ED3's UNS60 Shallow Lagoon

[ED3]

Hello everyone, my name is Ed and I've have aquariums for the past 26 years constantly in different amounts and variations. I've been reef keeping on and off for the past 16 years although I'd have to say out of that whole time there was probably only 2 full years collectively I didn't at least have some semblance of a reef tank up and running. I've also been a member of the Boston Reefers Society (Happy 20th Anniversary Everyone!) since about 2007 and have been on the BoD several times including being the current Vice President. My last tank was a basic, low tech 20H tank I had running for a few years but due to work, I was unable to maintain it for about 3 months, flatworms and salinity became a problem and I ultimately crashed the tank trying to correct months of severe neglect. Traveling for 3 months coupled with family volunteering to take care of it because "they'd done it before" spelt doom for the poor tank unfortunately.

Before I was traveling, I began curing live rock for a planned upgrade to a 57 gallon RR tank I purchased but immediately started looking at the 100+ gallon setups but because of an impending move that would delay the start of the tank. I figured I'd just keep adding to the live rock collection to have as mature of a reef as possible going into the new display. That 57 is now destined to be my QT tank post move.

Now picture this, I have more pest free and thoroughly cycled live rock than I know what to do with which when dismantling an extremely overgrown paludarium I had set up in a UNS60, and having super bad desire to start a tank again after a few months, I decided to turn it into a lagoon tank that would be softie and macro algae dominant.

One thing I wanted to do with this tank is to monitor as much as I possibly can because I ultimately will tie this tank into a larger mangrove/macro dominated display that will be connected to my much larger, in planning, SPS dominated display I'll be starting later this year. I'm trying to get a personal better understanding of the direct impact of macro algae, flow, mangroves and surface area to water volume ratio and PAR readings has on water parameters and tank health overall.

I'm doing this using flow meters, a PAR meter, a Dissolved Oxygen meter, a microscope with camera and hemocytometer ( for attempting to measure average pod populations), test kits, and also measuring feeding amounts, inches of fish, lbs of live rock and sand, volume in ratios to try and measure the benefits of varying amounts of macros and mangroves. Do I have a control? No so this is not a perfect experiment and the variables can only be compared to the past measurements I've taken in all of my tanks over the past 16 years so it'll do for personal work =D.

I do have some plans for documented comparison experiments with controls I'll be performing once I finally have more room this year after my move. One simple one is having two identical 20H tanks one using RODI and salt mix and another with NSW from just outside of Boston,MA.

Hope you enjoy the pictures and information I post, I'll try and update what I'm doing here weekly with tank and microscope pictures. If anyone has any ID's for any of the microbes I'm able to isolate, please feel free to comment, I am trying to learn as much as I can. My background is in cellular/molecular biology, biochemistry and microbe genetics at a graduate school level so I'm really trying to get a comprehensive understanding of everything since I'm so overly OCD about readings and protocols. I'll be doing these readings every step I can for future reference and to hopefully help my fellow hobbyists.

Thanks for reading,
Eddie

Equipment:

UNS60 Rimless Tank
Biocube ACP250 powerhead
ATO system
150W Heater (cannot remember the brand)
1x AI Prime 16HD for lighting


My current stock list is as follows:

2x 1.5" Grade A Percula Clownfish
Dragon's Breath
C.prolifera (not 100% sure but this is what I was told)
3x Mangrove Pods
4 polyps of Red People Eater Zoanthids
16 polyps of Rasta Zoanthids
5 Astrea snails
3 small cerinth snails
3 nassarius snails
1 hermit crab

FTS 3/6/22:

Clowns:

Microscope Setup:

400x magnification:

Can't make them out but all those beige/green dots are very actively moving pods:

 

[blaxsun]

Digging the microscope!

 

[ED3]

Digging the microscope!

Thanks! I can't wait until the tank is more mature so I can really use it. I have a very slight and steady case of dinos right now so it was useful to determine if I was dealing with dinos or diatoms due to the age of the tank.

 

[ED3]

The tank was shimmering this morning, everything is going steady so I grabbed a quick pic

 

[Luna Lagoona]

Looking good! You're the first I've seen take the microscope approach! Really interested to see and learn more about this.

I've bought Tigger pods a few times but after I am them into the tank I think the fish eat them all and I never see them again. I do see many macro (large enough to see with naked eye) pods but now I'm really curious how many micro pods (microscope visible only) pods I've got in my setup!

Also appreciate the emphasis on live rock. Honestly even vs lights and other things I think real live rock or aged live rock is some of the best investments we can make in our tanks.

 

[ED3]

Looking good! You're the first I've seen take the microscope approach! Really interested to see and learn more about this.

Thank you very much, unfortunately I haven't had much time to really pay attention to as much as I initially anticipated.

Also appreciate the emphasis on live rock. Honestly even vs lights and other things I think real live rock or aged live rock is some of the best investments we can make in our tanks.

I'm a huge fan of aquascape and structure. I'll always filter my tanks with as much natural filtration as I can.

 

[ED3]

I did want to give a monthly update. In the past month I've added several new zoanthid frags such as utter chaos, scrambled eggs but the blue hornets are my favorite grab as of late. I picked up a very small RBTA and was given a small frag of sunset montipora so there goes being softies and macro only!

I've also acquired a Penicillus dumetosus or shaving brush macro, Udotea flabellum also known as Mermaid's fan, Caulerpa cupressoides or zipper algae and several mangroves from jfoahs04 that already had some foliage and roots. As of today mangroves will be getting supplemental light more suited to them to supplement their growth.

I've also added a pistol shrimp and am anticipating the arrival of a pair of yasha gobies. The shrimp had cool yellow markings with blueish legs and was most definitly a pistol shrimp so I couldn't pass up the opportunity. I'll never see him again, but I hear him every so often and wake up to new caves. There is also a well fed fighting conch, 3 hermit crabs and a cleaner shrimp now.

The tank is definitely going through its ugly phase right now but hopefully a few corrections and the upgraded clean up crew will clean it right up.

the bottom left is a frag plug with some seaweed. Since the tank's sand bed is the most immature part holding back the whole tank from really taking off I've been giving a supplemental feeding to the fighting conch and nassarius snails every couple of days. They're all still very active but have been picking at what I leave less and less now. I probably will stop doing this in a week or so entirely.

Blue hornets, mangroves, top right zoanthid I'm not sure the ID on but there are also utter chaos, scrambled eggs a sunset montipora, toadstool and RBTA in the picture.

Top down

FTS

 

[ED3]

Fighting conch really stretching for that food.

 

[ED3]

Quick update:

I've been dealing with a cyano outbreak lately hence the lack of pictures. I'm definitely starting to win this battle, to keep up with the nitrate demands of the macro algae, and the Ca++ for that matter, I've had to start dosing. After several weeks of doing this I'm starting to notice a positive change and am finding the outbreak to be much less severe/more manageable.

I've had issues with stocking such a shallow tank and have had MANY jumpers unfortunately. I've decided to keep a fish I've always wanted to try and keep but haven't due to their propensity to nip at corals. I picked myself up a white-spotted puffer and so far he's been an butt as I was warned of prior to purchasing him but has stayed away from the zoanthids in the tank. I did catch him nipping the edge of the opening to a living snail today that flipped however.

I'll be doing some major microscope work this weekend so stay tuned for those pictures!

 

[Chris99999]

Love the microscope pics

 

[ED3]

Cyano gone, everything growing in well. Yasha goby acquired.

Microscope pics coming soon (mainly because there are finally so many pods!)

 

[ED3]

Pods are tricky, I'll catch them eventually. Here are some microscope shots at 400x magnification. I have been doing this periodically for cyano/diatom checks but most of what you see is a lot of single cell algae and very small critters buzzing around. Looks active to me (see next post for some video action).

 

[ED3]

 

[ED3]

 

[ED3]

For those of you unfamiliar with using microscopes, the fine adjustment knob will help you focus on the details and get through many "layers" of the sample as you can see below. Unfortunately I'm not up to speed enough on my reef microbiology/microfauna to ID anything but I have been keeping records of descriptions and relative numbers of different algaes/microbes throughout the tank's life.