Zibba's Reefs

Sahin, thank you! Glad to hear you beat them too. What was your protocol? Bayer dips?

Sorry for the late reply. I dipped in Revive as I didnt have Bayer back then. Didnt lose a single coral; even "deepwater" acros survived fine.

How are things going?
 
Sorry to hear about your AEFW's, I am hoping that I never have to go through that. Like everyone has stated above, things will bounce back quicker than you think.
 
Sorry to hear about the AEFW issues...as many have said, awesome corals and fish...only thing I don't see is the trademark Goldflake Angel you had back in Minneapolis?
 
Sorry to hear about the AEFWs. Your coral layout, rockwork, and fish selection are gorgeous; you obviously spent a long time getting things right and creating a living piece of art.

Can I ask you about your Katoi wrasse? Because they're so recent here in the U.S., there is almost no info on their behavior. All we know is they're probably closely related to Pyle's wrasse.

Are there any aggression issues with any of your other fish, especially the rhomboid? Of course, your tank is so large that they can almost have their own territories.

Thanks for the condolences on the AEFWs. We've started the process of removing all of the acros but there's not even close to enough room in my frag tank to house the corals. Thankfully I have a friend with a 8' long frag tank that offered to help with the process.

He's coming over tomorrow morning to get the remaining corals from the display. I'm planning to do the first round of dipping tomorrow night. It's going to take a few rounds to get the kinks out but hopefully we don't lose too many corals.

Regarding the Katoi, very brief chasing between a the katoi and a few fish but it's nothing to be concerned about. That said, this particular katoi came from a friend's 4' 150g tank that had male pintail wrasse. It was very aggressive in that tank. By all accounts, however, it's been a great fish in our display tank.

You'll probably find this interesting: I QT'd one of the first katois that came in through NYaquatic for the same friend with the 150g. That fish had a brilliant emerald green tail, which they're known for. Very unfortunately, that fish died without warning in QT after about 3 weeks. After the first katoi died, my friend tried another katoi (the one that's now in my tank) but ordered it from zoa collector.com. The new katoi doesn't have a emerald tail but it's definitely a male. I'm not sure if the color will come out or if it's just a slightly different species (cf.?).

Anyway, after all of that, I QTd another katoi for a different friend. The third one came in female or sub-male. It made it through QT just fine and was definitely making the transition towards being male but that one didn't have the emerald green tail fin. Oh, and for the record, the third one was a model citizen as it was housed with the three (then, two) red tail tamarin wrasses. It's still in the acclimation box at my friend's house but I imagine it will settle in.


OMG those wrasses OMG.

amazing

Thank you!

Unfortunately, the male redtail psychhead stopped eating after a round of metroplex/furan and never regained its appetite. It kept having white stringy poop, even after two rounds of prazi. I needed to try something different. The metro/furan worked to get him back to a point where he was pooping normally. But he lost his appetite and eventually starved.

So only one female red tail remains and she's doing well in the main display tank now.

There's a bit of silver lining though: one of the friend's mentioned above was QTing two jeweled leopard wrasses for me while I was QTing his katoi (just how things worked out with shipping dates). They were added on Saturday night to the acclimation box and released a few hours later. They were out and looking great yesterday before we started pulling acros out for AEFW treatment.

Great pics, amazing fish choices!

Thank you!! :)

Sorry for the late reply. I dipped in Revive as I didnt have Bayer back then. Didnt lose a single coral; even "deepwater" acros survived fine.

How are things going?

No worries. I'm going to go with bayer even though I have revive on hand as well. Seems to be pretty mild and effective.

Just getting started really. This past weekend was our first one where we were around with enough time to tackle the big project of removing corals and getting the frag tank ready.

Nice tank! and your photography skill is like.... encyclopedia level! Especially the fish pix!

Wow, thank you! Much appreciated!

Sorry to hear about your AEFW's, I am hoping that I never have to go through that. Like everyone has stated above, things will bounce back quicker than you think.

I'm hoping to never have to go through this again. I'm committed here though: I have a 450g tank in the middle of my living room that came in through a window! lol. It's not going anywhere soon unless it springs a leak (***KNOCKS ON WOOD!!!***). I have a fish QT and coral QT. It shouldn't happen again but could and I've come to realize that dealing with these types of issues is part of this hobby. It's all about catastrophe mitigation. :)

Sorry to hear about the AEFW issues...as many have said, awesome corals and fish...only thing I don't see is the trademark Goldflake Angel you had back in Minneapolis?

:) That's awesome you remember! Thank you.

I'd love a goldflake and have seriously thought about it a few times when I've seen juvis in local stores. With such a large tank, I'm not sure I want to risk adding a goldflake and then trying to catch it if (when) things go south.

I absolutely do not need another tank but an angel dominated FOWLR tank would be fun. Who knows, if these AEFWs get the best of me, that might be the direction my tank takes! jk....maybe?

Will try to document this process.

One thing to note and as a PSA: I noticed flatworm eggs on two of my more expensive torches when I was moving corals around yesterday. The torches were on the sandbed and not close to any acros. It served as a good reminder that you can't trust any corals to be AEFW free.
 
I hope one day to have a wrasse collection a quarter the size of yours....they're so colorful and have such personality.....just awesome. Keep it up, and GL with the AEFW eradication!
 
That's awesome you remember! Thank you.



I'd love a goldflake and have seriously thought about it a few times when I've seen juvis in local stores. With such a large tank, I'm not sure I want to risk adding a goldflake and then trying to catch it if (when) things go south.



I absolutely do not need another tank but an angel dominated FOWLR tank would be fun. Who knows, if these AEFWs get the best of me, that might be the direction my tank takes! jk....maybe?



Will try to document this process.



One thing to note and as a PSA: I noticed flatworm eggs on two of my more expensive torches when I was moving corals around yesterday. The torches were on the sandbed and not close to any acros. It served as a good reminder that you can't trust any corals to be AEFW free.


Absolutely. You were responsible for turning me on to them. Loved the one I had in my tank. Building a new tank now, and that was the first "must have" fish I added to the stock list!
 
Absolutely. You were responsible for turning me on to them. Loved the one I had in my tank. Building a new tank now, and that was the first "must have" fish I added to the stock list!


That's awesome! You're making me look back through old reefing pics -- nice little trip down memory lane:

From Feb. 2008:
Goldflake3.jpg
 
Regarding the Katoi, very brief chasing between a the katoi and a few fish but it's nothing to be concerned about. That said, this particular katoi came from a friend's 4' 150g tank that had male pintail wrasse. It was very aggressive in that tank. By all accounts, however, it's been a great fish in our display tank.

You'll probably find this interesting: I QT'd one of the first katois that came in through NYaquatic for the same friend with the 150g. That fish had a brilliant emerald green tail, which they're known for. Very unfortunately, that fish died without warning in QT after about 3 weeks. After the first katoi died, my friend tried another katoi (the one that's now in my tank) but ordered it from zoa collector.com. The new katoi doesn't have a emerald tail but it's definitely a male. I'm not sure if the color will come out or if it's just a slightly different species (cf.?).

Anyway, after all of that, I QTd another katoi for a different friend. The third one came in female or sub-male. It made it through QT just fine and was definitely making the transition towards being male but that one didn't have the emerald green tail fin. Oh, and for the record, the third one was a model citizen as it was housed with the three (then, two) red tail tamarin wrasses. It's still in the acclimation box at my friend's house but I imagine it will settle in.

That is interesting. I wonder if it has to do with the different collections from Japan and elsewhere. I've also seen Katoi females for $80 lately, which is ridiculous considering they are usually hundreds of dollars. Perhaps it is this slightly different species you've noticed.

Thanks for replying about the aggression. I only have a 90g, so probably won't risk one with a pintail, if your friend had aggression among them.
 
That is interesting. I wonder if it has to do with the different collections from Japan and elsewhere. I've also seen Katoi females for $80 lately, which is ridiculous considering they are usually hundreds of dollars. Perhaps it is this slightly different species you've noticed.

Thanks for replying about the aggression. I only have a 90g, so probably won't risk one with a pintail, if your friend had aggression among them.

Yes, the prices have definitely come down on them. I've had the best luck with getting females and let them naturally transition to male so I'd get an $80 female before dropping a few hundred on a "super" male.

Also, I may have spoken a little too early on the Katoi being a model citizen: my fiance has noticed the katoi getting a little more aggressive over the last month or so. I haven't been around to observe the fish as often but I don't doubt that it's getting more aggressive.

** AEFW UPDATE **

We did the first round of dipping last night. It took about 2-hours from start to finish but I think we'll be able to cut that time in half going-forward as we found a little better system as we proceeded through the first time. We'll be dipping again on Sunday. Lots of worms fell off and the corals were showing polyp extension about an hour after going back into the frag tank.
 
Good to hear things are progressing with the AEFW. :beer: Two more dips and you will see a drastic drop. After the 4th dip you shouldnt really find any new ones unless you didnt remove all the eggs.
 
Did you try with any synchiropus picturatus? Long ago I had a 125 gal acropora tank and a couple of them devoured every and each AEFW. A few days after buying those synchiropus, my acros started to show great polyp extension. They didn't eat the eggs so flatworms kept being born and eventually disappeared.

Now I have 5 couples in my tanks (picturatus, marmoratus and splendidus), one in each tank. I have seen them actively preying upon AEFW, I will never run an acro tank without these buddies (regrettably they do not eat montipora nudis)
 
I have not tried any mandarins. At one point we had a pair of dragonets that was actively mating in the smaller tank every night. They passed without warning though, which was very strange.

Since I have so many wrasses and very aggressive eaters, I'm hesitant to add mandarins; however, they're beautiful fish and if I might consider taking another run at getting a pair through QT and eating frozen food before adding them.

Thanks for the information though, good data point.
 
Good to hear things are progressing with the AEFW. :beer: Two more dips and you will see a drastic drop. After the 4th dip you shouldnt really find any new ones unless you didnt remove all the eggs.

Did the third dip last night. Found a bunch of eggs on one of the corals but didn't see eggs on any of the others. I removed as many as I could and then covered the rest with super glue. I thought it was a bit strange to see eggs at this time. It probably means I need to schedule at least 3-4 more dips.

The good news is that I have a better system now. It still takes about 1.5hrs from start to finish but during that time I'm able to do a water change in the main display and the frag tank.

I've lost 2-3 pieces so far and I expect to lose others but it's better than watching them slowly wither away.
 
Did the third dip last night. Found a bunch of eggs on one of the corals but didn't see eggs on any of the others. I removed as many as I could and then covered the rest with super glue. I thought it was a bit strange to see eggs at this time. It probably means I need to schedule at least 3-4 more dips.

The good news is that I have a better system now. It still takes about 1.5hrs from start to finish but during that time I'm able to do a water change in the main display and the frag tank.

I've lost 2-3 pieces so far and I expect to lose others but it's better than watching them slowly wither away.

Eric, that is strange to find eggs at this point. Either they were there from the first dip and you didnt notice them or one or more survived a dip or two and have laid eggs.

Either way, if you have a routine in place then I'd dip for another 6 dips minimum. I would also spend a bit longer on the inspection time with a good magnifying lens and bright torch.

Good luck.
 
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