Griev's 50 Gallon Lagoon AIO - #SavePinkyTheWrasse!

[Griev]

Hey everyone!

This is the build thread for my IM 50 AIO Lagoon tank which has been up and running since April of 2018! Since I set it up, this tank has moved with me from LA to San Francisco and has quickly become my wife and son's favorite thing in the living room.

My previous tanks have all been Nano Reefs, and I originally started my build thread there. If you're interested in seeing how things started, I'm sure you can find it (not sure what the rules are for linking to other forums). I'll copy the last few updates over to here so you can get a feel for what I've been doing lately and how the tank is progressing.

Specifications and Hardware

• 50 Gallon Innovative Marine AIO Lagoon Tank (30"L x 24"W x16"D)
• NanoBox Wide Quad
• Tunze Osmolator 3155 ATO
• EcoTech VorTech MP40
• Cobalt Neotherm 100w Heater
• Tunze 9004 Skimmer (On an 8 hour timer at night)
• InTank Media Basket Running Floss and Chemi-pure Blue
• Two Quarts of CerMedia Bio-Filter Spheres
• Neptune Systems Apex EL, Trident, and DOS Pumps

Livestock - Fish/Inverts (In order of addition)

• Pair of Mocha Clownfish
• Longnose Hawkfish (Turned into a massive jerk, traded in to LFS)
• Midas Blenny (Killed by perviously mentioned massive jerk)
• Royal Gramma (Lost in the move )
• Scarlet Skunk Cleaner Shrimp
• ORA Pink Pincushion Urchin (Would pick up any new frags, traded in to LFS)
• ORA Derasa Clam (Came from LA with Pyramid Snails and died)
• Lyretail Anthias (Male)
• Lyretail Anthias (Females lost one to the Hawkfish and one to the move)
• Yellow-eye Kole Tang
• Mandarin Dragonet
• Spotbreast Angelfish (Female)
• Pinkstreak Wrasse
• Spotbreast Angelfish (Male)

 

[Griev]

*Originally Posted Oct. 2019*

The Move

I'm exhausted! Just completed a ~500 mile move from LA up to the Bay, taking my tank with me in the car. The move was overall successful, with only a few small losses. Going to just brain dump here how I moved and a few things I'd probably do differently next time.

So let's start with logistics!

I bought three ~15 gallon plastic storage totes and four battery powered emergency aeration pumps. I put all the live rock in two totes and all the fish/shrimp in the third. I cut a hole in the top to feed the airline down into the water, and then taped the lids on as well as I could (though still had some minor leaks in the car when I hit bumps, next time I'll put some plastic sheeting down). I stopped a few times to check on the aeration pumps, but I really didn't need to. They'll run for several days on the 2 D batteries.

Once I arrived at my destination I set up the stand and got the tank up there where I wanted it. I then started arranging my rock, and here's where I hit my first snag. I took pictures of all the rock assembled, but didn't take any of how the base layer was assembled. So I struggled for a bit getting the base rocks on the left side positioned correctly so that I could get the top rocks into the right position. This was especially stressful because I had to stop and hit the corals with the water I was pumping up from the totes every now and then.

I finally got everything situated correctly and all the water I brought with me into the tank. Due to a lack of space in my vehicle I wasn't able to bring enough water to fully fill the tank. So at this point it was late and I called it a day. Hooked up the MP40 and the heater and went to bed.

This is where mistake two happened. I didn't think about the fact that without a skimmer running and without the turbulence of the back chamber/overflows, there wasn't much aeration happening. I woke to fish appearing to struggle to breathe. I immediately put the aeration pump to work and the fish seemed to recover within a few minutes. Unfortunately I lost the Royal Gramma and my female Lyretail. I also started running some extra carbon, since I noticed a lot of slime on the corals.

I finished setting up the rest of the equipment, and made enough fresh salt water to top off the tank and everything appears to be running well now!

All in all, I lost two SPS mini colonies and two fish. Some of the other colonies look stressed and have a few broken tips, but should recover. Anemones, LPS, and softies all look great.

TL;DR: Moved ~500 miles and things mostly went well. Never forget about water aeration.

 

[Griev]

*Originally posted Nov 2019*

Hadn't seen the Black Widow anemone in a few days and was starting to get worried. Turned back up today with a surprise. The one in front is the new one, original one is barely visible behind in the rocks.



The poor clowns have been having to share the green and purple anemone, and they're not happy about it. Look at these grumpy faces.



Leng Sy Monti and BC Bohemia



My CB Maleficent is blowing my mind right now. So many colors.



RR Orange Passion looking happy (starting to regain some of the orange post-move).

 

[Griev]

*Originally posted Dec 2019*

Fish are hard to take photos of

 

[Griev]

*Originally posted Dec 2019*

I've been fighting a slow leak where my Alkalinity dosing line leaves the doser. My theory was that gravity was forcing the cheap plastic junction to leak, and even reinforcing with zip ties didn't stop the leak (though it did drastically slow it down). Then yesterday my Alk container decided to crack at the bottom...

All was not lost though! Luckily I was able to contact Santa and negotiate the release of some presents early.

No more leaks with these bad boys. Plus I thought using plastic channel to keep the feed line from curling up was pretty clever.





Much cleaner looking now!

 

[Griev]

*Originally posted Dec 2019*

My Leng Sy Monti is finally showing signs of the spires that this specific lineage is known for. I'd read that not every tank can get them to grow like this so I'm pretty excited! Plus a few other bonus shots (one more of the Beach Bum, but only because it looks better every day)

 

[Griev]

*Originally posted Dec 2019*

My gold torch was getting big enough to start stinging my green anemone so I had to shift the aquascape a little. I knew the torch had the meanest sting in the tank so I've kept it isolated on its own rock so I could move it in the future. So I got rid of the little archway on the right and now it's closer to the front all by itself. Kind of reminds me of a little bonsi tree, and you can see the Gorgs in the back a bit better.



Note the photo bomb of the new male Spotbreast Angelfish. My female has already been following him around and showing off her fins. He was the last of a trio at my LFS and they gave me an awesome deal so I had to go home with him.

Now for a side view! I'm hoping the green nem moves a bit lower away from the acros on the top of the ridge, so I adjusted the returns to encourage it to move lower, but you know how nems are.

 

[Griev]

And now we're current!



Short video of my two Spotbreast Angelfish flirting with each other.

 

[tupes]

Looks like a great build. Thanks for posting this. Please keep us updated as it matures. The gold torch is a great looking piece.

 

[Aldemirgen]

Really nice build

 

[TheWB]

Happy to see you made the move over here. Love the tank, following along.

 

[Griev]

Thanks! You convinced me

 

[Griev]

So about a year ago I picked up a frag of JF Slow Burn Montipora at a local frag swap. Even when I originally got the frag it was nothing to look at (it'll color up he said! ). Mostly just a red/pink encrusting Montipora with blue polyps. Nice but nothing special.

This one's a few months old, but it's looked like this for a while now;



Now all of a sudden it's looking like this! Tons of oranges and yellows and greens coming out. Really becoming a really nice piece.

 

[Griev]

Alright, the moment of truth is upon us. Will the Apex and Trident combo offer enough stability for me to be completely away from the tank for two weeks?! Well, we're going to find out.

Spent the day making sure everything was ready. Topped off the auto-feeder, ATO Reservoir (7 gallons is juuuust enough for two weeks), and did one last water change because why not?

Starting tomorrow I'll be away for two weeks with only a webcam pointing at the display and rear chamber, and whatever data the Apex sends me. Last time I tried this it didn't go great (noticed a problem on my webcam and had to have my backup run over and troubleshoot), but I feel like I have way more control with the Apex and could have easily prevented what happened last time if I'd had it.

Full tank shot for a before photo...

 

[OVER9K_REEF]

And now we're current!



Short video of my two Spotbreast Angelfish flirting with each other.

Nice build! I hit that follow on IG

 

[lilgrounchuck]

I

*Originally posted Dec 2019*

My Leng Sy Monti is finally showing signs of the spires that this specific lineage is known for. I'd read that not every tank can get them to grow like this so I'm pretty excited! Plus a few other bonus shots (one more of the Beach Bum, but only because it looks better every day)

love my long sy. I got it as an add on for $4 to my first coral order a few months back. It was the size of a thumbnail on the frag plug now it’s about the size of the palm of my hand. I think they’re super neat looking with the purple rims and the way it builds those peaks along the plate.

 

[Aqua fire/medic]

Good luck with the Vacation. I’m on vacation right now..... hoping to come back to a reef. These little water boxes sure do cause a lot of anxiety don’t they?

 

[Griev]

Good luck with the Vacation. I’m on vacation right now..... hoping to come back to a reef. These little water boxes sure do cause a lot of anxiety don’t they?

Hah, that they do. So far so good!

 

[Griev]

I'm back from vacation and this will be a long post, so buckle in for the ride. TLDR tank's mostly fine, Apex sorta caused a problem due to my human error, but also helped me catch and correct the issue remotely.

First off, here's how the tank looks now.

Made a little aquascape change again to set up the gold torch to be more of a centerpiece and give my green nem more room. I also circled a few problem areas that I'll explain below.

So prior to the Apex DoS I had an inexpensive 4 way doser that's a knockoff of another brand, you know the one. Anyway, I was dosing around 42-44 ml per day of All/Calc, but due to the pain of scheduling I had it dosing half at the morning and the other half during the second half of the light cycle. Alk/Cal were 5 minutes apart, and the pumps were calibrated every time I refilled the dosing containers, so I was confident in the amounts.

Fast forward to setting up the Apex DoS, I dial in those amounts since I know that's what my tank takes to stay stable and use the nifty built in feature to spread the dose out over the entire day, supposedly to allow more efficient uptake. Well the good news is that it works amazingly, the bad news is my tank didn't need 42 ml per day, it needed only 23... Oh crap!

This of course caused a bit of a spike in Alkalinity from 7.5~ to a little over 9 over two days. The Trident was running and showing the increase but I didn't quite trust it yet so while waiting to see if the measurements would stabilize I waited too long to adjust anything, because like I said before I was confident that's what my tank needed. It didn't help that I had to leave for vacation in a few days. Before the Apex I would have had to take my best guess at a dosing adjustment and hope I nail it in the few days I had left, then pray things held over vacation.

This is where the Apex/Trident/DoS combo really shined. I was able to use the Trident controlled dosing mode to slowly bring things safely back down to where they needed to be over the two weeks I was on vacation. Ended up working great and now I'm holding my Alk rock steady back at 8, using about half of what I thought I was effectively dosing before, so my two part will last twice as long.

Most of the Acropora handled it ok, a couple burned tips, but they'll recover fully. I did unfortunately take a couple losses in the area circled in Yellow. Unfortunately this included one from my most recent @Battlecorals Battle Box, the BC Goldfire. I was excited about that one, hopefully he's still got some when I'm ready for my next box.

A few others like my Blue Tort lost a lot of tissue but appear to be hanging on for now. Pretty sure again from the Alk swing but it's hard to know.

The second thing that happened was the new baby black widow nem decided to move to the area circled in Red. The combination of the Alk swing and a nem moving in really ticked off the cap, it's looking pretty rough but Monti caps are tough and I'm hoping it'll fully recover. The nems foot was pretty far in there but I encouraged it to move again so we'll see where it ends up. It also stung the JF Slow Burn Monti below that was finally coloring up. It looks like it'll also be fine too.

Overall this went way better than last year's vacation, and I'm now really confident in being able to walk away from the tank for up to two weeks and feel relatively comfortable that the tank will be ok (assuming no more wandering nems...)

Fish are all happy and the new male Spotbreast is settling in nicely and starting to fatten up. He was pretty skinny when I got him so I'm happy to see him eating well.

 

[Griev]

The wandering nem appears to have taken up residence worryingly close to my MP40. The good news is I bought a nem guard for just this sort of occasion. We'll see if the nem stays here or keeps wandering.

Close ups of some of the losses. The Blue Tort seems to be hanging on at the base even though the top lost pretty much all it's tissue. The right frag was the BC Goldfire

Here you can see how upset the Monti Cap is, and see some of the stung Slow Burn Monti below.

Some burnt tips up top and the one in the middle is barely holding on, but not looking great. The two millipora on the right have looked mad since the move. Hoping they start looking better.