duncan periodically deploys a strangely long battle polyp at night to go take a swipe at them even though I keep moving the two things farther apart. The Duncan managed to toast 3 polyps in one go a few months ago before I realized who was the aggressor and started trying to move them apart.
Anyway, the leather was one of those things were I saw it, talked to the guy selling it for a couple minutes, and then had a bit of a YOLO moment compared to my usual stocking choices. The seller was keeping it in with LPS, and there's a local public aquarium I frequent with a similar stocking in one tank, so it seemed worth a try...but yep they can be nasty little things. It's worth noting that the leather is on its own, new rock, and is not attached to one of the main fixture rocks in the 55gal. That's one of the reasons for it going in the frag tank first. If things get out of hand, then I can put it in either of two, maybe even three other tanks. Will be keeping a close eye on things for now as I always do after things get added or reshuffled.
