BaronReef's IM 25 Nuvo Fusion Lagoon Build

[BaronReef]

Completely new to Reef2reef as of this morning and wanted to see how I could do with documenting my IM 25 Lagoon's progress thus far from build to present and also see what advice or thoughts other reefers might have. I'm a very verbose person...sorry in advance.

For a little background, I've been reefing for about 2 and 1/2 years now, and have gone through a Fluval Evo 13.5 gallon (sold), a Biocube 14 (sold), and a RedSea Max Nano (not running, currently stored in closet) prior to bringing up the Lagoon. I got the tank and stand combo and set up the tank back in February 2020 as follows:

~20 lbs Reefsaver dry rock
20 lbs Caribsea AragAlive Special Grade
2x IM media baskets with carbon and GFO packets and their fused cotton ball floss
Salt water from a Aquabuddy RO/DI system with Tropic Marin Pro-Reef salt
Seeded bacteria with Instant Ocean BioSpira and ghost feeding

I kept lights off for about 3 weeks while the tank ran with the stock pump (IM Mighty Jet 326 GPH) and then started migrating corals and fish out of my Fluval Evo (removed all and sold tank) and RedSea Max Nano. My intention was to keep the Max Nano and this Lagoon up and running together, but it became too much to properly maintain, and the Max Nano came down in early July. I'm still dealing with the remnant issues that arose in the Lagoon due to lack of enough attention, but its getting back to a state that I'm happy with and I've been adding more corals over the past month now.

So in the first post, I'll just share the initial tank photo as well as one with the light and skimmer installed after a week (but kept off for those 3 weeks).

The light is a RedSea ReefLED 90 with the mounting arm, and the skimmer is the IM Desktop Nuvoskim.

 

[BaronReef]

So the fish that went into the tank were a pair of Clowns and an Exquisite Firefish. Corals that initially went in were a mix of hammers, torches, zoos, a couple encrusting corals, a Duncan colony, and a couple large LPS in the sand. Hermits and Trochus/Astreas were moved in as well.

Everything acclimated ok. During the time between tank start and May 2020, I had done the following to the tank:

Removed the RedSea ReefLED 90 and replaced with an AI Prime HD (more on that later)
Added a Tunze Osmolator Nano and the IM 5 gallon ATO reservoir
Started dosing All4Reef and AcroPower
Added the IM Desktop UV sterilizer
Added a Jebao PP-4 Wavemaker
(Forgot to mention I have a Cobalt NeoTherm 100W heating my tank since it started)

So the RedSea ReefLED 90...I loved the light it produced, hated the light itself. The app controls for it worked horribly for me (kept losing the light), and there was an irregular high pitched sound it made whether the light was in the middle of its program or the light was out, though it seemed to do this more when the blue was on. Since this tank was in my office, and I had been working from home, I couldn't take it anymore and put the AI Prime HD from my old Fluval on the tank.

I added the UV sterilizer for a couple of reasons. I had some sort of algae that had started in both of my tanks that would disappear when the lights were out (i.e. go into the water column) and then come back as the lights ramped. Wanted to see if the UV could kill that when suspended. It seemed to make no difference. Otherwise, I liked this UV sterilizer because it was an active preventative maintenance tool, it was cheap, and it still allowed for me to have a cut section of filter floss pad for mechanical filtration (it replaced one of the IM media baskets).

This algae problem kept getting worse, and my time for maintenance kept decreasing. I was maybe able to do a 10-12% water change per week and hopefully clean the glass about as often, but didn't really take the time to pay too much attention to the sand. I'll hopefully remember to describe what things I've done differently since that have seemed to mitigate the algae issue.

Tank photo was from May -- sand fairly recently cleaned at that time.

 

[BaronReef]

Fast forward to August, and I had a number of things in the works for the Lagoon.

First off, my Firefish died. Not sure what had happened to cause this -- he either went into his hidey-hole and kicked it, or he somehow jumped through the screen and my dog ate him. Parameters when this happened were as follows:

Temp 78.1 F
Salinity 1.026
pH 8.1
Calcium ~450
NO3 <1
PO4 <0.25 (crappy test kit...)
Alk 8.2

I moved the live rock around a bit to make room for more. I soaked some more reefsaver dry rock in some water removed from a water change (detritus included) for a couple weeks while circulating and heating. Not sure how much it mattered, but I wanted to minimize any shock to the system that could have resulted from adding dead rock to a young tank.

I moved all the corals I had from my Max Nano tank and took that down. This gave me a few more LPS and zoos for the tank. As a result, I now had a second AI Prime HD, so I now had 2 spaced about 8" apart center-to-center and each about 8" from center-to-tank edge. I cut my light program intensity about in half for each of them from what I was running on one, and ramped up a bit from there.

I fragged one of my larger corals - fragged my 2 torches into 6 frags of 2 heads each. I intend to keep two and sell 4. Then I got 4 new small frags of various LPS since I was starting to tackle the algae issue. And...got myself a small Royal Gramma for the tank as well.

With my Max Nano down, I could find the time to up my maintenance game on the Lagoon. I ramped up to 25% water changes weekly, started changing my floss more often, and started using 2 Tbsp BRS Rox carbon and 2 Tbsp Seachem Phosguard in my media rack, changing every 2 weeks or so. I don't have any great pics of that algae on my sand...but I was doing this to get rid of that crud. I never got above my detection limit on my Nitrate or Phosphate test kits, so my thought was the algae was eating it all up. As long as my coral were getting starved for nutrients anyway (but apparently doing ok), I figured I'd work to get rid of all excess nutrients and phosphate to starve the algae too. This, along with doing a better job of siphoning sections of my sand bed with each water change, started to make a dent in the algae.

In conjunction with this, I did start to shut down all the white/red/green in my lights, as the corals didn't "really" need it, I like bluer lights and more phosphorescence, and it is often of frequencies that algae uses. Again, this may have helped.

Yes, I changed a ton of things, almost at once. Not the best idea, but I figured none of these changes should really hurt anything but the algae as long as I monitored the health of everything else in the tank closely. The only thing that was hurt was my tank stability most likely, and I didn't notice anything other than my torch corals seeming a bit more "flat" than normal after a while.

Pic of the tank below is August 17th.

 

[BaronReef]

I lied. I said I didn't have a pic that prominently showed the algae, but I did and I'm including it below. This pic is from August 23rd -- I had added the new rock off to the right and off screen, gotten two zoa frags, and this pic really shows the contrast between having the white/red/green LEDs on in the previous photo and off in this one.

Anyway, that algae was really just showing up as just brown/black spotting across the sand bed. It had been more orange/red in the past and might just be looking different under the change in lighting, or it changed color as a result of the light wavelength change.

Finally, in these historical posts, I wanted to just show one of my favorite corals -- my Duncan colony that my Clowns host in. Started as 1 head about 2 years ago and now has about 15.

Whew, all caught up through August now -- next post will be about the tank's current state and some plans I have for it.

 

[BaronReef]

September 14th update - Aside from adding a couple of new small frags, nothing but business as usual has been done with the tank. I'm still seeing that algae/residue on the sand decreasing, in fact, the FTS posted below is of the tank 3 days after its last maintenance and there isn't much to be seen on the sand. Current tank livestock:

2 x Clownfish
Starry Blenny
Royal Gramma
6(?) hermits - blue and red leg
3 money cowries
5(?) trochus snails
1 turbo snail (but a super lazy one...)
1 porcelain crab

Then there all the corals you see in the FTS -- I'm doing a zoa and LPS tank with a handful of encrusting corals. I'm pretty bad at identifying these things, which is why I'm not listing them. All I'm really careful about is that I don't get anything that needs any super special care, then I just find a coral care sheet for something that is similar and treat it accordingly. Has worked so far, and as nothing is too high demand, even if I place it wrong I hope its unlikely that anything bad would happen. With that said, anyone can feel free to chime in and offer advice/tips about what I have in there and where.

Future coral plans: As mentioned before, I'm planning on getting rid of 4 of my torch frags and keeping just 2. I'll also be getting rid of the neon hammer in the sand, and will be mounting one frag each of my green and purple hammer to the rock near the neon hammer that is already mounted in the upper right of the FTS. In the end, I should just have 2 torch frags in the sand and maybe one small hammer frag.

For my equipment, I have my doser on my reservoir and ATO tank on the bottom shelf and then electrical on the top with controllers on the door -- not too pretty, but good enough.

In the back of my tank from left to right, I have the media rack with filter floss, then the skimmer, then the ATO sensor/fill tube, then my dosing lines over a chamber that has a couple small blocks of MarinePure, then the UV sterilizer with floss on top. I found that after about 4-5 months of UV sterilizer use, the UV tube was coated in an orange residue that was blocking much of the light, so I cleaned that just a few days ago.. Finally, there's a shot of my 2 AI Prime HDs over the tank.

Future equipment plans: I'll be upgrading my pump to the more beefy 538 GPH MightyJet and adding drop lines and VCA Random Flow Nozzles to my outlets. Then I'll be taking my Jebao wave maker out as I'm hoping to have enough randomized flow from the Mightyjets sine wave + the random flow nozzles.

I also recently dug up my RedSea ReefLED 90 and got it all upgraded as I had heard that there have been firmware updates that have made connectivity and perhaps even that high pitched sound I was hearing better. Upon testing, the connectivity and responsiveness of the light with the app seems much better, and while there is a high pitched sound still, its not as loud and is a steady sound instead of random bursts of sound, so it might be tolerable. Not sure if I would want to put that light back on though -- with my 2 AI Primes I likely eliminate more shadowing and have about the same wattage (most of which I won't be needing in either case). Wondering what other reefers thing about having 2 AI Primes vs. one ReefLED 90 over a tank like mine.

Ok, I'm all up to date with this build now. R2R community: Please let me know what you think...offer suggestions...or ask any questions you'd like about my setup. Thanks for reading all of this -- I'll be making periodic updates from this point on most likely.

 

[revhtree]

Wow beautiful job so far!

 

[BaronReef]

Wow beautiful job so far!

Thank you so much!

 

[BaronReef]

Two things to share today: Upgrade time (exciting)! And latest tank parameters(less exciting)!

First the boring part, and really I'm only posting this because I've been bad about doing tank tests and so this was the first time I've tested all the parameters I have kits for in a long time:

Temp: 77.8 F
Specific Gravity: 1.025
pH: 8.0
NO3: 1
PO4: <0.25
Alkalinity: 9.2
Calcium: 433

This is all pretty on target for me -- I'm surprised my current dosing schedule of All4Reef has still been keeping things there (8 mL per day).

Now, upgrade time! The new AI MightyJet 538 GPH DC pump as well as the drop lines and VCA random flow nozzles arrived yesterday and I got them all installed. The pump BARELY fits in the Lagoon sump chamber -- only a few mm on each side to spare. Even at full power though, it doesn't rattle against the sides of the chamber at all, so I'm plenty happy with that.

So with that pump upgrade and the new random flow nozzles, I removed my Jebao PP-4 wave maker, as I'd rather not have to worry about cleaning it, the visual space it takes up, or it chopping my Blenny to bits. He liked to go inside of it when it was off for feeding or maintenance, and I had always managed to make sure he was back out before turning it back on...but felt it was only a matter of time before I forgot and had a very sad day.

Anyway, I love the flow in my tank now, I love that the faster pump has raised the level in my DT by about 1/2 inch (necessitating about 3/4 gallon of saltwater be added), and I love that most of my coral appear to like the flow -- have seen some improved polyp opening on some of my LPS. My Euphiyllia are less happy, depending on where they are placed, though, so I have some rearranging to do in the near future.

Otherwise, enjoy the images! Showing the pump fit in the sump, a FTS to show the higher water level, a short vid of my Clowns hosting in my Duncan colony, and a short vid of full tank to show the flow.

 

[BaronReef]

Update time! A few things since I last posted:

I gave my RedSea ReefLED 90 another shot. I had found that recent firmware updates (and app updates too) seemed to have fixed all connectivity issues. I even ran it for a day off to the side and didn't get the intermittent high pitched whine sound I remember from before. I don't know why I would think that a firmware update would have fixed that though...got it on the tank and after a few days that sound started again. Also, since I had added the drop lines and Random Flow Nozzles having a single point of light caused there to be shadows where I had placed some hammer corals. So given the sound of the light and deciding there was too much shimmer and shading from the single point of light I switched back to my trusty AI Prime 16s.

Speaking of those Hammer corals -- I had fragged and glued some to my rock. One thing I've noticed about the placement is that my neon green hammer now attacks some heads of my Duncan back in the corner...so I'll need to figure out a new arrangement there.

Otherwise I sold some of my many excess torch frags to my LFS for some store credit, and picked up a Bleeding Sour Apple Scoly. Now I think I'll want a War Paint Scoly now as well -- anything higher grade than that is just too rich for my blood.

To celebrate, I've included new full tank shots. First one is the tank under the RedSea ReefLED 90 -- dang that light was nice, too bad it sucked otherwise for me.

Next is another FTS with my AI Primes back on the tank -- I turned up my whites just a hair recently.

Then here's the Scoly close up as well as a few other larger LPS in my tank. Note that these were under the ReefLED as well. Enjoy!

 

[BaronReef]

October update: A few things have happened over the past month or so...

I got 2 Green Clown Gobies for my tank. They are tiny and unfortunately look horrible under blue light. They have been shy, but seem healthy and after a few weeks are finally coming out of hiding to snatch food up. Not sure what they were eating until now.

My IM Desktop Skimmer broke -- the pump just plain stopped. Cleaning it did nothing, and I could not find a replacement pump to fit the skimmer body. I tried a different power supply as well to no avail, so I was sure it was the pump itself that was out. It looks to be a "black box" type brand of pump, which is disappointing for a skimmer that cost $140.

After much research about whether it would fit, I picked up an Eshopps Nano Skimmer for $140 (this has a Sicce pump) and as I had determined, it BARELY fits in the second chamber of the IM Lagoon 25, but it DOES fit. Its quieter, pulls a better skim, and is just plain engineered better than the IM one -- so far, so good. Only negative is a few bubbles get into the display, even after 2 weeks.

To better handle my algae issues, I got a pincushion tuxedo urchin to clean the rock and a Tiger Conch to clean the sand bed. I don't know why I had been trying to get by with Trochus snails and hermits thus far...these two critters clean everything! I can even see where the urchin has eaten down to the rock in many spots. Plus both of these guys are really interesting to watch. I named the Conch "Elephant Face" and the Urchin "Murderball".

Hopefully I'll find time to get some good pics of the new fish, skimmer (in place), and critters so I can post them here soon.