Today I got a PM from a club member asking for a few of my Red Ring Zoas. I told her that I didn't have enough to share at this point, as there are maybe 20 polyps total on the rock. Then it hit me:

WHERE THE HECK ARE THEY?!?!?!

Now the reasonable person would say "oh well, my little reef looks good and if they turn up later that would be nice... I am content with what I have." However, not a zoa-addict like myself, no way!

For the next 20 minutes, I drop everything I'm doing online - not even finishing my reply - and start dismembering my 29g reef. I've got a 5g bucket next to the tank and it is filled with corals. LR pieces are littered around my feet on a towel, and I still can't find my Red Ring zoos! I pick up the huge pieces of LR at the bottom, looking under them for the tell-tale piece of LR rubble that used to be their anchor and come up empty. My fish are racing from one side to the other as Typhoon Marc sweeps through the reef in search of his precious red zoas.

Finally I pick up my Maxima clam, which is right in front as always, and there is the zoa rock, hidden by the clam and a few red mushrooms. With great relief, I now can start adding LR back to the tank, putting corals in place and making sure everyone is in a happy place again.

The red ring zoos are at the top of the rockwork in a prominent spot again. :D

My fish still can't figure out what got me into such a state of mind, but by dinner time had forgiven me completely.

It wasn't a wasted endeavor, as I was able to fish out some broken twigs of dead coral, a chopstick that has been in the back for 6 weeks, and a dead emerald crab that no-one was interested in eating for some reason. I found my babies, and shifted the rockwork back enough to run my magnet more easily across the front again.

Btw, when you find yourself in the same situation, try to remember to unplug your auto top off system. Once I pulled out about 4 large pieces of LR, it added quite a bit of new RO/DI water to the system. Once I added my rock back in, I noticed my sump was with 1/2" of the top. That was a little unnerving, but my return pump is on a battery backup, so evaporation will take care of the excess water in the next 24 hours - no risk of flooding the carpet!