Zibba's Reefs -- ADA 90P & Envision 100g

zibba · Feb 5, 2013

Green Hornet Zoas

(Yes, they really are that bright)

DFS Orange/Green Eye Favia

(Going to take some time to bring this one back)

Fruit Loop Chalice

Meteor Shower Cyphastria

Dendros

Captain America Palys

Salsa Mushroom

Duncans

Flipside · Feb 5, 2013

Haha! And, there you have it.

:thumb:

zibba · Feb 5, 2013

Flipside said:
Haha! And, there you have it. :thumb:

Thanks bud!

LILBUDDHA · Feb 5, 2013

Great pic's. .I wish I was that good with a camera .Another good tool to use with Novus is "mother's powerball . It helped with deeper gouges in acrylic. U can find it at a auto store or u may already own one.
As far as clean up crews I don't use any crabs .They just kill snails for their shells .I love the purple white striped trochus snails with the black feet and I love the queen conch's for cleaning the sand . Tonga nassi snails are larger n more active than the smaller ones .I saw the algae in a few pic's and as bad as you may think it is.Trust me its not .Keep your chin up and your hands dry .. :thumbup:

Sent from my Moto HD on Jelly Bean

zibba · Feb 5, 2013

LILBUDDHA said:
Great pic's. .I wish I was that good with a camera .Another good tool to use with Novus is "mother's powerball . It helped with deeper gouges in acrylic. U can find it at a auto store or u may already own one.
As far as clean up crews I don't use any crabs .They just kill snails for their shells .I love the purple white striped trochus snails with the black feet and I love the queen conch's for cleaning the sand . Tonga nassi snails are larger n more active than the smaller ones .I saw the algae in a few pic's and as bad as you may think it is.Trust me its not .Keep your chin up and your hands dry .. :thumbup:

Thanks for the compliments and tips, Buddha! I'll check out the powerball for that deeper scratch that I worked on earlier in the thread. For the first wave in my clean up crew I went with mostly bigger nassiarius (sp?), which have done a good job with the sand bed, neterites (sp?) and cerths. They haven't been able to keep up so that's why I tried mixing in more hermits this time. It's funny that you say hermits will just kill snails (I know that to be true) because those big nassarius snails were coming up out of the sand and attacking the new hermits (they're really small) when I added them. I'll check out the trochus and queen conchs. I like having different critters in there -- even if they aren't the most effective -- because it always leaves for something new to discover when looking around in the tank.

And, I can't tell you how hard I've been trying to keep my hands out of the tank. I really do need to get in there to clean the inside of the tank though -- the 2' algae scrapper/scrubbing wand that I'm using just doesn't get the job 100% done.

Henry C · Feb 5, 2013

Tanks gonna look sick in a year!!! As far as the NTS goes just keep it simple, do the normal maintenance maybe run a little gfo and it should work itself out on it's own.

LILBUDDHA · Feb 5, 2013

This is way too strange...Just got off the phone with a buddy down in NC .He just added some scarlet reef hermits and his tonga.nassi's were attacking the hermits in groves..He said five just came out of the sand and started killing the hermit. What a weird day and I'll put that one on my new learned list today ...

Sent from my Moto HD on Jelly Bean

zibba · Feb 5, 2013

Henry C said:
Tanks gonna look sick in a year!!! As far as the NTS goes just keep it simple, do the normal maintenance maybe run a little gfo and it should work itself out on it's own.

Thanks. Yeah, part of the fun in this hobby for me is growing out the frags into a reef. For now, I'll be patient and appreciate the "close up" views of the frags (with blinders to the NTS!).

LILBUDDHA said:
This is way too strange...Just got off the phone with a buddy down in NC .He just added some scarlet reef hermits and his tonga.nassi's were attacking the hermits in groves..He said five just came out of the sand and started killing the hermit. What a weird day and I'll put that one on my new learned list today ...

Lol, nice to know mine aren't some crazy breed of hermit hungry nassis. They scarred a few of the hermits out of their shells. Thankfully, once I physically removed the nassi to another part of the tank, the hermits climbed back into their shells.

MarvinsReef · Feb 5, 2013

zibba said:
Envision
11/28/12:

2/4/13:

ADA

11/28/12:

2/4/13:

looking forward to more of these. 1smile1

Lilmatty5dimes · Feb 6, 2013

Agreed Marvin. Love how it shows the tank coming alive and coloring up.

zibba · Feb 6, 2013

MarvinsReef said:
looking forward to more of these. 1smile1

Lilmatty5dimes said:
Agreed Marvin. Love how it shows the tank coming alive and coloring up.

Thanks Marvin & Matty!

Update on yesterday's new arrivals:

I woke up around 5:30 am this morning to the emergency overflow making a bunch of noise so I knew something got into the overflow. It was one of the new peppermint shrimp and unfortunately, it didn't survive.

The McCosker's wrasse, cleaner wrasse and lawnmower blenny are making their home in QT and it looks like they might be in there for awhile. The lawnmower blennie and the mccosker wrasse both looked great but the cleaner wrasse has signs of ich on its tail. I have no idea if all of these fish came from the same tank water so it looks like I'll be treating all three of them. Originally, I was thinking of just putting the mccosker and the blennie straight into the display tanks after only seeing ich on the cleaner wrasse. I think it will be best to QT all of the fish just in case though. I'll need to research the most recent ich treatment options. I know of copper and hypo and I'm leaning more towards hyposalinity. Going to test my patience in stocking the tanks with fish, that's for sure!

zibba · Feb 6, 2013

Another update:

Just received a text that the cleaner wrasse didn't make it. Yesterday it was swimming around great in QT and looked good except for the few spots of (previously mentioned) ich. Hopefully the other two fish pull through -- they looked really healthy though so just keeping my fingers crossed that they don't have ich too.

bknapp · Feb 7, 2013

Great builds! Love the coral collection thus far, great work Zibba!

zibba · Feb 7, 2013

Heading out of town tomorrow for a quick trip to do some skiing in Colorado so I figured I'd post a few actinic shots taken a few minutes ago:

30k Lokani

Pearlberry

zibba · Feb 7, 2013

bknapp said:
Great builds! Love the coral collection thus far, great work Zibba!

Thanks a lot, Brandon!! :bigsmile:

MarvinsReef · Feb 8, 2013

zibba said:
The McCosker's wrasse, cleaner wrasse and lawnmower blenny are making their home in QT and it looks like they might be in there for awhile. The lawnmower blennie and the mccosker wrasse both looked great but the cleaner wrasse has signs of ich on its tail. I have no idea if all of these fish came from the same tank water so it looks like I'll be treating all three of them. Originally, I was thinking of just putting the mccosker and the blennie straight into the display tanks after only seeing ich on the cleaner wrasse. I think it will be best to QT all of the fish just in case though. I'll need to research the most recent ich treatment options. I know of copper and hypo and I'm leaning more towards hyposalinity. Going to test my patience in stocking the tanks with fish, that's for sure!

good luck with the QT. sorry to hear about the cleaner wrasse. always sad to lose any fish.

zibba · Feb 8, 2013

Thanks Marvin. Definitely sad to see that the cleaner wrasse didn't make it. They're beautiful fish and provide a huge benefit to the home aquarium (and reefs generally). So far the mccosker's and blenny are looking good!

MarvinsReef · Feb 9, 2013

zibba said:
Thanks Marvin. Definitely sad to see that the cleaner wrasse didn't make it. They're beautiful fish and provide a huge benefit to the home aquarium (and reefs generally). So far the mccosker's and blenny are looking good!

good to hear..

zibba · Feb 10, 2013

Just got back home from some great skiing in CO. Tanks are looking really good except for some algae on the glass and a full skimmer cup (I forgot to empty it before I left). No big deal.

The McCosker's wrasse died in QT. I pulled it out and it had some type of worm/amphipod in its mouth. I'm guessing that it came in on it. The fish was looking just fine before we left, however, I did notice that it had a fat belly. I just assumed that it was well fed. Gosh, I really hate losing fish! At least it's a good reminder of why I QT.