TheWB’s IM Lagoon 50

[TheWB]

Man that’s a crazy amount back there, I wonder why. I’ve had my 30 nuvo set up for 9 months and haven’t cleaned the back once and there is barley anything back there. Maybe because I’m bare bottom and suck a lot out during water change. I’m using just poly-fil pillow stuffing you can get at Walmart, works well for me. As far as getting the stuff out I heard of people using this liquid transfer pump from harbor freight. Not sure how good it works but it’s cheap. Might be worth a shot.

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Thanks for the idea. I’ll get it out for sure, I did it once before. It’s kind of surprising that there’s that much in there after only a couple of months but it is what it is, I guess this tank is just dirty. I think I’m going to get a canister filter and vac my sand real good. I have a syphon that doesn’t work at all and I don’t want to put a sock in the tank and run the water from the syphon thru that, I’d rather have the detritus from the sand collect outside the tank in the filter and just pump the water back in. That way I can vacuum for as long as I want to or until the filter totally clogs. One way or the other I’ll get a handle on it.

 

[Esage]

I guess I’ve got a deep cleaning to do this weekend. I just took a look at the dead spots in the middle return pump chamber of the Lagoon 50 AIO under the Fuge and skimmer sections. It’s filthy, really filthy. It’s no wonder I’ve got a diatom problem right now. This area is a total pain to clean. I would swap this tank out right now for the EXT version and a real sump if it was financially feasible, but it’s not. I cleaned out this area once before by using a bottom feeding pump I use for water changes and a short length of tubing. Basically I have to take out the return pump, churn the water back there into a muddy soup and then pump it all out and replace with fresh mixed water. It’s tight back there and I have large hands so thus is harder than it should be to do. I’ve got to figure out how to keep so much detritus from building up back there. I’m using 50 micron felt pads in each overflow but water must be bypassing the pad around the sides or something. Not happy with this situation at all but I’m not sure how I’m going to fix it.

Wow. Im using InTank media baskets on my 50 lagoon with filter pads that get changed on Sunday and Wednesday. I barely have any detritus under those areas

 

[TheWB]

Wow. Im using InTank media baskets on my 50 lagoon with filter pads that get changed on Sunday and Wednesday. I barely have any detritus under those areas

Well I’m jealous of your filtration. I have the InTank Fuge basket on one side with the pad and some poly fill on top, a Chaeto ball that never really grows in the middle and a couple of marinepure cubes on the bottom. I had the InTank pad holder on the other side with a pad and poly fill but that was recently changed out for the IM mid sized UV unit which has a thicker but more porous pad on top and I have a filter pad in top of that. Obviously I have two problems, one is thee is too much detritus in the tank and two, it’s not getting mechanically removed well enough otherwise that massive buildup wouldn’t be in the back chamber like it is. What kind of filter pads are you using? Also, how’s your tank doing?, seems like it’s been a while since I saw an update but I could have missed it.

 

[TheWB]

Ok, I got the rear chamber cleaned out today so hopefully that helps with the algae issues. I put a bag of marinepure gems and a bag of Seachem matrix into the dead areas under the equipment chambers on each side so hopefully they will turn into a denitrification zone. Both of those medias have been seeding in the tank for a while and the matrix has pods living in it.

it went from this,

some of the gunk that was removed,

to this, mostly clean.

All in all I’m happy with the results for today. Now I just have to figure out why so much stuff is building up down there. I need a new game plan for the overflows.

 

[TheWB]

I’m so aggravated today. I broke my RODI unit. TDS was starting to creep up, it was at 4 today after being at 2 for a while. Not horrible but I had extra cartridges and a membrane and none of them has ever been changed. So I decide today is the day. I got the three cartridges on the bottom disconnected and ready to be changed. I then turned my attention to unscrewing the cap that holds in the RO membrane and that’s where things went wrong. The cap unscrews and the 90 degree angle connector on the top spins so you can take the cap off without disconnecting tubing. I got it almost all the way unscrewed and the 90 degree elbow just broke right off. Unbelievable, this should be so simple to do. It just broke right off. Now I either need to somehow replace the cap with the 90 degree connector attached or get a whole new unit. It’s the Vertex Puritek 100 gpd unit with the built in booster pump and a 1:1 wastewater ratio. For $330 I really expect pieces that are supposed to rotate not to just snap off.

Edit: The actual cause of the breakage here was me. It was not obvious to me that the 90 degree fitting was threaded in there and could be unscrewed. I also didn’t really understand how the quick connect fittings worked as I never had a RODI before and this one came fully assembled. The fitting broke because it wasn’t screwed all the way in and when I started spinning it to unscrew the cap without removing the tubing it eventually broke. Totally my fault for not understanding how all of the various connections worked but I will say that the instructions that come with these things are terrible and better instructions would have been very helpful. Oh well, sometimes ya got to break stuff to learn, right?

This kind of thing happening I did not need. Ok, all vented now, rant over.

 

[chefjpaul]

Sucks about the rodi.

Regarding the back chambers, I don't clean mine. I stuff the areas under the chambers with rocks and let the sponges and critters live there. Threw a crab and some random creatures back there. Not sure if they're still around.
I do use the blue and white thick floss pads, they help. Mostly I'll just pull the pumps and clean them.

 

[TheWB]

Sucks about the rodi.

Regarding the back chambers, I don't clean mine. I stuff the areas under the chambers with rocks and let the sponges and critters live there. Threw a crab and some random creatures back there. Not sure if they're still around.
I do use the blue and white thick floss pads, they help. Mostly I'll just pull the pumps and clean them.

Thanks Chef, I just put a couple of bags of gems and matrix under there so hopefully that helps keep some of the buildup out of that area. If I had more room I might consider a small pump to keep it all stirred up but there’s no space. I’ve really come to hate the rear chamber design although if I could figure out how to cut down on what gets back there I’m sure I wouldn’t care anymore. It’s really not that hard to clean back there using my water change pump so I’ll just have to be a little more diligent about doing it once a month so that it doesn’t accumulate so much. Algae in the display has definitely receeded since the clean out. Appreciate you stopping by, I always enjoy your tank updates.

 

[living_tribunal]

Hello everyone,

I joined the forum about a year ago and so far I’ve just been following a bunch of different threads, chiming in here and there, reading everything I can and just generally lurking. I’m finally ready after about 18 months of planning and accumulating equipment to start my build thread. This isn’t going to be too exciting for a while, it’s mostly just going to be a place for me to document what I’m doing but I’ve been out of the hobby for about 5 years, I made a boatload of mistakes when I was active before and I’ll appreciate any and all constructive criticism from anyone following along so please feel free to chime in. I’m planning on a longer cycle so there won’t be any fish or corals for a while. I really want to get all the equipment broken in and functioning first. This way if I need to make changes I’m doing it before the livestock goes in. One of my goals is to keep my hands out of the tank as much as possible once things are living in there.

Tank got wet on 1/6 and I’ve been leak testing and running the wave and return pumps since then. There is a total of 37 gallons of water in the tank. I measured exactly because I wanted to know what the actual volume was should I ever need to add anything directly to the display. I’m using Two Little Fishies AccuraSea1 salt mix which Comes in individual pouches designed to mix up at 1.026 in 4.5 gallons of water. Added 30# of CaribSea Arag alive reef sand and 5# of CaribSea Ocean Direct sand on 1/13.

My rock structures just went in today. I wanted to try something different so I’ve used the Two Little Fishies Stax Rock and also some CaribSea Rubblezone. I built the rock up on top of the Innovative Marine Snapgrid eggcrate so there will be very Little Rock actually sitting on the sand bed. I wanted to get flow under the rock work and this seems to be working out pretty well. The Stax rock is very pourus so there will be flow through the structures as well. It’s not the most natural looking scape as you will see once I post some pics but once it’s colored up and covered with coral I doubt it’s going to bother me.

That’s it for now, just wanted to get this started. I’ll be posting later with a full equipment list and some pics of my progress so far. Thanks for reading and to anyone tagging along.

Don’t be apologetic for spamming mundane updates, I have 40 pages of them.

You’ve definitely taken your time to plan ahead, excited to see how this build thread turns out

 

[TheWB]

Oh, I’m not really apologetic about them. I’m really grateful anytime someone looks at what I’ve updated or has ideas or constructive criticism for me. This thread, although obviously public, was only ever really just for my own personal tracking purposes and occasional venting. Thanks for taking an interest and checking it out. I’m excited to see where it all goes as well. I’m still planning on a few more fish, then stabilizing the system and getting another 10-15 Lps and Zoa frags in over the next 12 months or so. Slow and steady progress.

 

[living_tribunal]

Did some testing today. Happy to see Phosphate down to .06 so it’s definitely heading in the right direction. Used my Hanna Alkalinity and Calcium checkers for the first time. Alk was 8.1 and Cal was 425 which is pretty much spot on what the Two Little Fishies Accurasea1 salt mix is supposed to mix up to (8 and 420). Frankly I couldn’t be happier with that salt mix, it dissolves clean and clear and comes in perfectly sized packets to mix up 4.5 gallons at 1.026 for my weekly water change.

Current FTS below with all five fish in the shot. They think it’s feeding time.

Moved the Favia from the middle to the right side to reduce the amount of light it was getting. It wasn’t looking too happy but now it seems to be perking back up. It’s been trying to split off a new eye for a while now so hopefully it likes this new spot and continues to grow. I moved the Zoa frag to a brighter spot and it seems to like that better too. The micromusa looks exactly the same as when I got it. Absolutely no discernible change to it at all.

Love your rockscape. You have a lot of fish as well! Is that a flasher wrasse in there?

 

[TheWB]

Love your rockscape. You have a lot of fish as well! Is that a flasher wrasse in there?

Thanks, that rock scape went through about a million different iterations before I landed on what’s in there now. The Stax Rock was fun to work with, I’d use it again for sure, although I would probably choose to seed it outside the tank first and then put it in rather than starting dry.
I only have 5 fish, two clowns, two zebra barred dartfish and an Orange back fairy wrasse who was an accidental purchase but has turned into my favorite fish in the tank. I’m planning on adding several more smaller sized fish including a Royal Gramma, a pair or trio of Green banded gobies and another wrasse tbd but likely McCoskers or Lubbocks which is what the Orange back was supposed to be.

 

[TheWB]

Received a new RO membrane housing from Amazon a couple of days ago. I only wanted the cap and getting the whole housing was the cheapest way. It came with fittings but it leaked the first time I hooked it up and pressurized the system. It didn’t come with the little o-ring to go between the 90 degree connector and the cap. I was able to pry the old one out of the broken fitting and re-use it which solved the problem, no more leaks. I’m not handy so this counts as a major victory lol.

There has been less diatoms since I did the clean out of the rear chambers but now I’m starting to see clumps of hair algae. My conch made short work of it on a rock I placed down in the sand bed but none of my other cuc are touching the few clumps on the rocks or on the Acans frag plug. The hermit crabs demolished hair algae back when the tank was cycling but now they seem to be ignoring it. Just another reason they are probably going to get fired soon, besides the snail murders.

Saw a post around here somewhere recently about Chaeto in the back chambers of these AIO tanks. The hypothesis was that there wasn’t any growth because the Chaeto didn’t have enough room to tumble in the limited amount of space inside the media basket combined with too much flow through the rear filtration chambers. Mine is still alive but hasn’t really grown at all. I turned my return pump down to see if that helps. I’ve got plenty of flow in the tank for zoas and lps so there’s really no need for a lot of turnover through the back chambers.

That’s it for now. Water change in the morning and maybe some testing. I do not test as regularly as I should. I’m the poster child for needing a Mindstream unit. Also overdue to make sure the Apex probes are calibrated properly. #lazyreefer

 

[intricate_reefer]

Received a new RO membrane housing from Amazon a couple of days ago. I only wanted the cap and getting the whole housing was the cheapest way. It came with fittings but it leaked the first time I hooked it up and pressurized the system. It didn’t come with the little o-ring to go between the 90 degree connector and the cap. I was able to pry the old one out of the broken fitting and re-use it which solved the problem, no more leaks. I’m not handy so this counts as a major victory lol.

There has been less diatoms since I did the clean out of the rear chambers but now I’m starting to see clumps of hair algae. My conch made short work of it on a rock I placed down in the sand bed but none of my other cuc are touching the few clumps on the rocks or on the Acans frag plug. The hermit crabs demolished hair algae back when the tank was cycling but now they seem to be ignoring it. Just another reason they are probably going to get fired soon, besides the snail murders.

Saw a post around here somewhere recently about Chaeto in the back chambers of these AIO tanks. The hypothesis was that there wasn’t any growth because the Chaeto didn’t have enough room to tumble in the limited amount of space inside the media basket combined with too much flow through the rear filtration chambers. Mine is still alive but hasn’t really grown at all. I turned my return pump down to see if that helps. I’ve got plenty of flow in the tank for zoas and lps so there’s really no need for a lot of turnover through the back chambers.

That’s it for now. Water change in the morning and maybe some testing. I do not test as regularly as I should. I’m the poster child for needing a Mindstream unit. Also overdue to make sure the Apex probes are calibrated properly. #lazyreefer

Glad you got the RODI sorted out, I'm not handy either so good work lol. That is a good guess about the chaeto. When I had mine it didn't seem to grow much at all, I wonder if the flow was the issue. Even though it wasn't growing much I couldn't get any No4 or po4, I ended up taking it out. How is the favia doing?

 

[TheWB]

Glad you got the RODI sorted out, I'm not handy either so good work lol. That is a good guess about the chaeto. When I had mine it didn't seem to grow much at all, I wonder if the flow was the issue. Even though it wasn't growing much I couldn't get any No4 or po4, I ended up taking it out. How is the favia doing?

Here are some updated pics of the Favia. It seems to be receding a little. First pic shows the places where tissue was lost. The other two are the best shot I can get if the healthier side. The lighting is pretty blue but I think the pics came out ok. What do you think of it’s overall health?

 

[intricate_reefer]

Here are some updated pics of the Favia. It seems to be receding a little. First pic shows the places where tissue was lost. The other two are the best shot I can get if the healthier side. The lighting is pretty blue but I think the pics came out ok. What do you think of it’s overall health?

I think it’s looking better and stopped receding. Sometimes when they start they don’t stop. Your looks puffy on the edges which is a good sign, should make a complete come back.

 

[TheWB]

I made a lampshade for my radion out of some cardboard and black gorilla tape. It’s pretty ghetto but it works like a champ. You can actually sit near the tank and enjoy it without being blasted in the face with light. I also removed the original screen from the IM kit and replaced it with 1/8” mesh from BRS. There’s much less reflection off the screen now. Overall a big improvement as far as being able to look at the tank comfortably.

 

[TheWB]

The Favia still isn’t doing all that well. It seems like it’s receded a little more where it was damaged.

First the good side.

The damaged side.

and just for the heck of it a FTS to show off all my current nuisance algae. Its harder to see in the blue light but it’s there.

 

[intricate_reefer]

Great job in the light shade. Those lights can be blinding. Do you have an Xr15 or xr30? I have my tanks in my bedroom and got the diffusers for my primes. They are essentially the same as what you made but with a piece of diffusing plastic. That’s such a shame about your favia. I’m stumped on what it could be. Are the acans and zoas still doing good? Don’t think your alone on coral problems either, I can’t keep zoas and have a rainbow chalice acting up right now.

 

[TheWB]

Great job in the light shade. Those lights can be blinding. Do you have an Xr15 or xr30? I have my tanks in my bedroom and got the diffusers for my primes. They are essentially the same as what you made but with a piece of diffusing plastic. That’s such a shame about your favia. I’m stumped on what it could be. Are the acans and zoas still doing good? Don’t think your alone on coral problems either, I can’t keep zoas and have a rainbow chalice acting up right now.

Thanks, something had to be done, they are bright. It’s an xr15 and even though this tank is 30” wide it seems like plenty since I’m not doing any sps. It’s actually turned down in the 35% range. The zoas probably would like a bit more light though, there were 12 polyps at one point and now there are only 9 showing most of the time. If you blow up the FTS in the last post you can see them and the Acan. The Acan blows up real big and it eats whenever I remember to feed it but still no new heads. I need to test Alk and calcium soon just to see where they are at. I’m so bad at making the time to test. I’m temped to add just a little two part each week to see if it makes a difference but I’m reluctant to start adding when I know I won’t test like I should. I also need to add a fish that eats algae. It’s not totally out of control yet but hindsight being 20/20 I should have had at least one herbivore as part of my stocking plan. The hermit crabs are failing miserably.

 

[intricate_reefer]

I see the acans now, they look nice and fat. Yea dude I hate algae it’s such a pain. I have a lawnmower blenny but don’t really feel he earns his keep. There really aren’t too many good herbivores for smaller tanks which is a shame. You could get a lawnmower or tail spot blenny. You know your tank is probably big enough to get a small tomini tang. At the very least you could have him for awhile till your algae problem settles down as the tank matures.