an unthinkable 120G Reef

Jon Fishman · Oct 29, 2019

What kind of wrasse is that? I saw a "rainbow" wrasse (may not be the proper name) at a local shop..... simply stunning, very affordable..... just cool fish. Sadly I can't have one.

TexAgReefer · Oct 29, 2019

Beautiful fish (Lineatus Fairy Wrasse?)!

That male Lyretail has awesome color as well!

Unthinkable · Oct 29, 2019

Jon Fishman said:
What kind of wrasse is that? I saw a "rainbow" wrasse (may not be the proper name) at a local shop..... simply stunning, very affordable..... just cool fish. Sadly I can't have one.

It's a Lineatus fairy wrasse (Cirrhilabrus lineatus).

My stock plan has changed a bit, but here's where I'm at:
current fish:
Solon Wrasse
Royal Gramma
Flame Wrasse
3 Lyretail Anthias (1 Male 2 female)
Orange spot shrimp goby
Lineatus Fairy Wrasse
future fish:
Yellow Tang
Kole Tang
Melanurus Wrasse

We will see how the bioload is with 11 fish, these are potential late adds:
some sort of designer clown pair
maybe a leopard wrasse

Unthinkable · Nov 7, 2019

I added some diffuses to my XR15s and boy what a difference! No disco ball on the sand and looking directly at the lights is not nearly as harsh.

I did a water change Saturday and have reduced feeding to 2x a day and lowered intensity to help combat the diatom bloom. I can see a pretty big difference already. I also cut back some chaeto. When I say some I mean an entire 5g bucket!

Unthinkable · Nov 7, 2019

Sad news, I lost a Lineatus to what looked like a swim bladder infection. He started swimming oddly/floating last Thursday. and I placed him in QT with some antibiotics but he didn't make it through the weekend. I do have a new Lineatus in QT now, slowly increasing copper level and should be therapeutic today. He's a bold fish already, I'm hopeful he stays healthy!

Unthinkable · Nov 8, 2019

Here’s a short vid of Mr. Lineatus in QT. He’s definitely camera shy. Wifey thinks we lost the first fish because he wasn't properly named.

So I present Broseiden, king of the Brocean. the tank is now called the Brocean because we can predict most of the fish will be male ;Hilarious

Unthinkable · Nov 13, 2019

diatoms have cooled down, I see a few green patches on the rock which looks like the start of coralline algae!

Mr. Broseiden the lineatus is doing well in QT, were on day 10 of copper. He’s quite camera shy.

my flame wrasse has become a bit more agressive. I believe she is transitioning or has transitioned to male. She started as a red color and is changing to a yellow/orange color, and her fins went from completely translucent to pink/red color. here is some flashing along with my Solon wrasse and anthias

Unthinkable · Dec 4, 2019

Well, nearly 4 months in and Murphy's law in full swing:

Nov 8th: ICH! DT had ich from what I suspect was adding a Torch coral frag. It was the only thing new I've added to the system. I captured all my fish by removing almost every piece of live rock... quite the task but I caught everyone successfully and started treating with Copper power. I started at 1 ppm and slowly upped to 1.5 ppm. then to 1.8 ppm. Lesson learned... I am now going to QT all coral for the full 76 days. Ich seems to be cured on all the fish, its been almost 4 weeks in copper at this point.

Nov 24th: Solon wrasse found a small space where the heater goes through the glass top and jumped out. lesson learned, bought a full hood.

Yesterday: I see 2 small aptaisia hidden in between my utter chaos zoas. The zoas are on 2 small squares glued to the plug and the 2 aptaisia are nestled perfectly under the square rubble. They have been hidden under the zoas for a couple weeks now. I will pull out the plug and super glue them shut, hopefully i get them before they had a chance to multiply. I also see a couple Bubble algae spots on my LR, I pulled them out carefully, but i'm sure there are more to come...

Today after work... I went to feed the QT and my Lineatus and Flame Wrasse were both dead. everyone else is ok, but I did a 15 gallon water change just in case the ammonia levels spiked from the deaths. I also added some turbo start to boost the bacteria.

survivors:
Royal Gramma
Orange spotted Goby
3 Lyretail anthias

I double checked my parameters:

salinity: 1.021
ammonia: 0 (ammonia badge, red sea and API to triple check)
Nitrite: 0 (Red sea)
Nitrate 5-10 (Red sea)
PH 8 (Red Sea)
temp 77-79F (inkbird and sticker temp)
Copper: 1.8 (Hanna checker) all though I didn't add any back with the 15gallon water change just to make sure the living fish are ok. It's been almost 30 days of therapeutic levels, I'm going to leave the copper out for now until I know my remaining fish are safe.

I'm not quitting, but it's really disheartening to see $500 die in a week after they have been so healthy. I now fully understand the "Pain in my Wrasse" posts...

I'm not buying any livestock until at least January, and Fish won't be back in the DT until Feb.

I do have some positives: My corals are thriving, I'm getting new heads of all my zoas, my Frogspawn has 3 tiny little heads growing, and my LR is the greenish color with a few spots of purple/pink coralline forming! my copepods are growing like crazy with the absence of fish, they are all over all the rocks, the sand and the glass.

Unthinkable · Feb 5, 2020

My DT has fish again! Man, what a painful experience. I lost 4/8 fish during QT and fallow period (of course it was all the most expensive fish).

The one positive is i feel much more confident in my QT method and maint when QTing fish. I know how to dose my QT tank and how to properly maintain copper levels. Nothing is going in my tank without a QT. Copper power is my savior and general cure has been working wonders. Anyway let’s move past 2019 and focus on an epic 2020!

Current fish:
2x lyretail anthias
Kole tang
Yellow tang
Orange spotted goby

Next fish plans:
Royal gramma
Designer Clown pair of some sort (leaning toward black ice)
Solon wrasse
Naoko wrasse
Rhomboid wrasse

I actually purchased a rhomboid and naoko wrasse from ocean devotion LA. Fully QTd fish for a great price, hopefully I’ll have them in my tank by end of March.

Unthinkable · Mar 3, 2020

Tank update time: Everything is going great! All animals are looking good and eating like pigs. Corals are growing and looking good! my Sunkist bounce has split into two! first pic was taken on 2/5 2nd on 3/1

Naoko Wrasse and Rhomboid come Friday! here are some sneak peak pics from Ocean Devotion. I'm so excited!

I also upped my water change station game by plumbing my 55G drums together for easier water changes. I thought I took pics but can't find them, I'll have to add them later tonight.

My local club SLASH has a frag swap this Saturday so this will be my first Reef event. I'm excited and hope I can score some cool stuff. I'm hoping to add some coral in the next few months to fill out the empty rock work in my tank! stay tuned!

TexAgReefer · Mar 3, 2020

Unthinkable said:
Tank update time: Everything is going great! All animals are looking good and eating like pigs. Corals are growing and looking good! my Sunkist bounce has split into two! first pic was taken on 2/5 2nd on 3/1

Naoko Wrasse and Rhomboid come Friday! here are some sneak peak pics from Ocean Devotion. I'm so excited!

I also upped my water change station game by plumbing my 55G drums together for easier water changes. I thought I took pics but can't find them, I'll have to add them later tonight.

My local club SLASH has a frag swap this Saturday so this will be my first Reef event. I'm excited and hope I can score some cool stuff. I'm hoping to add some coral in the next few months to fill out the empty rock work in my tank! stay tuned!

Nice! Best of luck with your wrasses!! Hated to see the losses of some AWESOME (and expensive) fish!

Unthinkable · Mar 3, 2020

Here is my water changing station. 2 55g barrels allow quick mixing and water changes. My sump is about 6’ away. I usually turn off the main return pump and empty/clean my sump. It ends up being somewhere around 25-30 gallons, so I usually get 2 water changes per barrel.

Unthinkable · Apr 26, 2020

Quarantine day 2033204930 days are getting blurred, last week felt like a month, what better time than to update build thread!!!
here's a quick vid of the tank in current state:

Things have been rolling along, Last time I left I bought some preconditioned/quarantined fish. The Naoko did not make it in shipping, was a little too cold. The Rhomboid made it and is doing well. I also picked up a pair of Snowflake clownfish.

I also picked up a bunch of coral from a local frag swap in march.
my current list:
Rasta zoas - not happy in the vid, suspect something crawled on them
Utter chaos zoas - getting HUGE!
Fire and ice zoaz- fastest growers, can't even see the frag plug and growing on the rock next to it
Vendetta Zoas - a bunch of new heads
Ultron Favia - still acclimating in new spot
OG bounce mushroom - bouncy bounce
Sunkist bounce mushroom - split into 2, moved to center rock
Warpaint Scoly - still trying to find a home
Bleeding Apple Scoly - doing great
Green Torch - grew a 3rd head
Blue/red Acans -newest addition, loving it's current location
Frogspawn - small head growing on top, hard to tell when it's out and puffy
Dragonsoul Torch still trying to find an ideal spot.

Unthinkable · May 14, 2020

I didnt post the vid somehow! here it is.

TexAgReefer · May 15, 2020

Unthinkable said:
I didnt post the vid somehow! here it is.

Love the fish! Big fan of the wrasses and male lyretail!

Unthinkable · Sep 2, 2020

here is a short video of my tank. I added a bunch of corals since My last posting:

random blue/purple acro from my LFS
Splatter hammer
Highlighter hammer
Green slimer
Sector 001 favites
Lemon lime favites
Dragon soul favia
AOI zoas
White zombie zoas
solar flare zoas

Everything seems to be doing good!

My fire and ice zoas are going crazy. Last time I posted they covered the whole frag and were growing on the rock next to the frag. Now the entire rock is engulfed and I have a few zoas dislodge and glued them to a plug.
My utter chaos have also gone bonkers... they are almost engulfing the rastas! In hindsight I should have kept the utter chaos lower.

my Sunkist bounce is also huge. It split and I placed them on the center rock formation. The left mushroom is so big it folded over a boulder And looks to be splitting again.
My OG bounce was getting picked on by an emerald crab but seems to be bouncing back! Pun intended