TheWB’s IM Lagoon 50

[TheWB]

Ok, need to do a build thread update for the RedSea giveaway.
As an added bonus, if you’ve been following this thread for all 16 pages you’ve seen a grand total of 6 fish and 6 coral frags, and two of the corals didn’t make it. Not the most exiting livestock show off thread on this forum over the last 18 months, I know.
That will change on Wednesday when I should be receiving a little care package from Hidden Treasure Corals out of CO. Should be 7 different Zoas plus a few other things. I like that they sell the Zoas by the polyp because I prefer to have just a small frag and grow them out myself. This will be my first online coral order and I’m pretty excited for it to arrive. I’m taking the day off on Wednesday so I can sit with my nose pressed to the glass of my screen door anxiously awaiting the FedEx truck

 

[Calm Blue Ocean]

Ok, need to do a build thread update for the RedSea giveaway.
As an added bonus, if you’ve been following this thread for all 16 pages you’ve seen a grand total of 6 fish and 6 coral frags, and two of the corals didn’t make it. Not the most exiting livestock show off thread on this forum over the last 18 months, I know.
That will change on Wednesday when I should be receiving a little care package from Hidden Treasure Corals out of CO. Should be 7 different Zoas plus a few other things. I like that they sell the Zoas by the polyp because I prefer to have just a small frag and grow them out myself. This will be my first online coral order and I’m pretty excited for it to arrive. I’m taking the day off on Wednesday so I can sit with my nose pressed to the glass of my screen door anxiously awaiting the FedEx truck

Well that's fun! I've been dying to get some new corals but as soon as I made the decision that I'd be starting a new tank I figured it would be best to wait and not potentially pick up pests from the old tank by transferring between the two.

Good luck with the giveaway, and looking forward to seeing pictures of the new corals.

 

[TheWB]

Well that's fun! I've been dying to get some new corals but as soon as I made the decision that I'd be starting a new tank I figured it would be best to wait and not potentially pick up pests from the old tank by transferring between the two.

Good luck with the giveaway, and looking forward to seeing pictures of the new corals.

If you have the patience it’s always good to wait. I cycled for about 4 months before even adding fish. Test corals came a couple of months later. It’s hard to hold off sometimes but I feel like by waiting this long my tank is more mature and I’m less likely to be scraping heaps of algae off of frags. Not that I don’t have algae so it’s a roll of the dice either way. But it’s time, this tank has been pretty bare. I’m excited to see it a little more filled in.

 

[TheWB]

My box of goodies from Hidden Treasure Corals has arrived. I’ve never ordered coral online before so this is my first experience with the packaging, frag sizes, etc... Let me say from the beginning that I’m very happy with this purchase and any comments that might seem negative are not meant to be, it’s more that I don’t have any experience with this and some things were different than I expected.

The shipping box was smaller than I expected it to be. It’s roughly 8x8x8 square and there were 11 frags in there. I thought the box would be a little bigger. That said, the coral frags were packed individually and with the water inside the bags filled up nothing was smushed. The Zoas were just on their plugs in the bags. The three lps pieces and the birds nest frag were attached to condiment type plastic cups so they had an extra layer of protection. There was a thin layer of insulated padding and a heat pack included that was still warm when the package arrived. Although I was expecting a bigger box overall the packaging seems more than adequate for the job and I have no complaints. I’m sure the box size is driven by reducing the cost of shipping and I’m on board with that 100% as I believe my order was an excellent value for what I got.

Moving on to what I got these are what came in this order:
7 different types of Zoas. Sakura Sunrise, Goblin Fire, Rasta’s, Pink Zippers, Utter Chaos, Vivid Rainbow’s and Nirvana’s. All frags came with more polyps than I ordered which is a very nice surprise and value.
3 lps corals, a 5 head Blue Green Duncan’s, a Blue Candy Cane and a HT Golden Eye Chalice that’s at least 3” across. 2 out of 3 were larger than expected so again, great value.
Last is a WWC Purple Polyp Green Birdsnest. This is larger than described as well. I’m not really doing sps in this tank but I thought I’d give an inexpensive easy one a shot.

I was planning on drilling some holes in a few extra pieces of Stax rock to go with a natural looking frag rack but that didn’t work out so well. So instead behold the very ghetto looking egg crate panel that was pressed into duty. Absolutely stunning, I know
So there they all are. The lps and birdsnest are obvious but I couldn’t tell you which Zoa is which at this point. All of the bags were labeled but I lost track of what I was doing as I was unboxing and preparing to put them in the tank.

Overall I’m very happy with this purchase so far. Thanks to @Reefer40b for taking great care of me, including a couple of things that were showing as out of stock when I asked about them and for generally being easy to deal with and doing what he said he was going to do. Great customer service. If your reading this check out hiddentreasurecorals.com, I will definitely shop there again.

 

[Calm Blue Ocean]

Nice collection! They look pretty happy already and should bring a nice pop of color once they all open up.

 

[TheWB]

Nice collection! They look pretty happy already and should bring a nice pop of color once they all open up.

Thanks, I hope they are going to be happy. Anytime you add something new you just never know. I’m really happy with the corals I bought though and I’m cautiously optimistic that they will all do well.

 

[intricate_reefer]

My box of goodies from Hidden Treasure Corals has arrived. I’ve never ordered coral online before so this is my first experience with the packaging, frag sizes, etc... Let me say from the beginning that I’m very happy with this purchase and any comments that might seem negative are not meant to be, it’s more that I don’t have any experience with this and some things were different than I expected.

The shipping box was smaller than I expected it to be. It’s roughly 8x8x8 square and there were 11 frags in there. I thought the box would be a little bigger. That said, the coral frags were packed individually and with the air inside the bags nothing was smushed. The Zoas were just on their plugs in the bags. The three lps pieces and the birds nest frag were attached to condiment type plastic cups so they had an extra layer of protection. There was a thin layer of insulated padding and a heat pack included that was still warm when the package arrived. Although I was expecting a bigger box overall the packaging seems more than adequate for the job and I have no complaints. I’m sure the box size is driven by reducing the cost of shipping and I’m on board with that 100% as I believe my order was an excellent value for what I got.

Moving on to what I got these are what came in this order:
7 different types of Zoas. Sakura Sunrise, Goblin Fire, Rasta’s, Pink Zippers, Utter Chaos, Vivid Rainbow’s and Nirvana’s. All frags came with more polyps than I ordered which is a very nice surprise and value.
3 lps corals, a 5 head Blue Green Duncan’s, a Blue Candy Cane and a HT Golden Eye Chalice that’s at least 3” across. 2 out of 3 were larger than expected so again, great value.
Last is a WWC Purple Polyp Green Birdsnest. This is larger than described as well. I’m not really doing sps in this tank but I thought I’d give an inexpensive easy one a shot.

I was planning on drilling some holes in a few extra pieces of Stax rock to go with a natural looking frag rack but that didn’t work out so well. So instead behold the very ghetto looking egg crate panel that was pressed into duty. Absolutely stunning, I know
So there they all are. The lps and birdsnest are obvious but I couldn’t tell you which Zoa is which at this point. All of the bags were labeled but I lost track of what I was doing as I was unboxing and preparing to put them in the tank.

Overall I’m very happy with this purchase so far. Thanks to @Reefer40b for taking great care of me, including a couple of things that were showing as out of stock when I asked about them and for generally being easy to deal with and doing what he said he was going to do. Great customer service. If your reading this check out hiddentreasurecorals.com, I will definitely shop there again.

Exciting, you will have to get some pictures once the zoas open up. That packaging is pretty typical for the most part. Wouldn't say the best but good enough for the corals not to die. I don't know about air in the bags though, they should be completely filled with water so no chance of the corals being out of the water. Zoas really should be cupped as well but what are you going to do. I have gotten them that way a couple times and they normally don't open as quick. I think they just bounce against the side of the bags during shipment and it ticks them off.

 

[TheWB]

Exciting, you will have to get some pictures once the zoas open up. That packaging is pretty typical for the most part. Wouldn't say the best but good enough for the corals not to die. I don't know about air in the bags though, they should be completely filled with water so know chance of the corals being out of the water. Zoas really should be cupped as well but what are you going to do. I have gotten them that way a couple times and they normally don't open as quick. I think they just bounce against the side of the bags during shipment and it ****** them off.

You know what, the bags were full of water, not air. What I was trying to say was that they were full so the bags were puffed up and therefore not smushing each other. That was a bad choice of words on my part. Didn’t mean to mischaracterize how the coral arrived. Air in the bag, I’m a moron.
**I just went back and edited that post so it says water instead of air**

 

[Reefer40b]

Hey TheWB,
Thanks for the shout out, I'm glad your liking your corals!

 

[TheWB]

Ok, it’s day 2 for the new frags and for the most part everything is opening up and looking good with two exceptions.
The Pink Zipper Zoas are a little mad and not open at the moment. I’m not worried about them. They were open a little yesterday and I’m sure they’ll open up again when they are ready.
‘The Chalice, on the other hand, is looking very unhappy. It seems to have receded a bunch since yesterday. I’m guessing something in my water chemistry or the lighting is making it mad. See pics below and if anyone has any ideas on what I should do with it please let me know.

 

[Calm Blue Ocean]

‘The Chalice, on the other hand, is looking very unhappy. It seems to have receded a bunch since yesterday. I’m guessing something in my water chemistry or the lighting is making it mad. See pics below and if anyone has any ideas on what I should do with it please let me know.

Any improvement? I have zero experience with challices so take my input with a grain of salt, but the first thought I had was flow. Even my kenya trees have tantrums if the flow isn't right (was actually how I noticed one of my flow pumps had quit on me).

A second thought is what you mentioned, lighting. One of my thoughts moving to this tank is that it's relatively shallow and that it should be much easier to get higher par ratings, for better or for worse. Could be this guy is just a bit more sensitive to changes in lighting.

Hope you are able to figure it out, it's a really nice looking coral!

 

[TheWB]

Any improvement? I have zero experience with challices so take my input with a grain of salt, but the first thought I had was flow. Even my kenya trees have tantrums if the flow isn't right (was actually how I noticed one of my flow pumps had quit on me).

A second thought is what you mentioned, lighting. One of my thoughts moving to this tank is that it's relatively shallow and that it should be much easier to get higher par ratings, for better or for worse. Could be this guy is just a bit more sensitive to changes in lighting.

Hope you are able to figure it out, it's a really nice looking coral!

Nope, no improvement. I don’t think it got any worse. I was gone all day so I really couldn’t watch it very closely.
The Bluetooth hub for my Current USA wave pumps seems to be malfunctioning. Neither wave pump was working when I got home. I tried a third pump I just bought and it doesn’t work either. I connected that one to a different hub and that made no difference. Now I’m going to have to pull the whole system tomorrow and troubleshoot. The only flow in there right now is the return pump which really needs to be cleaned. If I can’t get the wave pumps running I’m going to have to run out and get cheap temporary ones. It’s always something....

 

[TheWB]

The Current USA eFlux wave pumps all bit the dust. I have no idea why but they all stopped working. The return pump is fine but none of the three wave makers work with the Bluetooth hub or an older hub I was using before I got the Bluetooth. Both hubs get power and I can change settings with the loop app on my phone and with the remote that comes with the older hub. It all seems like it should be working but no pump will turn on, not even the brand new one. Something is definitely wrong. I removed all of them and set up in the garage so I could switch the power supplies around and try different configurations but nothing worked no matter what I did. I ended up running to one of the better LFS 35 miles away and grabbing the midsize IM wavelink Pump. It’s way more powerful than the eFlux pumps, just one of these is moving more water than two of the 1100 gal per hr eFlux pumps. It’s almost too powerful. I’ve got it in the lowest setting and even that was giving my LPS quite a blast. I figured out an angle to aim it where it’s not as bad but I definitely won’t be able to turn it up any higher than 1 on the pulse mode. Kinda wish I would have got the smaller one instead but I’m not going back to return it, they’ll probably hit me with a restocking fee since I used the pump and I’m not paying a restocking fee. It will be fine and if I ever upgrade I’m ready to go. Assuming it lasts that long of course.

 

[Dj City]

I have not been getting notifications but I'm glad I got caught up on your build.

Sucks your pumps bit the dust. I hope you find out why and hope their customer service does something good for you.

The chalice...
It might be happier with the flow now that there is a working pump.
Nothing much you can do except keep an eye on it and maybe change is location if you think it's getting too much light which it may be. Or not enough light.

Good luck buddy.

 

[TheWB]

I have not been getting notifications but I'm glad I got caught up on your build.

Sucks your pumps bit the dust. I hope you find out why and hope their customer service does something good for you.

The chalice...
It might be happier with the flow more that there is a working pump.
Nothing much you can do except keep an eye on it and maybe change is location if you think it's getting too much light which it may be. Or not enough light.

Good luck buddy.

Thanks DJ, I’m happy you checked in.

The pumps remain a mystery. They are well beyond their warranty so I don't expect CurrentUSA to do anything. They were good to me before, they sent me a free Bluetooth upgraded Controller for the eFlux return pump when I needed one, no questions asked. That was really nice of them at the time. I have no complaints with CurrentUSA’s customer service. What’s really tripping me up is that the new one didn’t work either, on either the Bluetooth or standard hub. I guess it just wasn’t meant to be.

I did move the Chalice so we’ll see how it does. I also relocated the Wavelink pump to reflect of the back wall so hopefully that diffuses some of the flow. So far it’s looking pretty good.

 

[Dj City]

Thanks DJ, I’m happy you checked in.

The pumps remain a mystery. They are well beyond their warranty so I don't expect CurrentUSA to do anything. They were good to me before, they sent me a free Bluetooth upgraded Controller for the eFlux return pump when I needed one, no questions asked. That was really nice of them at the time. I have no complaints with CurrentUSA’s customer service. What’s really tripping me up is that the new one didn’t work either, on either the Bluetooth or standard hub. I guess it just wasn’t meant to be.

I did move the Chalice so we’ll see how it does. I also relocated the Wavelink pump to reflect of the back wall so hopefully that diffuses some of the flow. So far it’s looking pretty good.

Glad to hear it.

 

[Calm Blue Ocean]

The Current USA eFlux wave pumps all bit the dust. I have no idea why but they all stopped working. The return pump is fine but none of the three wave makers work with the Bluetooth hub or an older hub I was using before I got the Bluetooth.

I've been using two of these pumps on my old system and although I like them I've had several problems as well. I had two with defective impellers that rattled something awful, I had one quit on me completely, and another one that quit but started working again after a thorough cleaning. That is a definite mystery that you've go going on, though. Unfortunate that you are outside of the warranty because just like your experience, Current USA support was excellent to deal with.

I sympathize with your oversized pump issue. My MP40 is way oversized for the length of this tank but I went with it because too many people had issues with the MP10 with this glass thickness. On the bright side, I won't be needing a second flow pump!

 

[TheWB]

I've been using two of these pumps on my old system and although I like them I've had several problems as well. I had two with defective impellers that rattled something awful, I had one quit on me completely, and another one that quit but started working again after a thorough cleaning. That is a definite mystery that you've go going on, though. Unfortunate that you are outside of the warranty because just like your experience, Current USA support was excellent to deal with.

I sympathize with your oversized pump issue. My MP40 is way oversized for the length of this tank but I went with it because too many people had issues with the MP10 with this glass thickness. On the bright side, I won't be needing a second flow pump!

Yeah, same here, it’s plenty of flow on level 1. When I turned the pump on the first time it was set to 9 and I very nearly had water on the floor.

Current USA’s customer service is great but these pumps are $60-$80 so it’s probably not surprising that they have a few problems and wear out quickly. It’s really just the fact that it happened all at once and even the new one didn‘t work on more than one hub that’s made it somewhat maddening. New pump seems to be working out great though so it all worked out in the end.

 

[TheWB]

First, there’s dartfish in the pics below, a fairly uncommon sight as far as my pictures usually go.
I have a product called Little Feet by Two Little Fishies. I got it to mount frags but when it showed up the pieces were nearly as big as the Stax Rock. I was expecting flat 2” pieces and some of these were 6” long. At first I was unsuccessful drilling holes in them for frag plugs but I’ve since figured out how to make that work. I’ve attached the Frogspawn to one and moved it to the front of the tank. I also mounted the new Duncan to one and placed it down low. There are no corals on the right island but I’ll be covering that with some of the Zoas that are still in the egg crate. The Birdsnest is also mounted on a new rock directly under the light in the middle. That spot gets the most light and the most flow so hopefully it works out.
The Chalice is pretty much down to the yellow eyes without much pink flesh. I have moved it to a lower light and flow area and will monitor for a couple of days. There’s one more spot I’ll try if it doesn’t start looking better. The blue candy cane will go down on the bottom front with the other lps soon and I’ll get the egg crate out of there and put the Zoas in their spots soon as well. The Pink Zippers still are closed but all the rest of them are open and looking pretty good. I’d say so far 9 of the 11 new frags are doing well.

 

[intricate_reefer]

That’s a shame about the pumps and the chalice. Did you test all your water parameters?