60 Gal Reef - My first foray into salt

Wow. That is a beautiful fish. Very nice!

Nice looking fish man! I must concede, salt water tanks have such a greater variety and diverse coloration in options of fish to keep... too bad my wife would kill me if i decided to flip my Sh.. into salt lol

All kidding aside I really love my AC's, despite my M Lab killing my F Peacock the other night :/ The F Lab is holding again, so it wasn't a random occurence that both her holding and peacock turning up dead the same night... I have to admit this is better than Days of our lives!!

Awesome wrasse!

Hey guys and gals....I've got a quick question. Got word today that canopy is almost ready for painting.

Any thoughts on how to finish the inside? Should I varnish it real well? Would it be better to paint it? If so, would white be the best color?

Just trying to get an idea what would be the best what to protect the wood.

Thanks for any input you might have.

I'd go with white. As fad as finishing it I absolutely would.... but I honestly don't know exactly what is best.

The absolute best and only way to finish the inside of the canopy is with two part epoxy white, it cost a little but you will be glad in the long run. When I built my 110 hood years ago I used epoxy and it has lasted forever, you can wash it and if it gets bad you can bleach it. The epoxy is the only way to go my friend. Be sure you get two part, Sherwinn Williams has it as does Lowes.

Could you do that to the inside of the sump area as well? Or the outside if you happened to decide to paint it white...

Yuma wrote:My McCosker's finally came in. Special thanks to Jennifer at Petco for sticking with it.

Here's a pic...it's not a very good one as it's still being pretty shy.

okay i gotta weakness for pretty fish like this.... thats really sweet! how big is it?

The wrasse is probably 2.5 inches or so, maybe 3. Really doing well...great little fish..very inquisitive, but quick to dart and hide when it gets spooked. Eating like a horse.

Decided on the 2-part epoxy paint last weekend for the canopy. Should be drying as we speak. May have it by this weekend. We shall see. Skimmer finally fixed and back in the tank. It's doing fantastic and is SUPER quiet.

Took some new pics tonight so thought I'd share.

Here's a new pic of the wrasse now that he's well fed and unstressed: (didn't manage to catch him "flashing" but still a beautiful fish.)


And a quick full tank shot.

Well, tragedy struck this weekend. As some of you know, about 4 weeks ago, my wrasse came down with a horrible case of Ich. Thankfully he was still in my biocube and hadn't been moved to the display tank. Since I have a bunch of corals in my Biocube, pending my light upgrade, I wasn't going to be able to treat him in the Biocube, so I setup a quick 12 gallon hospital tank. (thanks Jason!!)

Well, 3 weeks at hypo (daily water changes, etc.), and out of nowhere I have a HUGE nitrite spike, which means I had a HUGE ammonia spike in the days prior. The wrasse never recovered and he ended up DOA on Sunday morning. Sucks that I had put so much time in getting him better only to have him end up like that, but I guess there's nothing I can do about it now. I've learned a LOT about ich and hyposalinity treatment for the future, so I can take that away from the experience.

On a brighter note, week before last I bought a couple of corals from Dustin. For your viewing pleasure, here are a couple of pics.

Some Icy Blue zoas (not really a great picture)


Red/Green war coral favia

Nice corals! If you get tired of that war coral I'm sure I can find a nice spot for it.

Went to Dallas North Aquarium this weekend. All that I can really say is wow. Felt like the prices were a touch high, but they had some really really nice things. I'll try to post some pics I took this evening, but here's a teaser of a really nice Elegance they had.



Also picked up two Evolution 14K LED fixtures this weekend. Hope to get them on my tank later this week.

Congrats on getting the LEDs bud. That's a sweet elegance... I'll have to add that store to my list for a future dallas fish store extravaganza. ;-)