Mid-century 25g IM lagoon. Appx 14 months old

[Blondie Fragz]

Two years ago I fell in love with the IM 25 lagoon. I bought every piece of equipment imaginable. Then it all sat in the corner for the next 23 months. Last weekend I finally started.

I intend on being SPS heavy. The only known stock for now is a mean as hell black and white clown and CUC. The equipment list is simple, now. I think it's down to essential equipment.

25 gal IM
Reefbreeders Photon V2 24
*Factory mounting legs are ugly as sin. I have aluminum 2020 T-Slot on the way for the mount.
Santa Monica Filtration drop-in algae scrubber.
RB RP-m wave maker
RB prism ATO (I have been running one for 3 years and no malfunctions yet)
Cobalt 75 and 50 watt stealth heaters on an Inkbird ITC-308 wifi.
Sticking with the stock DC return pump for now.

After about 2 hours in the carport with the table saw, a sheet of 3/4 baltic birch plywood, a 6" dado bit set, and a little Titebond II later I ended up with a cabinet carcass. This shot is pre-glue while I was deciding How wide I wanted this cabinet to be. Good thing I waited to glue up. The final assembly is 2.75 inches narrower than pictured here.

I brought it in to figure out some of the design ideas. Drawer size and placement, power management, as well as placement in the room.

Design settled, it's time to mount the door and drawer face. I settled on a narrow kerf all cut from a single sheet so that I can match the grains on the drawer and door faces.

With some spacing shims between the faces.

The rough assembly is completed. I will now disassemble anything not glued for final sanding, finishing with boiled Linseed oil then after 2 week cure I will give it a couple coats of general finishes oil based satin poly, then fine tuning fit. The plan for all of that is Friday Saturday and Sunday this coming weekend.

Since I I had a little time before bed I decided to play with my scape a bit.

Nice tank build!! Love the setup.

 

[Townes_Van_Camp]

Some updates.



Added a fire shrimp, 5 astreas, two star astreas, and a small piece of acro chosen at LFS because it was nicely healed up. No idea what it's called. It was $20 so I'm sure it doesn't get a fancy name...



Things are happy. I'm seeing the begining of growth on my mind trick, digitata and staghorn. Cyphestrea is in a bit too much light and I may have to move it back to the other tank. I just can't find that right 70-100 par for it in this tank.

I asked my pistol shrimp to come out. He said he's busy being a blue collar bad butt and thinking about getting a tattoo of his lifted F-250. He's stripping his area of shell and rock rubble. So I gave him some shells and rubble from another area, as well as some dry rubble and hermit shells I had in a box. That's his cave. You can't see it. But he stole a 3"x2" piece of monti spongodes that I had just barely glued to a rock, so I could move it later. It's now a cave wall

 

[Townes_Van_Camp]

The test SPS pieces I have sre doing great. I'm getting growth from a staghorn, I put in a big piece of bubblegum digitata, it's laying on its back in the rocks getting a tan. The whole thing has turned lime green with pink polyps. I'll try to photograph it tomorrow night when the lights are on.

All of the fish are doing great.

Pods, rotifers, and phyto should be here from Dinkins this week. I'm expecting a flame hawk and fighting conch relatively soon.

I went ahead and ordered some acro. I've never ordered from eBay but a buddy at work uses this dude exclusively so I gave it a try.

I ordered pieces off of these colonies. When I get my pieces in I'll post some pics and compare them.

I'm gonna take one for the team and see if this guy is a good guy.
He ships fast. I ordered at 330am. I've already been contacted and given a shipping date.

 

[Kevinmj70]

Once it's frozen each cube is a days worth of food. These are the trays, perfect size for small tank folks

Do you use a commercial thawing chamber or DIY? I like your solution and happen to have some of those tiny silicone trays at the bar.

 

[Townes_Van_Camp]

Do you use a commercial thawing chamber or DIY? I like your solution and happen to have some of those tiny silicone trays at the bar.

I do it in a thin glass bowl sitting in a larger glass bowl filled with ice. Then I put a lid on it. Occasionally I stir it.

 

[Townes_Van_Camp]

Excuse the over saturation of blue. But the skin on this bubblegum digitata is pretty slick at the moment. It's laying on its back front and center under 300 par. It's kind of nestled in between some of the rocks.

Nearly the whole skin has turned neon yellow. The circled section was from a fight with a cyphestra. It's begining to grow over the dead section. I honestly thought this piece was toast when I dropped it in the tank.

 

[Townes_Van_Camp]

I rolled the dice on an ebay acropora store. Fairly sizeable order for my budget. After an initial shipping scare the pieces showed up by noon on the correct day. I'm glad too, they had got quite warm. Two pieces couldn't have handled much more time in the bag. I'll get some pictures up over the weekend. But for posterities sake...

Sanjays Leprechauns beard - It's hurting. It was starting to RTN when I opened the bag. After a very quick peroxide dip I decided to acclimate it to my much older tank until it either kicks the bucket or heals and comes back healthy. The RTN has stopped and I have some polyp extension but it lost about 30-40% of its tissue by the time I got it out of the bag. But I think I can save it. I hope so, it was the piece I really wanted most.

The only monti I purchased - really green with blue polyps. No name that I know of. It's not pleased either. But it's a monti and it hasn't shown any signs of necrosis. It's just blah brown. I suspect it will clean up nice.

All the rest are quite happy at the moment. Vivid confetti, pink tip paleta, Miami orchid, Shock tart (acro), and some random mili as an extra. Some of the frags were laughably small and some were... Fair.

Also got my order from @Dinkins Aquatic Gardens. This is how you mom and pop folks. I never have fun buying pods. It's a boring thing to spend money on, but a nessecity. Dinkins made it fun. Like digging the toy out of the cereal box before you eat any of the cereal. Even my wife (who could care less about my tanks) saw the stickers and said, "how fun. I'm taking them." She also stole the pen. I stole it back. For the important part. The phyto is as dark as you can ever ask for, the pods were plentiful, as were the rotifers (I counted them). My tank is pleased.

I kept the big sticker and the magnet. Thanks a lot guys.

 

[Townes_Van_Camp]

Sort of a big update.

Rip gobediah, you were way too young to surf the hard wood floors. (I have a top with 3/8" netting on it, he went through the netting.)

Yesterday, the replacement flame hawk arrived, as did the fighting conch, and pom pom crab. However, the pom poms are both in the 14g with the evil clown. Currently (in the other tank) the pom poms are either making sweet love or fighting. I'm gonna guess fighting.

On the note of evil clowns. Since I moved her out of this setup I was able to pull ALL LPS and softies. Instead of 125 par on the sand with 350 at the tops of the rocks, how does 250 and 425 respectively sound? Sounds like a tank that grows acro on the sand to me.


If Amazon upholds their end of the deal we made, I'll be replacing my reefbreeders RPM with a hygger mini wave pump tonight. The Rpm is a good pump. It's just way too strong for this tank. The hyger is on the other end of the spectrum and I may need another.
*as usual, they failed.


The pods and snails, hopefully the conch joins in the battle, are wrecking GHA right now. It's sucking up all my nitrates. I'm dosing 3ppm a day on top of feeding a half cube.

Tonight or Sunday I'm going to move a magnetic frag rack over and start putting some of the acros in. Pearberry is growing base, staghorn looks like it wants some nitrates. But it's getting fantastic polyp extension and growth as well. It's been growing but not spreading the base.

 

[Townes_Van_Camp]

Thanks to the clown being a bully, she and all of the softies/LPS have been moved back to her tank along with the pom pom crabs.

My lagoon is now 100% SPS. Everything is moved in but getting acclimated. Hopefully in 3-4 weeks I have everything in it's final place before I crank the lights up the last 25%>

Corals so far:
 Montipora
Seasons greetings monti (undata?)
Bubblegum monti digitata
Jedi mind trick monti (undata also?l

Something called an Acid Monti Cap by the dealer. Looks like a standard. Green cap with blue polyps. Maybe the growth edge is coming in a little pink instead of white. We will see.

Acropora
Jf shock tart
Vivid confetti
Pink tip paleta
ORA Miami orchid
Pearberry
A green freebie from dealer

I think I'll fill in the spaces once it settles in with some other SPS. Not sure what yet. Give me some recs.

After 24 hours with the Hygger mini wave pump. It's perfect. Except for the fact that random mode plays with the ATO on an AIO. So I'm using wave/pulse. But it's a great size, super quiet, and has a small footprint. The controllability lacks some. But I am finding out that a lot of features are a waste on a nano due to level fluctuations.

 

[JBKReef]

I’m running a Nuvo 25 and Nuvo 40; would you recommend the Drop from Santa Monica?

 

[Townes_Van_Camp]

I’m running a Nuvo 25 and Nuvo 40; would you recommend the Drop from Santa Monica?

It fits. It works. You still need a skimmer if only for clear water. I feed a cube a day in the 25 to a hawk fish, fire fish and chalk bass. It still strips out all the nutrients so I put it on a 12 our timer so it would leave behind some nitrates and phos

 

[BanZI29]

The stand you build is uber NICE!! do you have the drawing for it or is it all in your head?
I have the same tank, (was my starter) and I wanna set it up again.
also, it kewl you have the same switch pack I have. it works well!!

 

[Townes_Van_Camp]

The stand you build is uber NICE!! do you have the drawing for it or is it all in your head?
I have the same tank, (was my starter) and I wanna set it up again.
also, it kewl you have the same switch pack I have. it works well!

It was all in my head. But in my head was 2+ years of studying mid-century modern credenzas and cabinets.

If you have a table saw, you can build that cabinet carcass extremely quick. If you like I'll throw it in cad and show you where the dados and cuts were made.

 

[Townes_Van_Camp]

I woke up today to see that my thread was bumped. That put me in the mood to pick out a couple more new pieces. So I headed to LFS#1. Closed for the holiday. Headed to LFS#2, they were open. Thank all that is good because LFS #3 is an emergency only. Make sure your Bayer and peroxide are ready kind of place.

I've been wanting a plain old pink/orange monti cap for the back glass of my display. They had a huge grafted one in need of fragging. But no frags.

I ended up with a "Valhalla" some sort of acro who knows. Dark pink with nice long white polyps, looks like there are some other colors needing coaxed out. We will see.

I also bought an ill advised piece. A fair sized piece of hydnophora. I've always wanted one and this time I have a rock in the sand bed for it. LPS? SPS? Meh, I'll let it slide whichever it is. It will be my only LPS of you want to count it that way.

There was also a very swift battle with dinos. Somehow I came out on top in just a couple of weeks. I found a few spots with tiny specs of coraline growing as well. Regardless, my little tank is looking pretty good already. For whatever reason, I am 9 weeks in and this tank has been through diatoms, GHA, and dinos now. No meds, no chems, just holistic husbandry, time, and some bacteria.

Suspect I'm gonna lose my fire fish soon. He has retreated to his cave after a month of free swimming. He's alive. But skipping meals.

 

[Townes_Van_Camp]

If you care or want to know, I put a lot of thought and research into my stand design so it would look right in my mid century modern home. When I started thinking about stocking it I thought it would be a lot of fun to have some of those colorful standbys from a few years back like monti caps, bubblegum digi, staghorn, and mind trick. But I really wanted to get some newer stuff to round out the modern appeal. So I added a Valhalla, pearberry, pink tip, and a few others that are newer acros to me. Pretty much everything is in the tank now. I'm sure I will pick up other pieces from time to time. But I'm mostly set. I still have one spot up high in about 400 par reserved for something extra fuzzy.

A few top downs, something to compare to later.

Mind trick

Staghorn

Don't know, I call a it surfer on acid monti cap.

Bubblegum digitata

Seasons Greetings (undata/sp? If you know and you've made it this far, tell me)

Miami Orchid

Pink tip paleta

Cheap Hydnophora I had a space in the sand for.

2 caps that are getting a home on the back glass as soon as I get around to it.

Not pictured are a JF Shock Tart, pearberry, and a vivid confetti. They look nice just can't get them photographed well.

So far, everything in this tank is doing great. In less than 3 months I've beat the uglies back (inc. dinos), already have coraline algea (meh), also have found a clam hitchhiker (he's small).

I did find a few vermetids the other day, The bumble bees went in today. I think my purple fire fish is better than I thought. He's living out of the back side of the tank, between the rocks and back panel. He stays pretty well hidden. I also put in a order at my favorite LFS for a pink streak wrasse to liven things up a bit. Thought about a McCoskers, but I'm worried my twitch flame hawk will stress him. So pink streak it is.

Got a new sticker for the inside of my stand. I'm gonna go ahead and plug my LFS here. Jacksonville Florida, visit bio-reef if you haven't. These guys always kick so much tail. Super helpful and have been for years. Got a new sticker for inside the stand also.

A pod picture while we are here. This is the second and by far largest population boom since I added them after the initial cycle. I think I'm gonna do amphipods next.

 

[Townes_Van_Camp]

New hitchhiker showing up...

I'll just pluck these guys out and toss them in the trash. Do not want. Just a couple of small colonial feather dusters starting their stupid party.

 

[Townes_Van_Camp]

And one full frontal.
Recommend something for those two places. I'd like something fuzzy and under $100 dollars at the 400 par location. At 325 something encrusting but not a monti.

 

[Townes_Van_Camp]

Added a Kasa timer to my filtration. Ice cap nano K1 skimmer on from 9pm to 9am. At 9am the algea scrubber comes on and runs until 9pm. I've got a bit of GHA and I'm sure I've made it through the uglies. It's time time to make this scrubber earn it's pay. I wanna see that ph up there and I need algea in the scrubber and not on my rocks. I don't have too high of expectations for the scrubber. But we shall see.

Still waiting for the pink streak wrasse. I've decided this is exactly the action my tank is lacking. A twitchy pod and pest hunter will do well.

I also added an IM frozen feeder. I like it. I like it a lot. One cube and my fish can take their time porking out. I have so much less waste versus broadcast feeding.

I also have everythkng in it's final parking spot. I took some par measurements and have 370-410 across the highest rocks. 200 at the substrate. Now I'm gonna start pushing these lights. I have them @ 75%. I was thinking 5% more a month. I've saved a space in the rocks for a crocea clam if I can get to 500 par at that location.

Lots of blue and purple there but I'm getting some great colors out of a Valhalla right now.

Full frontal, Flint says, "huh? Be quiet I'm sleeping"

 

[Barrnone]

Looks like the tank is coming along nicely. Where did you get the single frag holder with a magnet on it? Thoughts on your TBS sand? Any issues other than the whelk?

 

[Townes_Van_Camp]

Looks like the tank is coming along nicely. Where did you get the single frag holder with a magnet on it? Thoughts on your TBS sand? Any issues other than the whelk?

Single frag holders were on ebay. I can't recall the store name. But he was the only one with clear acrylic single holders. The sand has been awesome, insta-reef.



Bad things I've found:

1 whelk

Colonial tube worms



Both were extremely easy to handle.



Good things I've found:

Multiple ceriths of varying size

Red gracilaria



Your hitchhiker mileage may vary.

But if you want a tank to start out fast it certainly does the trick. Of all the money I have spent in the setup, that was the money best spent.