TheWB’s IM Lagoon 50

Juice780 · Jan 5, 2020

Do you have a home made cover or did you buy one.

TheWB · Jan 5, 2020

VaporCountry said:
Tank looks good, doesn’t seem like two much algae and the corals look great, seems like the favia recovered. I’m sure you will get it sorted out soon. How is the tang doing, don’t see him in there?

Also a question about your lighting. You run Radions right? XR30 it XR15? Wondering what setting and intensity you are running?

Thanks, the algae is definitely receding but trust me, there’s still plenty

Favia is doing better. It’s supposed to be purple with green eyes so there’s still too much green in the fleshy parts but it’s slowly working it’s way back.
The Tang is doing ok I guess. Still not eating much when I feed the other fish but it’s cruising around picking at algae. It looks healthy and doesn’t seem stressed. The wrasse and the Tang swim together a lot and seem to be friends if that’s a thing for fish of different species.
The light is an XR15 G4 and I’m running the CoralLab LPS settings from Ecosmart Live at about 60% max. They come on at Noon and off at 9:00pm with whatever ramp up and down times are the default in that profile. Not doing anything too imaginative with the lighting.

TheWB · Jan 5, 2020

Juice780 said:
Do you have a home made cover or did you buy one.

Kind of both. The frame is an Innovative Marine premade frame from a couple of years ago. They used to use a different type of screen that was diamond shaped and kind of thick. I thought it blocked a lot of light. I recently ordered some 1/8” screen from BRS I think, might’ve been MD, anyway it was one or the other. I pulled out the existing spline mostly in one piece and replaced the screen and re-used the spline. The screen is a little looser than before but there’s less reflection of light off the screen top. I went with the 1/8” because my dartfish can and have gone right through 1/4” and ended up on the wrong side of the screen.

intricate_reefer · Jan 5, 2020

TheWB said:
Thanks, the algae is definitely receding but trust me, there’s still plenty
Favia is doing better. It’s supposed to be purple with green eyes so there’s still too much green in the fleshy parts but it’s slowly working it’s way back.
The Tang is doing ok I guess. Still not eating much when I feed the other fish but it’s cruising around picking at algae. It looks healthy and doesn’t seem stressed. The wrasse and the Tang swim together a lot and seem to be friends if that’s a thing for fish of different species.
The light is an XR15 G4 and I’m running the CoralLab LPS settings from Ecosmart Live at about 60% max. They come on at Noon and off at 9:00pm with whatever ramp up and down times are the default in that profile. Not doing anything too imaginative with the lighting.

Ok cool thanks, that setting is pretty blue isn't it? Did you happen to measure the par with this setting?

TheWB · Jan 5, 2020

VaporCountry said:
Ok cool thanks, that setting is pretty blue isn't it? Did you happen to measure the par with this setting?

It is very blue and I’ve never measured par, I don’t have a meter or access to one. I did recently turn it up from 55 to 60% intensity which seemed to make the Zoas happier.

TheWB · Jan 6, 2020

I managed to get some pics of the fish yesterday. Nobody freak out, the white spots you’ll see are detritus that got stirred up, nothing is attached to a fish, no disease breakout happening here (fingers crossed, knock on wood).

intricate_reefer · Jan 6, 2020

Those are some really good shots. I can never manage to get all my fish in one photo. I am really digging that wrasse though. What kind is it again?

Meldrath · Jan 6, 2020

5/6/7 are great shots!

Tomini's are excellent tangs and will serve you well in your quest to destroy algae. Emerald crabs are voracious eaters of algae as well, will keep any hair or bubble algae in check and clean up other stuff as well when they are hungry enough.

TheWB · Jan 6, 2020

VaporCountry said:
Those are some really good shots. I can never manage to get all my fish in one photo. I am really digging that wrasse though. What kind is it again?

Thanks. It’s always an accident when I get all of mine. The zebra barred gobies are hard to get and frankly so is the wrasse. He‘s pretty bold until the camera comes out and then he’s all up in his cave. He’s an Orange Back Wrasse and I really like him a lot. Best accidental fish purchase I’ve ever made.

TheWB · Jan 6, 2020

Meldrath said:
5/6/7 are great shots!

Tomini's are excellent tangs and will serve you well in your quest to destroy algae. Emerald crabs are voracious eaters of algae as well, will keep any hair or bubble algae in check and clean up other stuff as well when they are hungry enough.

Thanks, I appreciate that. My photography skills are not great, @VaporCountry is much, much better. I’m hoping the Tomini will be an algae destroyer but so far he’s been just a nibbler. He eats some but I’d be much happier if he’d step it up a couple of notches

I had an Emerald Crab for a while. It’s the only thing that I’ve lost so far other than various cuc members murdered by hermits. It tried to kill my zoas and they’ve really never been the same. I’m to the point where I’m pretty anti crab of any kind.

Meldrath · Jan 6, 2020

TheWB said:
Thanks, I appreciate that. My photography skills are not great, @VaporCountry is much, much better. I’m hoping the Tomini will be an algae destroyer but so far he’s been just a nibbler. He eats some but I’d be much happier if he’d step it up a couple of notches
I had an Emerald Crab for a while. It’s the only thing that I’ve lost so far other than various cuc members murdered by hermits. It tried to kill my zoas and they’ve really never been the same. I’m to the point where I’m pretty anti crab of any kind.

Hey I get it, I'm more anti hermit crab. Those things are evil. I've seen them kill nassarius and astrea snails for their shells.

TheWB · Jan 6, 2020

Meldrath said:
Hey I get it, I'm more anti hermit crab. Those things are evil. I've seen them kill nassarius and astrea snails for their shells.

My hermits originally just mowed down a small hair algae breakout I had when I first put them in the tank. Since then I don’t know what they are doing but knocking down algae does not appear to be it. I keep threatening to fire them but that would require doing something with them after I remove them from the tank and so far I have not been quite motivated to do it. #lazyreefer

TheWB · Jan 10, 2020

Early this morning we had a power outage in the area. Car ran into a power pole at 1:50am. I have severe sleep apnea and my CPAP stops working without power. I didn’t wake up but my wife did and she got me to remove the mask. Keeping it on without the air pressure would’ve made it harder to breathe. As I’m sitting there contemplating what I’m going to do since I can’t go back to sleep I suddenly realize that the fish tank doesn’t have a working heater and it’s below freezing outside. With the house heater also off it’s going to get pretty cold if the power doesn’t come back on soon. There isn’t really anything I can do at this point other than cover the top with a towel to try and trap in the heat and wait it out. Power outages don’t happen too much here and are usually resolved quickly. Usually but not today. Power didn't come back on until 6:45am. By then I’m freaking out thinking that I’m going to lose all the fish and coral. It’s freezing in the house at this point and I was sure the water was way too cold after nearly 5 hours. I‘m pretty stressed out and tired at this point so it never occurs to me to break out the Hanna Salinity checker with the built in thermometer to check the temp. Long story short the temp only dropped down to 74 degrees. It was back to normal within an hour or so. None of the fish were out so I couldn’t tell if any of them were suffering any ill effects before I had to leave for work. Since I came home I’ve seen all the fish out and about with no visible signs of stress so potential crisis averted I guess. There was a point around 5am where I was sure they were all gonna die. People need to quit crashing their cars into power lines in my neighborhood, it’s super inconvenient.

Meldrath · Jan 10, 2020

As a stop gap you can take hot water and put it in a ziploc and put the ziploc in the tank to keep it warm.

TheWB · Jan 10, 2020

Meldrath said:
As a stop gap you can take hot water and put it in a ziploc and put the ziploc in the tank to keep it warm.

I actually did that around 6am, forgot to put that part in the last post. I have a rechargeable air pump that I also put in right away when I realized the power was out at 2am. I’m a little punchy, it’s been a long day.

Pauliex77x · Jan 10, 2020

Meldrath said:
As a stop gap you can take hot water and put it in a ziploc and put the ziploc in the tank to keep it warm.

Glad it all worked out. Get some sleep.

TheWB · Jan 19, 2020

So far I’m pretty impressed with Vibrant. Most of the greenish brown hair algae is gone after 6-7 weeks of dosing it at 4-5 ml a week. There are some small patches of what I think is bright green cyano or some type of algae in a couple of spots but nothing major. I’m thinking it’s cyano because it’s in some lower flow spots and none of the cuc or the tang are eating it. Using Vibrant at the current dosing level has not had any adverse effects on my corals or on the ulva growing in the Fuge chamber.

I tried to implement my plan to use a canister filter as a kind of tank shop vac to clean the sandbed. This didn’t turn out so good. Mostly, I think, because I left the hoses to long. I couldn’t get any suction going. I need to go back to the drawing board with that and make the hoses much shorter and then try again.

Changed out 4.5 gallons and gave the tank a good scrubbing this morning. Next project is an in-tank diy egg crate basket to hold some red gracilaria algae that will arrive mid week. The tang grazes constantly now but doesn’t seem to be putting on any weight. It also doesn’t show much interest in frozen mysis, although it eats some, and shows no interest in frozen brine, or flakes or pellets. The plan will be to let the gracilaria grow out of the basket to give the tang a source of live algae that tangs are supposed to love. We’ll see how that goes.