A Calm Blue Ocean - IM Fusion Pro 50 Gallon AIO Lagoon

[TheWB]

I ordered it from Seahorse Savvy. I'd never ordered from there before but they have a really nice selection of gorgonians and I'd seen them mentioned a few times here on R2R. Shipping costs kinda suck when you're ordering just one coral so it was really nice to open the box and find such a nice big healthy one.

Trying out another place I've never ordered from. I ordered 'pods and phyto from Reef Nutrition. I think between the wrasses and the amphipods my copepod population is about zero so hopefully we can get them going again.

Do you find its worth it to keep adding pods and phyto? I‘ve never seen so much as 1 pod the entire time my tank has been up and running and I’ve added them 2-3 times. I think adding phyto actually contributed to my algae problems a while back. I must be doing something wrong. I’d like to have a bunch of pods but it never works out.

 

[Calm Blue Ocean]

Do you find its worth it to keep adding pods and phyto? I‘ve never seen so much as 1 pod the entire time my tank has been up and running and I’ve added them 2-3 times. I think adding phyto actually contributed to my algae problems a while back. I must be doing something wrong. I’d like to have a bunch of pods but it never works out.

My 10g is crawling with them and I've never even added any. I think no wrasses probably helps. I did have a good population in the 50 until I got dinos but I haven't been able to get them reestablished since. Could be my current tank population just won't let me have pods anymore but I figured I'd give it one more shot from a different source. I was worried phyto might have been contributing to my high PO4 numbers but I hope I was wrong lol. I will trust in the skimmer!

 

[jcolliii]

I see my wrasse constantly patrolling the rocks. I see them on the glass a lot too when I look really closely. They could be there, just hard to see. Adding them back just for an additional food source for the fish?

 

[Calm Blue Ocean]

I see my wrasse constantly patrolling the rocks. I see them on the glass a lot too when I look really closely. They could be there, just hard to see. Adding them back just for an additional food source for the fish?

My YWG in particular likes tiny food that moves and is an insanely picky eater. I'm actually a bit worried about her. She's gone on many hunger strikes over the two years I've had her but this time seems worse. Hopefully the pods aren't too little too late.

 

[jcolliii]

Have you tried small frozen? I know frozen food isn't cheap to buy online either - but I had success long ago with a super picky mandarin supplementing pods with Nutrimar ova, and frozen pods. She was less interested in the frozen pods than the little fish eggs - gulped those suckers down with zeal. Sadly, found her behind the tank one day before I went covered top. Also, Petco has a surprising variety of frozen food sometimes as well. You probably know all of this. Anyways, sorry to hear about your fish not doing well.

 

[Calm Blue Ocean]

Have you tried small frozen? I know frozen food isn't cheap to buy online either - but I had success long ago with a super picky mandarin supplementing pods with Nutrimar ova, and frozen pods. She was less interested in the frozen pods than the little fish eggs - gulped those suckers down with zeal. Sadly, found her behind the tank one day before I went covered top. Also, Petco has a surprising variety of frozen food sometimes as well. You probably know all of this. Anyways, sorry to hear about your fish not doing well.

Yup, this is exactly what I did for her. Frozen eggs (Rods Polyp Poppers) worked for a while but it seemed that any particular food would work was always temporary and then it wasn't food anymore. LRS Nano Feast worked for a bit. The biggest success was live baby brine shrimp (and if you ever have a picky eater, these are so easy and cost effective to do).

Unfortunately, and I'll say I knew things had probably gone too far when she abandoned her pistol shrimp last week, we lost Macaroni early this morning. I'm really a bit heartbroken because she was a really cool YWG with a halo of blue on some of her fins and then there was her stumpy little malformed pectoral fin on the one side that always made her swim funny. She just turned two last month. Real bummer.

Now I need to scramble to find a new goby (or preferably a pair) so Doozer doesn't develop any behavioral problems. He already seems more territorial and anxious about anything going past his burrow. I'll be contacting all the quarantined fish vendors today to see what I can find.

On the good news front, the copepods from Reef Nutrition arrived today and even though they were a day late (thanks FedEx) they look amazing with lots of pods in the jar and lots of activity. I'm sure the wrasses will appreciate the addition.

In other news, I had a hermit crab fight in my tank the other day where the bigger crab managed to pull the claws off his smaller tank mate before I got them separated. Mr Crabby No-Claws has been in the acclimation box since and even without claws is doing great and did a good job eating his breakfast this morning. I expect if I can continue to keep him safe he'll molt before long and make a full recovery. New shells should be here Saturday to help curb future aggression.

 

[jcolliii]

Sorry to hear that. Super easy to get attached to these little guys.

 

[Calm Blue Ocean]

Sorry to hear that. Super easy to get attached to these little guys.

For sure. Although 2 years isn't that old for a fish it's still plenty of time to get attached.

I'm pleased to say I've found two vendors with quarantined gobies ready to go (just waiting to see if either has a bonded pair) so if all goes well I should have a new guard dog for the pistol shrimp burrow sometime this week. Hopefully the new fish fits into my little community without issue.

 

[Calm Blue Ocean]

Thought I'd do a quick review of CO2 media. I deplete a cannister in about 2 weeks and have tried 3 different brands so far: Two Little Fishies, IceCap, and BRS. They all have pros and cons.

Two Little Fishies
Pros: Effective, low dust, distinct color change, larger particle size, resealable packaging
Cons: High price

IceCap
Pros: Effective, good color change (not quite as good as TLF), larger particle size, good price
Cons: Dusty, can't reseal the bag

BRS
Pros: Packaged in amounts to fill a single cannister, low dust, inexpensive!
Cons: Not as effective, small particle size (reduces airflow), less color change

Winner - IceCap. The dust is annoying but the stuff works and is more economical than TLF. Color change isn't that big a deal, it's pretty clear just looking at pH logs to know when media needs changing.

Of course I bought two bags of the BRS media. I'll work my way through it but we'll go back to IceCap after this.

 

[Calm Blue Ocean]

I'm having a carbon dosing dilemma.

Recently I finally hit a threshold that seemed to have an effect on my numbers and it was most exciting to see results after making small adjustments over months. I think the right dosage with the stronger skimmer brought success.

And then I also saw the spots of cyano. Like seriously?!

I started cutting back the doses. I had the dose up to 0.6ml and started downward adjustments of 0.1ml each week. We're down to 0.4ml again...and PO4 is up from last week.

Now it could be that I was feeding heavier last week in a last ditched effort to save Macaroni. Or maybe 0.4ml is not enough to keep up with my nutrients. I suppose I'll increase the dosage again. We'll try 0.5ml for a bit. If the cyano reappears I'll back off again.

It's a constant process!

 

[Calm Blue Ocean]

 

[cwerner]

I'm pretty sure that dosing carbon is more efficient at removing nitrates than phosphates. At least that's what I heard. That once every few months or so you may need to dose a small amount of GFO to bring the phosphates back in line with your nitrates, but I could be wrong about that.

 

[Calm Blue Ocean]

I'm pretty sure that dosing carbon is more efficient at removing nitrates than phosphates. At least that's what I heard. That once every few months or so you may need to dose a small amount of GFO to bring the phosphates back in line with your nitrates, but I could be wrong about that.

I'm definitely not an expert, I imagine I'd be pulling out a lot less of my hair if I was. While I believe you are correct, I also think the ratio of nitrates to phosphates effects how it can work. Interesting that so far I've actually found Elimi-NP to have a larger impact on phosphate but then my phosphate has been crazy high (over 1 back in the spring) so maybe not a typical case. Going to nudge the dose back up to 0.6ml today.

 

[RBarth]

How long did it take ur skimmer to calm down? Just set mine up and it's insane with bubbles and I have it about closed off on the bottom. Thanks!

 

[Calm Blue Ocean]

How long did it take ur skimmer to calm down? Just set mine up and it's insane with bubbles and I have it about closed off on the bottom. Thanks!

It was skimming almost right out of the box for me. I started it pretty much closed off and then just kept nudging it up until I had fine bubbles filling up to the white ring and some larger bubbles between the ring and the cup. Now getting it to not sound like someone was driving a dump truck through the house took a bit more time and it still gets noisy sometimes. How deep do you have it in the water? Is it actually overflowing or are you getting microbubbles in the display? I put a course filter sponge between the skimmer and the baffle to help trap any stray bubbles since I did get some issues with microbubbles at feeding time for the first week or so. Odd thing, if I don't shut it off when I change the filter floss in the previous chamber it will go nuts and try to overflow. Any additional thoughts @TheWB ?

 

[TheWB]

It was skimming almost right out of the box for me. I started it pretty much closed off and then just kept nudging it up until I had fine bubbles filling up to the white ring and some larger bubbles between the ring and the cup. Now getting it to not sound like someone was driving a dump truck through the house took a bit more time and it still gets noisy sometimes. How deep do you have it in the water? Is it actually overflowing or are you getting microbubbles in the display? I put a course filter sponge between the skimmer and the baffle to help trap any stray bubbles since I did get some issues with microbubbles at feeding time for the first week or so. Odd thing, if I don't shut it off when I change the filter floss in the previous chamber it will go nuts and try to overflow. Any additional thoughts @TheWB ?

Mine also started producing results very quickly. I didn’t have much of a break in period at all. Like you I could do with the pump being a little quieter but as far as performance goes it’s a beast. I’ve never had any issues with micro bubbles.

 

[RBarth]

How long did it take ur skimmer to calm down? Just set mine up and it's insane with bubbles and I have it about closed off on the bottom. Thanks

 

[RBarth]

It was skimming almost right out of the box for me. I started it pretty much closed off and then just kept nudging it up until I had fine bubbles filling up to the white ring and some larger bubbles between the ring and the cup. Now getting it to not sound like someone was driving a dump truck through the house took a bit more time and it still gets noisy sometimes. How deep do you have it in the water? Is it actually overflowing or are you getting microbubbles in the display? I put a course filter sponge between the skimmer and the baffle to help trap any stray bubbles since I did get some issues with microbubbles at feeding time for the first week or so. Odd thing, if I don't shut it off when I change the filter floss in the previous chamber it will go nuts and try to overflow. Any additional thoughts @TheWB ?

 

[RBarth]

Straight foam. Now...a few things. Tank has been up for only 3 weeks. A lot of epoxy for rock. Took collection cup off and shut off ato. Not overly noisy but decent hum. Also setting this to recirculate but have no media in it.

 

[Calm Blue Ocean]

I've never had anything like that. Very minor bubbles during the first week or so and as I said it will rapidly fill with clear water and overflow if I don't shut it down when I change the filter floss. Could be the epoxy in your tank? I've seen people complain about skimmers going nuts with that stuff. Might have to just let it do it's thing until the chemicals clear out. Carbon in the filter chamber might help the process. That's crazy foam!