MDR's 25 Lagoon

[mdrieder]

I know I kind of missed the boat on the setup but while its still in its infancy I figured I'd start documenting the progression of my 25 lagoon. The tank has currently been housing fish and inverts for only a month and is enjoying its ugly phase. Here's where its at so far

Livestock:
2 clowns
2 Trochus snails
1 fighting conch
1 elegance coral
1 purple stylophora frag
1 green pocillopora frag
1 Duncan frag
1 Captain Jerk frag
1 small Scoly
1 Hammer Frag
1 Rock flower Nem

Equipment
Hydra 32
IM skimmer (newest version)
Neo-Therm 100w heater
IM media caddies x2
Mighty-Jet 326 return pump (stock)
PhosBan 150 reactor (with C02 scrubbing media) added 5/8/21

Substrate
Carib-sea Tonga dry live rock (20lb)
Carib-sea Fiji Pink sand (20lbs)


As of today here is the tank



Parameters:
Temp: 78
PH: 7.8
Nitrate: 10
Phosphate: .04
Salinity 1.026
Alkalinity 8.9

 

[Patientman]

Looking good … like the aquascaping!

 

[mdrieder]

Looking good … like the aquascaping!

Thanks, Unfortunately It may become a problem with all the coral I'm planning to have but for now, while its pretty much empty, it makes me happy.

 

[Townes_Van_Camp]

Nice tank. Where do you fit that heater? I’m putting two 75 watt neotherms in my 25 lagoon. Second chamber is the only place deep enough for those, and it’s close.

 

[mdrieder]

Nice tank. Where do you fit that heater? I’m putting two 75 watt neotherms in my 25 lagoon. Second chamber is the only place deep enough for those, and it’s close.

I have the 100w in second chamber and it breaches the water more than manufacture recommends, however I can tell you from experience it has not been a problem and its actually quite nice to easily read and interact with the display. You can also opt for two 50w heaters which would easily fit in the chambers fully submerged. The 75W is the same dimensions as the 100W I believe.

 

[Townes_Van_Camp]

The 75 watt is 7 3/4. I have one in my closet that I measured. That’s the exact depth of the 2nd chamber. With flow it keeps it completely submerged.

 

[mdrieder]

My Bad, its the 75 and 50 watt that have the same size... yeah those bad boys will fit no problem!

 

[mdrieder]

Checked the parameters today:
Temp: 78
PH: 7.8
Nitrate: 4
Phosphate: .02
Salinity 1.026
Alkalinity 8.9

Good:
Diatoms are starting to recede already, so I'm gearing up for the next stage of the ugly phase. Nutrients are trending downward so I'm going to up the feeding a bit. Scoly keeps getting bigger, I've heard their supper slow growers so I supposed it was just really unhappy when I got it. SPS corals are growing like mad and everything has excellent poly extension.

Meh:
Captain Jerk Paly has gone from 1 large head and 3 small to overgrowing the frag plug. Coloration is still garbage compared to when I bought it however. Not sure what's going on there but I'm probably gonna give it away.

Bad:
Elegance coral vomited and closed up hard the other day, tried to not overact but a few hours later I saw my scoly closed up as well. Turned down my Hydra light down a bit and turned acclimation mode off. I guess it was just getting to bright for them since after that everything is happy again.

 

[mdrieder]

Here's some pics

 

[mdrieder]

Nothing kicks off a fresh build quite like Dino's
Picture doesn't show it well but the tank is very cloudy (cloudy brown) filled a white bucket up to show it better

 

[saltyboxedreef]

Nice it’s good to see that the lagoon is still pretty popular. Definitely fills up quick with some fast going coral !!!

 

[mdrieder]

Plan of attach for Dinos (Amphidinium): Week One
Raise temp to 84
Raise nutrient to Nitrate 10 and Phos .05 currently at 0:0 thanks to Dinos
Does Microbacter7

 

[Lokipsl]

The scape looks great! I set up a 25 lagoon about a month ago too, so far so good. How do you like the skimmer?

 

[mdrieder]

@Lokipsl so far the skimmer has been a big hit, very quite and pretty consistent

 

[mdrieder]

The Dinos Were pretty much on every surface and showed no signs of slowing down, so on Friday I turned off the light and covered the aquarium with a towel. The Blackout ended last night and 99% of the Dinos are gone and water has cleared up. Though the Dinos are probably going to come back its a much less catering environment with the elevated temps and elevated nutrients. Tisbee pods also seemed to populate quite a bit during this time, they are crawling all over the front glass. My smaller clown fish, sadly, disappeared. The aquarium had its net top on during the blackout so I'm not sure what happened. I have a hard time believing the 4 snails were able to eat him already but I cannot find a body.

 

[happyhourhero]

Looks great. Dinos suck bad. I replaced mine with some cyano lol. My were ostreopsis tho. Will follow along on your journey

 

[Lokipsl]

@Lokipsl so far the skimmer has been a big hit, very quite and pretty consistent

That’s good to know, I have been considering the icecap k1 nano or the nuvo skim

 

[mdrieder]

Update on Dino Battle:
Its nearly been a whole week since the three day blackout, I've been dosing micro-bacter 7 (5ml) every evening I'm home (mon-fri). Doing my best to keep nutrients high but the micro-bacter seems to remove them quite fast even with neo-phos and neo-nitro dosing. Waiting on more Hana reagent to arrive so I'm currently flying blind (till Wednesday). All that being said Dino is making a very small come-back. After almost a whole week its populated some of the sand bed and some rock surfaces but unlike the first time around its growing slowly and very manageable. Even where it does populate the sand bed its only the surface and when I syphoned some of the sand the other night it was almost clear, as opposed to the brown water I posted a little while back. I still have Dino but for one week of action I think most people would agree this is what success looks like.

Changes to the plan:
I also reduced the photoperiod by two hours since the blackout
I just added today a C02 scrubber to increase the pH (not specifically for the dinos but it may help)
Ordered sponge excel just incase I wanna take another route.

 

[mdrieder]

Tank Update:
Dino's making no serious moves
No visible algae but snails have substantial GHA on their shells, leading me to believe they are keeping the tank free of algae during the elevated nutrient levels (picture attached).
Water is almost clear (only looks slightly cloudy when looking through the tank length-wise
C02 scrubber has fixed low pH issue.
Parameters (5/10/21)
Temp: 82
pH: 8.4 (+.6)
N03: 10 ppm
Phos: .05
Sal: 1.026
Alk: 8.9