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

[Flipside]

Very nice man! Great shots, as expected!

Send from my Droid RAZR using Tapatalk2... Please excuse any typos...

 

[zibba]

Gracias, flip!

 

[Lilmatty5dimes]

man great shots. love your pearlberry, shortcake, wwc red dragon. aquascape is great love the left back piece.

 

[zibba]

man great shots. love your pearlberry, shortcake, wwc red dragon. aquascape is great love the left back piece.

Thanks Matty! Those are some of my favorites too. I think the Vivid tri-color/rainbow/whatever is really turning into a beautiful piece. It's fun to see things starting to settle in.

Picked up a new wrasse on the way home today:



Not sure what is -- I've enlisted the help of the wrasse expert, evolved.

Happy Friday everyone!

 

[buddythelion]

Thanks Matty! Those are some of my favorites too. I think the Vivid tri-color/rainbow/whatever is really turning into a beautiful piece. It's fun to see things starting to settle in.

Picked up a new wrasse on the way home today:



Not sure what is -- I've enlisted the help of the wrasse expert, evolved.

Happy Friday everyone!

Either blue or linespot flasher. I'm leaning towards blue! But I can't really tell if it has a spot on the dorsal like this pic:

If it has a dot on the back of the dorsal then it's a linespot.

 

[Aquaph8]

Beautiful wrasse, I'm going Linespot, I believe paracheilinus cyanus has longer points on the tail. Linespots also more common.

 

[zibba]

Thanks for chiming in Darwin & Brett. Hunter (evolved) said it was a Paracheilinus lineopunctatus. Looking at pictures of both the Paracheilinus lineopunctatus and Paracheilinus cyaneus, I 100% agree that it's a lineopunctatus; however, I realized that I also have a Paracheilinus cyaneus I got the Paracheilinus cyaneus awhile ago -- I think it was documented in the thread somewhere. I'll try to get some pictures up sometime.

 

[zibba]

Choati!

About a month ago we were in St. Louis for a wedding and saw a pair of Choat's wrasses in a big display -- they weren't for sale -- but Kwoww fell in love. About two weeks ago we were touring the Phoenix LFSs and one of them had just got a single juvenile in. They said it wasn't for sale yet because it was still only eating brine and other live foods. We put our name on the "list" of people who were interested and last week we got a call saying that it had been eating frozen food and was doing really well. We stopped in today and took her home. Really excited, but also nervous about this one since they have such a poor track-record with most hobbiests. Anyway, here is a pic of the new addition that was snapped during acclimation:



Wish us luck!!

 

[Aquaph8]

One of my favorites, wish you so much luck man.

 

[zibba]

One of my favorites, wish you so much luck man.

We'll need it, thanks!!

In other, less exciting, news: the Tech-M came in today so I'll be starting that processes after a bigger w/c tomorrow.





Based on everything I read, it seemed that it's the extra "stuff" in Tech-M that kill bryopsis so I was bummed to see the ingredient list above. After a little more searching around, it sounds like Kent changed the ingredient list to no longer include all of the other ingredients because they were either bi-products or were in very small amounts and, thus, not required to be put on the label. Long story short, the Tech-M recipe didn't change and this should do the trick.

 

[zibba]

Found these instructions on a local fish forum and this is what I'll be following to dose the Tech-M:

Acroholic's Tech M Dosing Instructions

This is the method that worked for me. Of course, you follow these at your own risk, etc.

1. Get enough Tech M to do the job. Do not use mag sulfate or mag chloride to raise the mag level so you don't have to use as much Tech M. If you do this you are not adding the trace element or whatever is in the Tech M that actually kills the Bryopsis. Start from whatever your mag level is and raise it only using Tech M.

2. Get a quality test kit, like an Elos or a Salifert. Test every day when you are raising mag levels and when you are maintaining mag levels. Salifert test kits only read to 1500 ppm, so when you know your mag levels are over 1500, you add 1 ml of the #3 reagent and then draw up another 1 ml per the instructions. When you get the color change, reference the chart for the ppm, then add 1500 to this for the total ppm.

3. If you use them, I would eliminate the use of any Poly Filters or the like during the time you are raising the Mag level to 1800 with Tech M until the time your mag level drops to 1350 as described in step 6. Poly filters can remove metals, and since no one knows, you might remove the trace element that is actually killing the bryopsis if you use poly filters. Carbon is fine.

4. Raise your magnesium with Tech M by 100 ppm/day until you reach 1800. Test every day and maintain this level in your reef for two weeks straight. Do not do any water changes during this time. If you do water changes, then make sure you add enough Tech M to the tank to maintain the mag at 1800. The idea is to get enough exposure time at that level so whatever trace element is killing the Bryopsis has enough time to work.

The 1800 mag level is an indirect indicator of the concentration whatever trace element in the Tech M is killing the Bryopsis. Length of exposure at the right concentration seems to be the key to eliminating vs just suppressing the Bryopsis.

5. If you have a lot of Bryopsis in your tank, manually remove as much as possible when it starts to weaken and die. This will eliminate/minimize an ammonia spike that can result from the decaying Bryopsis.

6. After you have maintained a mag level of 1800 for two weeks, start doing your normal water changes. Do not do them more often that usual. You will have elevated magnesium levels for a period afterwards, several weeks probably. This is not an issue. Let the level come back to the normal 1350 or so thru regular water changes and use by the corals.

7. Possible effects on animals and corals. I had some turbo snails die in the time my mag levels were elevated. I also had some montiporas lightly bleach on me, but they recovered quickly. I lost no SPS, LPS or soft corals as a result of using Tech M in the manner I have just described.

Again, please keep in mind that the above regimen worked for me. Know that Kent Tech M is not manufactured or intended by Kent Marine as an algaecide against Bryopsis. The effect of Tech M on Bryopsis is a side effect of this product when it is used at a much higher than normal concentration, so all treatment regimens for Bryopsis by me or anyone else are based on anecdotal experience only.

 

[zibba]

I took some pictures at the London Aquarium last week and thought y’all might be interested in seeing them. Not all saltwater but clearly those were the displays that attracted my attention the most. Save for the piranha/tetra aquarium! As you’ll see below, the piranha tank was spectacular – I’d guess it’s 16’x12’x5’! Fifteen-plus years ago, I use to have a small school of 4 red bellies in one of the first aquariums I had so it was fun to see such a beautiful display. Also, they had several display tanks filled with anthias – mostly lyrtails and bicolors but there were a few more unique species (no ventralis though L).

Started out with a huge ray/shark tank that was dimly lit but filled with personable rays – this one came right up to me:







Then a really cool jellyfish tank with changing LEDs:





Few random look down tanks, this is one of the only shots that turned out alright:



Then their main display, which was difficult to photograph because of all of the people:





Another random shot – this was taken from a “fish-eye portal” that focused only on this specimen, pretty neat:

 

[zibba]

They had another pretty good size display filled with RBTAs, tons of clowns, 16+ hippo tangs and this emperor angel (the acrylic was rounded and scratched so pictures weren’t turning out very good):



This was one of my favorite reef displays:



Here was another anthias display. Although not a reef, it was beautiful because it focused the attention on the brilliantly colored anthias:



Some other random pics:







And, finally, my personal favorite display:


Front:


Right side (check out that depth!):


These guys were awesome:




Anyway, enjoy! J

 

[Mr.Acro]

Hey,

Just wondering what species of anthais do you have in your tank?

 

[zibba]

Hey,

Just wondering what species of anthais do you have in your tank?

Hey Mr. Acro, I just have three Bartlett's anthias. Looking into adding 3-4 more of another species. Would love ventralis but they're really expensive and might not mix well with the Bartlett's so we'll see how things play out.


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[Mr.Acro]

Yea ventralis are insane, hows are the barts with your smaller fish?

 

[zibba]

Yea ventralis are insane, hows are the barts with your smaller fish?

I have one big male that shows some aggression toward the other two barts but pretty much leaves everyone else alone. One of the other barts might be sub-male and the bigger bart corrals that one a lot but he usually lets the other female swim out in the open with him.

 

[zibba]

Making up for the lack of updates lately! J We picked up a few new acans for the ADA – up until yesterday, we didn’t have a single acan in the tank, which is really weird because I think they’re one of my favorite LPS.

First off, I’m way overdue for posting a new FTS of the ADA. Forgive all of the corals on the sand bed acclimating.

A few months ago:


Today:


New corals:

A cool bright red acan




“Rainbow†acan


Red/blue acan



This guy is such a pig – nicknamed him “Baconâ€


This orange ball sponge is pretty neat, although sand kept settling on it and I’ve since moved it to get some more flow:

 

[zibba]

Took some actinic shots,









This coral is in a hard place to photograph so I haven’t posted it before…Ice/Fire Echinata

 

[zibba]

Finally, I picked up a topdown view box about 3-weeks ago. I tried to take pictures with my DSLR several times and it just wasn’t working out for me. This time I tried shooting in RAW mode on my smaller Canon s100 point and shoot. I was pretty impressed with the quality:



















From top to bottom: Zibba’s Saguaro, BC Rainbows in Spain, ORA Pearlberry


Not saving the best picture for last but this is really interesting. It’s a Tyree Setosa that, if you look closely, has some yellow strands running through it:



Ok, that pretty much gets us up to speed!