Luna Lagoona
Community Member
You're thinking, "ANOTHER 25 LAGOON?!!! . . . Well, Yes! . . . but with a twist. This one is MINE! 
;Cat
I am limited in size due to my current apartment situation etc but I would love to have a larger (but still shallow) tank someday! Once I have my own house maybe.
Originally I was actually looking at a fluval evo 13.5 but I realized I was going to end up with a lot of overhead anyway so I wanted to push it as big as I could without lying too excessively to my landlord! In terms of my pedigree, I had a 20gallon long and a Fluval osaka 360 ( ~70gal reef in the past if interested I can post a link to that tank journal too!)
Note about tankage/stocking: I purchased the tank used and all the original live rock and filter media came with it. The tank left running right up until the night I came to get it, and that had been over 1.5 years so that allowed me to DRASTICALLY speed up my cycle and it was almost instant. I cleaned out the tank etc and did add some dry rock later as things evolved which worked against me. At the time of this post it had only been running for 2 months but in some ways is more mature than that.
Tank Goals:
I wanted to keep a wide variety of corals but honestly, I am somewhat simple only in that I tend to just follow my eye! (I lost the genetic lottery and am partially color blind so what I am drawn to is a little different than most) So far my eye has led me to mostly LPS corals but frankly... I am jamming as much as I can into this little box of water! Like many, I was inspired by the many great 25 lagoons out there and really liked the idea of maximizing the footprint since my limit was more related to water volume. I was also trying to keep things simple originally and was ONLY doing water changes instead of dosing. However, after I lost a really cool torch it turned out that my levels were wayyy wack talking 5.9 alk, salinity 1.020, and unstable temp (likely because of just how many coral I have crammed in here) All this to say now I have to dose
I also just REALLY enjoy coral. Like this might be a given but I wanted a small tank that I could really baby my coral and spot feed and take good pictures. Here's a taste of some of what you might find later on! (Ultimate Dragon soul favia)
In terms of fish stocking, it's really challenging to find critters that I can fit in this little volume but more on that later.
I will also add I'm writing this in retrospect because the tank has actually been setup now for 2 months.
Current front tank shot (March 3rd 2022):
Equipment :
(I will try and keep updated...unless edits lock later)
Tank - Innovative Marine 25 Gallon Lagoon
Stand - Not sure of the model as I got it 2nd hand but it is meant for aquariums and has nearly the same footprint as my tank.
Skimmer - IM Nuvo Skim DC skimmer
Lighting - Kessil A360x + 35 Degree reflector + wifi dongle (Originally lit with AI prime 16 HD)
Heater - H2Pro Titanium Heater + controller 200w (Originally cheaper aqueon glass heater)
Return Nozzles - Vivid Creative Aquatics Random Flow Nozzles
Return pumps - 2 undersized 80gph Eheim 300 pumps (plan to upgrade soon)
Wavemaker(s) - IceCap Gyre 2k (previously Nero 3)
ATO - A smart water bottle filled with RODI jammed upsidedown... Seriously though plan to add mechanical ATO in the future.
Dosing Pumps -None (All by hand)
Stock mesh lid (modified by the previous owner)
Salt - Aquaforest Reef Salt (1.025 /35 ppm)
Sand - Aquaforest bio sand
Measurements:
Salifert Calcium test kit
Aquaforest Magnesium test kit
Red Sea Marine care multitest Kit
Hannah ALK checker
Seachem Ammonia alert monitor
Filtration:
(Mirrored on both sides)
Filter floss ---> Chemipure elite (not sure if long term use will continue) ---> Activated carbon (small amount) ---> Aquaforest Bio fil (ceramic media for surface area)
Below you will be able to see what my current parameters are as well as if I can get the graphs working see historical trends for how things are going!
Live Updated Parameters Log:
Dosing:
Red Sea Coraline Gro - ALK (This is what I am using to maintain my ALK and there is also iron and some other fun things in there too!!)
Redsea Reef energy AB+ - Coral Nutrition /trace elements broadcast (occasionally / every other day and less than recommended, It's mostly just fun for me but I do see benefits! )
Polyp Labs Reef Roids - Target feeding only usually Once a week
Aquaforest Magnesium
Aquaforest Calcium
Fish List (March 24th 2022):
2 x Baby designer clowns (locally raised)
High fin dartfish
Jeweled/ Lawnmower Blenny
Below I will post some pictures from the setup process. (I promise there will be better pictures later! Right now I just want to get this started!)
I got all of the below for a great price used as a tank tear down
There was SOOO Much cleaning.
Featuring one of my dad's paintings in the background haha!
The stand was too low, so I later got 2x6's and built it up higher and you can see why I really wanted to go with one of the pennisula style tanks originally! I wanted it to be something you looked through the living room into the kitchen as a room divider... Local supply dictated the lagoon was what was available and overall I am glad I went with this. (even if it doesn't look the best when you are actually IN the kitchen.
Finally I got it loaded up with some water and an initial aquascape! This was (and even in my current probably is) WAYYY too much rock for such a little tank!
I was constantly stressing about the aquascape and later on when I eventually got livestock (beyond the hitchhikers and snails that showed up with my inital live rock) I developed a habit of pannicking and redoing my aquascape as I tried to accilmate new stuff and SOOOO much stress/anxiety.
As yes the infamous pink dog vomit rock phase.... believe me when I say that while I paid live rock prices to ADD these as extra live rock... They are solid filled so offer little extra surface area for bacteria, and they also just look horrible imo. This picture is being way too kind to it. But you can see rescape 1.0
I found a couple locally bred BABY (the size of my pinky fingernail) designer clown fish and decided to add them and a few coral after my levels were showing stable for a few weeks. A this point I was going by the assumption that I had instant cycled my tank. I of course rescaped again... and added the nero 3
So began the phase where my aquascape became a giant crab....
I don't know why I thought this was a good idea.
I added more coral over time but it always bothered me.
I started trying to build my own negative space aquascape elements out of fragments of my other (now dry) live rock I got with the tank tear down bundle. The big flat rock that made up the crab body especially HAD to go.
Bonus shout out to my ATO hack when I had to go away for a funeral. If anyone has an IM25 Lagoon smart waterbottles really do work! (My apartment has an air exchanger and things evaporate WAYYY too quickly from the little all in one chambers.
After picking up another big haul of coral I decided that I couldn't take the "Crab" any more and did another panicked late night aquascape.
There's so much more I can say but I will break the rest up over some other posts. It's already 3am haha. I will leave you with this picture again for completeness sake! (I also promise to upload some of the pictures I took with my DSLR later instead of these cellphone pics!)
;CatI am limited in size due to my current apartment situation etc but I would love to have a larger (but still shallow) tank someday! Once I have my own house maybe.
Originally I was actually looking at a fluval evo 13.5 but I realized I was going to end up with a lot of overhead anyway so I wanted to push it as big as I could without lying too excessively to my landlord!
In terms of my pedigree, I had a 20gallon long and a Fluval osaka 360 ( ~70gal reef in the past if interested I can post a link to that tank journal too!)Note about tankage/stocking: I purchased the tank used and all the original live rock and filter media came with it. The tank left running right up until the night I came to get it, and that had been over 1.5 years so that allowed me to DRASTICALLY speed up my cycle and it was almost instant. I cleaned out the tank etc and did add some dry rock later as things evolved which worked against me. At the time of this post it had only been running for 2 months but in some ways is more mature than that.
Tank Goals:
I wanted to keep a wide variety of corals but honestly, I am somewhat simple only in that I tend to just follow my eye! (I lost the genetic lottery and am partially color blind so what I am drawn to is a little different than most) So far my eye has led me to mostly LPS corals but frankly... I am jamming as much as I can into this little box of water! Like many, I was inspired by the many great 25 lagoons out there and really liked the idea of maximizing the footprint since my limit was more related to water volume. I was also trying to keep things simple originally and was ONLY doing water changes instead of dosing. However, after I lost a really cool torch it turned out that my levels were wayyy wack talking 5.9 alk, salinity 1.020, and unstable temp
(likely because of just how many coral I have crammed in here) All this to say now I have to dose I also just REALLY enjoy coral. Like this might be a given but I wanted a small tank that I could really baby my coral and spot feed and take good pictures. Here's a taste of some of what you might find later on! (Ultimate Dragon soul favia)
In terms of fish stocking, it's really challenging to find critters that I can fit in this little volume but more on that later.
I will also add I'm writing this in retrospect because the tank has actually been setup now for 2 months.
Current front tank shot (March 3rd 2022):
Equipment :
(I will try and keep updated...unless edits lock later)
Tank - Innovative Marine 25 Gallon Lagoon
Stand - Not sure of the model as I got it 2nd hand but it is meant for aquariums and has nearly the same footprint as my tank.
Skimmer - IM Nuvo Skim DC skimmer
Lighting - Kessil A360x + 35 Degree reflector + wifi dongle (Originally lit with AI prime 16 HD)
Heater - H2Pro Titanium Heater + controller 200w (Originally cheaper aqueon glass heater)
Return Nozzles - Vivid Creative Aquatics Random Flow Nozzles
Return pumps - 2 undersized 80gph Eheim 300 pumps
(plan to upgrade soon)Wavemaker(s) - IceCap Gyre 2k (previously Nero 3)
ATO - A smart water bottle filled with RODI jammed upsidedown... Seriously though plan to add mechanical ATO in the future.
Dosing Pumps -None (All by hand)
Stock mesh lid (modified by the previous owner)
Salt - Aquaforest Reef Salt (1.025 /35 ppm)
Sand - Aquaforest bio sand
Measurements:
Salifert Calcium test kit
Aquaforest Magnesium test kit
Red Sea Marine care multitest Kit
Hannah ALK checker
Seachem Ammonia alert monitor
Filtration:
(Mirrored on both sides)
Filter floss ---> Chemipure elite (not sure if long term use will continue) ---> Activated carbon (small amount) ---> Aquaforest Bio fil (ceramic media for surface area)
Below you will be able to see what my current parameters are as well as if I can get the graphs working see historical trends for how things are going!
Live Updated Parameters Log:
Dosing:
Red Sea Coraline Gro - ALK (This is what I am using to maintain my ALK and there is also iron and some other fun things in there too!!)
Redsea Reef energy AB+ - Coral Nutrition /trace elements broadcast (occasionally / every other day and less than recommended, It's mostly just fun for me but I do see benefits!
)Polyp Labs Reef Roids - Target feeding only usually Once a week
Aquaforest Magnesium
Aquaforest Calcium
Fish List (March 24th 2022):
2 x Baby designer clowns (locally raised)
High fin dartfish
Jeweled/ Lawnmower Blenny
Below I will post some pictures from the setup process. (I promise there will be better pictures later! Right now I just want to get this started!)
I got all of the below for a great price used as a tank tear down
There was SOOO Much cleaning.
Featuring one of my dad's paintings in the background haha!
The stand was too low, so I later got 2x6's and built it up higher and you can see why I really wanted to go with one of the pennisula style tanks originally! I wanted it to be something you looked through the living room into the kitchen as a room divider... Local supply dictated the lagoon was what was available and overall I am glad I went with this. (even if it doesn't look the best when you are actually IN the kitchen.
Finally I got it loaded up with some water and an initial aquascape! This was (and even in my current probably is) WAYYY too much rock for such a little tank!
I was constantly stressing about the aquascape and later on when I eventually got livestock (beyond the hitchhikers and snails that showed up with my inital live rock
) I developed a habit of pannicking and redoing my aquascape as I tried to accilmate new stuff and SOOOO much stress/anxiety.As yes the infamous pink dog vomit rock phase.... believe me when I say that while I paid live rock prices to ADD these as extra live rock... They are solid filled so offer little extra surface area for bacteria, and they also just look horrible imo. This picture is being way too kind to it. But you can see rescape 1.0
I found a couple locally bred BABY (the size of my pinky fingernail) designer clown fish and decided to add them and a few coral after my levels were showing stable for a few weeks. A this point I was going by the assumption that I had instant cycled my tank. I of course rescaped again... and added the nero 3
So began the phase where my aquascape became a giant crab....
I don't know why I thought this was a good idea.
I added more coral over time but it always bothered me.
I started trying to build my own negative space aquascape elements out of fragments of my other (now dry) live rock I got with the tank tear down bundle. The big flat rock that made up the crab body especially HAD to go.
Bonus shout out to my ATO hack when I had to go away for a funeral. If anyone has an IM25 Lagoon smart waterbottles really do work! (My apartment has an air exchanger and things evaporate WAYYY too quickly from the little all in one chambers.
After picking up another big haul of coral I decided that I couldn't take the "Crab" any more and did another panicked late night aquascape.
There's so much more I can say but I will break the rest up over some other posts. It's already 3am haha. I will leave you with this picture again for completeness sake! (I also promise to upload some of the pictures I took with my DSLR later instead of these cellphone pics!)
Last edited:
