New 25 Gallon lagoon set up 2024
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J A' mhuir
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07/30/24
Moved around the rocks today! I have an idea to add another rock structure but that will take time, providing more places for my Helfrichi to hide. And of course real estate for corals.
The mushroom coral is doing well, it’s tentacles are fully extended…
That’s it for now
Moved around the rocks today! I have an idea to add another rock structure but that will take time, providing more places for my Helfrichi to hide. And of course real estate for corals.
The mushroom coral is doing well, it’s tentacles are fully extended…
That’s it for now
OP
OP
J A' mhuir
Active Member
Happy August, starting month three of the tank start up.
Today I did a thing….
I purchased Calcium and Magnesium testing kits by Red Sea. I am gonna start testing tomorrow.
Because, I purchased two LPS corals from A Reef Creation.
One head of frogspawn, lovely little guy.
A yellow green Favia, which will add a nice pop of color.
I of course dipped them and followed my normal procedure.
I will begin feeding reef-roids. For the corals. Once to twice per week.
Finally, today I built the rock structure out of smashed rock, unused or removed for reasons. Pictures below…. Ima try and hide the putty joints, or let the tank hide them over time… I want to add this after removing the water for the water change….
Among the myriad of benefits for the tank, it will, of course provide more real estate for coral placement.
I am excited to see it all come together finally….
Then I must stop purchasing corals and see if I can not kill the ones I have now lol….
Today I did a thing….
I purchased Calcium and Magnesium testing kits by Red Sea. I am gonna start testing tomorrow.
Because, I purchased two LPS corals from A Reef Creation.
One head of frogspawn, lovely little guy.
A yellow green Favia, which will add a nice pop of color.
I of course dipped them and followed my normal procedure.
I will begin feeding reef-roids. For the corals. Once to twice per week.
Finally, today I built the rock structure out of smashed rock, unused or removed for reasons. Pictures below…. Ima try and hide the putty joints, or let the tank hide them over time… I want to add this after removing the water for the water change….
Among the myriad of benefits for the tank, it will, of course provide more real estate for coral placement.
I am excited to see it all come together finally….
Then I must stop purchasing corals and see if I can not kill the ones I have now lol….
OP
OP
J A' mhuir
Active Member
Back again!! 08/03/24
Water changed 2 gallons….
I removed the “rock tree” and removed the GSP, attached it to the back wall.
Then I added my new structure. And rearranged the rocks… I like it…
My mushroom detached from its rock and I found it in two places over the last few hours…. I don’t know what to do….
I placed my frogspawn and temporarily placed the toadstool.
Will see how they do…. Trying to leave this now to mature and stop changing….
Water changed 2 gallons….
I removed the “rock tree” and removed the GSP, attached it to the back wall.
Then I added my new structure. And rearranged the rocks… I like it…
My mushroom detached from its rock and I found it in two places over the last few hours…. I don’t know what to do….
I placed my frogspawn and temporarily placed the toadstool.
Will see how they do…. Trying to leave this now to mature and stop changing….
OP
OP
J A' mhuir
Active Member
Today, August 12, 2024
I still get confused with what this brown algae actually is. It’s really covering everything. I’m not sure if I need to be worried or not.
Last weekend, August 10, I did a 16% water change. Which went very well.
Yesterday I tested the tank:
Temp: 78°
Alkalinity: 7.89 DKH
Phosphate: 0.07
Nitrate: 0.0 (I’ve been getting consistent, crystal clear nitrate test by Salifert. I’m beginning to think it’s a false negative.)
For calcium and magnesium, I’m just beginning to test for them, probably doing it wrong. I get kind of confused on how to read them. I’m using the magnesium and calcium test kits
Calcium: 480
Magnesium: 1560
Both of which are somewhat high.
I’m not exactly sure where all this LG is coming from or why. And do I need to do anything about it?
The TDS meter reads zero to one on the RO water. I feed maybe a fifth of a cube once a day. Sometimes I throw in some pellets.
Images below of algae outbreak
The GSP has tripled size since I got it I think a little over a month ago.
Finally, growing, the sixth had on the Zoa. it’s doing much better and it’s new placement closer to the bottom of the tank.
I’m considering renting or purchasing a par meter. Which will be indispensable.
The frog spawn bases still brown, but it seems to be doing OK otherwise…. The Fish are doing really well.
The helfrichi has stayed in the display tank ever since I got the guards for the weirs. The only about the guards is that they restrict the flow slightly so I’m getting a film on the top of the tank.
I still get confused with what this brown algae actually is. It’s really covering everything. I’m not sure if I need to be worried or not.
Last weekend, August 10, I did a 16% water change. Which went very well.
Yesterday I tested the tank:
Temp: 78°
Alkalinity: 7.89 DKH
Phosphate: 0.07
Nitrate: 0.0 (I’ve been getting consistent, crystal clear nitrate test by Salifert. I’m beginning to think it’s a false negative.)
For calcium and magnesium, I’m just beginning to test for them, probably doing it wrong. I get kind of confused on how to read them. I’m using the magnesium and calcium test kits
Calcium: 480
Magnesium: 1560
Both of which are somewhat high.
I’m not exactly sure where all this LG is coming from or why. And do I need to do anything about it?
The TDS meter reads zero to one on the RO water. I feed maybe a fifth of a cube once a day. Sometimes I throw in some pellets.
Images below of algae outbreak
The GSP has tripled size since I got it I think a little over a month ago.
Finally, growing, the sixth had on the Zoa. it’s doing much better and it’s new placement closer to the bottom of the tank.
I’m considering renting or purchasing a par meter. Which will be indispensable.
The frog spawn bases still brown, but it seems to be doing OK otherwise…. The Fish are doing really well.
The helfrichi has stayed in the display tank ever since I got the guards for the weirs. The only about the guards is that they restrict the flow slightly so I’m getting a film on the top of the tank.
OP
OP
J A' mhuir
Active Member
08/18/24 entry for my build thread
What a day!!
The tank still has those Dino’s, parameters are stable…. Nitrates I can’t get up to save my life… Phosphate today was 0.06 and Nitrates zero.
I am putting off my water change for a little while. Until I can try to get these nitrates up.
Today I will be introducing a skunk cleaner shrimp, and six more Astria snails.
Friday, August 16, I purchased a torch coral from a guy off Facebook. it has three heads, it’s purple and under full blue lights it has golden streaks.
Since I didn’t have change, he gave me a couple frags. Not sure what types they are. They look like Zoas but they have stems and are much larger. Very pretty.
The GSP has been a little iffy over the past couple days.
The hammer coral opened up today bigger than it ever has.
The fish are doing great.
Pictures below
What a day!!
The tank still has those Dino’s, parameters are stable…. Nitrates I can’t get up to save my life… Phosphate today was 0.06 and Nitrates zero.
I am putting off my water change for a little while. Until I can try to get these nitrates up.
Today I will be introducing a skunk cleaner shrimp, and six more Astria snails.
Friday, August 16, I purchased a torch coral from a guy off Facebook. it has three heads, it’s purple and under full blue lights it has golden streaks.
Since I didn’t have change, he gave me a couple frags. Not sure what types they are. They look like Zoas but they have stems and are much larger. Very pretty.
The GSP has been a little iffy over the past couple days.
The hammer coral opened up today bigger than it ever has.
The fish are doing great.
Pictures below
Attachments
OP
OP
J A' mhuir
Active Member
08/20/24
Today just wanting to post pictures of the tank, and inhabitants!! Everything seems to be doing ok… Dinos are receding for now… Will see what else comes my way…. Always a great learning experience….
Today just wanting to post pictures of the tank, and inhabitants!! Everything seems to be doing ok… Dinos are receding for now… Will see what else comes my way…. Always a great learning experience….
OP
OP
J A' mhuir
Active Member
08/26/24
Late posting but need to get this logged here. So long lol….
BIG UPDATE: the clowns are bullying the helfrichi and so I am going to rehome them and get some new fish that aren’t aggressive.
I am thinking a possum wrass, a goby and a molly miller blenny.
This week I got some cutters and snipped the plugs flat and placed corals where I wanted them for now lol… just to get the frag rack off the glass and the frags on rocks….
I finally am rid of the Dino’s for now. I see hair algae starting. The water is the clearest ever.
I finally got my Nitrates up, only to low levels. Phosphates were up higher tho 0.18.
Haven’t done a water change but will this week prob.
I caved and ordered the Hannah Nitrate checker HR. And stupidly ordered the wrong reagent. So I’ll exchanged that.
Today I may have found bubble algae on one of my Astrea snails… It looked blueish and hard at first. When I squeezed it with tweezers it popped and became clear. It was stuck pretty hard to the snail.
I picked up a PAR meter today borrowed from Nick Corraine. So kind of him to loan it out to me.
I tested the tank and found these readings:
The torch was getting 70 ish par
orange Zoa 120 dead center
Frogspawn 100
Favia 95
Toadstool 71
Right side Zoa’s getting 60 on rock and 55 on sand bed Zoa.
Back left corner only getting 30 PAR
As far as I can find the recommended PAR is as follows
LPS - Torch 100-200
Zoanthids/softies 50-200
Toadstools 100-200
Favia are lower LPS 50-100
So upping my lighting just a little to try and get the recommended PAR up.
The controller, only lets me scale in 5% increments.
So I decided to go from 45% blue to 50% blue. Whites staying at 5%.
Schedule: Old
11:50 am -1pm ramp up to 5% W and 45% Blue. 9pm -10pm ramp down.
Schedule new:
12pm - 1pm ramp up to 5% W and 50% Blue. 9:05 Zero W and 50% blue ramp down to 10 pm out….
Will test PAR tomorrow when I get home from Farm if I can before work.
I also today made a new rock structure. Low arches and much surface area on top.
I want to replace or rearrange some of the rock and add this new one. To have more hiding for fish and covering more sand.
ALSO ON A ROCK IN THE TANK. I have seen this deep red film growing. Stunning color but I’m afraid it’s not coraline…. I took the long tweezers and it kinda came off easy and strings of it kinda flowed in the current. Yuck
That’s it for now!! Update tomorrow on new PAR reedings.
Late posting but need to get this logged here. So long lol….
BIG UPDATE: the clowns are bullying the helfrichi and so I am going to rehome them and get some new fish that aren’t aggressive.
I am thinking a possum wrass, a goby and a molly miller blenny.
This week I got some cutters and snipped the plugs flat and placed corals where I wanted them for now lol… just to get the frag rack off the glass and the frags on rocks….
I finally am rid of the Dino’s for now. I see hair algae starting. The water is the clearest ever.
I finally got my Nitrates up, only to low levels. Phosphates were up higher tho 0.18.
Haven’t done a water change but will this week prob.
I caved and ordered the Hannah Nitrate checker HR. And stupidly ordered the wrong reagent. So I’ll exchanged that.
Today I may have found bubble algae on one of my Astrea snails… It looked blueish and hard at first. When I squeezed it with tweezers it popped and became clear. It was stuck pretty hard to the snail.
I picked up a PAR meter today borrowed from Nick Corraine. So kind of him to loan it out to me.
I tested the tank and found these readings:
The torch was getting 70 ish par
orange Zoa 120 dead center
Frogspawn 100
Favia 95
Toadstool 71
Right side Zoa’s getting 60 on rock and 55 on sand bed Zoa.
Back left corner only getting 30 PAR
As far as I can find the recommended PAR is as follows
LPS - Torch 100-200
Zoanthids/softies 50-200
Toadstools 100-200
Favia are lower LPS 50-100
So upping my lighting just a little to try and get the recommended PAR up.
The controller, only lets me scale in 5% increments.
So I decided to go from 45% blue to 50% blue. Whites staying at 5%.
Schedule: Old
11:50 am -1pm ramp up to 5% W and 45% Blue. 9pm -10pm ramp down.
Schedule new:
12pm - 1pm ramp up to 5% W and 50% Blue. 9:05 Zero W and 50% blue ramp down to 10 pm out….
Will test PAR tomorrow when I get home from Farm if I can before work.
I also today made a new rock structure. Low arches and much surface area on top.
I want to replace or rearrange some of the rock and add this new one. To have more hiding for fish and covering more sand.
ALSO ON A ROCK IN THE TANK. I have seen this deep red film growing. Stunning color but I’m afraid it’s not coraline…. I took the long tweezers and it kinda came off easy and strings of it kinda flowed in the current. Yuck
That’s it for now!! Update tomorrow on new PAR reedings.
OP
OP
J A' mhuir
Active Member
08/31/24
Where is time going? It’s crazy to me.
08/27 last Tuesday, I returned my Clownfish to A Reef Creation. They were kind enough to take them back for me and give me a $30 store credit. Half of what I spent for both of them. No one online would take them, yes people can get clowns for free or very cheap.
I used that credit to purchase a pink streaked wrass. Cute little thing.
It is very shy today August 31 was the first time I saw it come out and eat.
I tested my phosphates around 2:15 PM, the day after the water change. The water phosphates were .21 and they are .13 right now. So I added a GFO pouch, that came with the second caddie.
That should bring it down.
Yesterday during the water change, I rearranged the rock Work and added the new piece that I created. I’m very happy with it. It creates a lot of low arches that connects to the larger arch rock, slowly descending to the Sandbed.
I think I’m done, I am happy with it. I was going to be done before, but I realized I really didn’t have enough places for these shy fishes to hide.
The Greenstar polyp is growing a foot on the back wall where it’s attached. Which is great to see. I think it likes dirtier water. So it’s been a challenge keeping it happy with my Euphylias needs.
Yesterday I added activated carbon pellets. Replacing the carbon pouch that came with the tank. Well overdue to have that replaced. The water is pretty crystal.
Where is time going? It’s crazy to me.
08/27 last Tuesday, I returned my Clownfish to A Reef Creation. They were kind enough to take them back for me and give me a $30 store credit. Half of what I spent for both of them. No one online would take them, yes people can get clowns for free or very cheap.
I used that credit to purchase a pink streaked wrass. Cute little thing.
It is very shy today August 31 was the first time I saw it come out and eat.
I tested my phosphates around 2:15 PM, the day after the water change. The water phosphates were .21 and they are .13 right now. So I added a GFO pouch, that came with the second caddie.
That should bring it down.
Yesterday during the water change, I rearranged the rock Work and added the new piece that I created. I’m very happy with it. It creates a lot of low arches that connects to the larger arch rock, slowly descending to the Sandbed.
I think I’m done, I am happy with it. I was going to be done before, but I realized I really didn’t have enough places for these shy fishes to hide.
The Greenstar polyp is growing a foot on the back wall where it’s attached. Which is great to see. I think it likes dirtier water. So it’s been a challenge keeping it happy with my Euphylias needs.
Yesterday I added activated carbon pellets. Replacing the carbon pouch that came with the tank. Well overdue to have that replaced. The water is pretty crystal.
OP
OP
J A' mhuir
Active Member
Update: 09/01/24
Bought 2 emerald crabs to hopefully get ahead of bubble algae. And brought home a mystery wrasse. Super pretty thing. About the same price as helfrichi. Super shy and much larger than all other fish so I hope that isn’t a problem!!
Bought 2 emerald crabs to hopefully get ahead of bubble algae. And brought home a mystery wrasse. Super pretty thing. About the same price as helfrichi. Super shy and much larger than all other fish so I hope that isn’t a problem!!
OP
OP
J A' mhuir
Active Member
10/24/24
Today is a very sad day!
So much has happened in the past couple months, both personally and with the tank. I’ve had great success with corals not so much fish! Which I’m fine with! Due to a very difficult and toxic landlord I have to take the tank down for the time being…. Maybe once I am in a better place a couple years down the road I will start up a system again. I wanted to log my current issues and stocking list.
Algae issues:
Diatoms I believe and cyano, all at once. The algae is like a mat, it looks deep red under my lighting, It grows a little tufts and traps air bubbles. And the cyano dusting on the rocks and glass.
Yesterday I began a chemi-clean treatment. I don’t think it’s really doing anything.
My stocking right now:
One mystery wrasse,
One skunk cleaner shrimp
Probably nine snails, astrea, trochus, jumbo nassarius.
Bob, the Scarlet hermit crab
And an emerald crab, the other one was rehomed because it was eating corals, it grew super big.
Corals: torches stunning and stupid happy.
One gold torch single head
One purple torch 3 heads (forgotten name, and when there are no whites and only blues on it has gold streaks)
Weeping willow toadstool
Mango blast Zoa: grew from 2 heads to 6
Firework mushroom
Two different types of pally-zoa
One frogspawn, green with blue tips
One pink monipora
Large GSP on back wall
Been fun; had to re-home my pink streak wrasse. Mystery wrasse was picking on it brutally.
This weekend 10/26-10/27 I am tearing down the tank.
I want to keep the equipment and testing kits. I want to start it back up when my life calms down a bit. Or maybe I’ll sell it, but for now it will be put in storage with the rest of my things, till after collage!!
Thanks Reef2Reef for your amazing community and help during these months.
I’ll prob have to keep up posting nonsense to keep my account active or maybe be able to download my threads…!??????? Peace out y’all
Today is a very sad day!
So much has happened in the past couple months, both personally and with the tank. I’ve had great success with corals not so much fish! Which I’m fine with! Due to a very difficult and toxic landlord I have to take the tank down for the time being…. Maybe once I am in a better place a couple years down the road I will start up a system again. I wanted to log my current issues and stocking list.
Algae issues:
Diatoms I believe and cyano, all at once. The algae is like a mat, it looks deep red under my lighting, It grows a little tufts and traps air bubbles. And the cyano dusting on the rocks and glass.
Yesterday I began a chemi-clean treatment. I don’t think it’s really doing anything.
My stocking right now:
One mystery wrasse,
One skunk cleaner shrimp
Probably nine snails, astrea, trochus, jumbo nassarius.
Bob, the Scarlet hermit crab
And an emerald crab, the other one was rehomed because it was eating corals, it grew super big.
Corals: torches stunning and stupid happy.
One gold torch single head
One purple torch 3 heads (forgotten name, and when there are no whites and only blues on it has gold streaks)
Weeping willow toadstool
Mango blast Zoa: grew from 2 heads to 6
Firework mushroom
Two different types of pally-zoa
One frogspawn, green with blue tips
One pink monipora
Large GSP on back wall
Been fun; had to re-home my pink streak wrasse. Mystery wrasse was picking on it brutally.
This weekend 10/26-10/27 I am tearing down the tank.
I want to keep the equipment and testing kits. I want to start it back up when my life calms down a bit. Or maybe I’ll sell it, but for now it will be put in storage with the rest of my things, till after collage!!
Thanks Reef2Reef for your amazing community and help during these months.
I’ll prob have to keep up posting nonsense to keep my account active or maybe be able to download my threads…!??????? Peace out y’all
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