Lagoon 25 plans

[tangerine3486]

Recently purchased everything I need -I think- for a IM lagoon 25. The goal is to have a good system to grow out my soft and lps frags. I will move all the random frags out of my main tank and expect to cover almost the entire sand bed with frags. And ditch the biocube 14.

In addition to the tank, I'll have :
Radion xr15 pro
Media basket on one side, running chaeto on top, then purigen and chemipure elite
Sicce 260 gph return (50 more than stock)
No extra powerhead
No hermits and 3 fish.
There will be a sandbed
Live Rock that will cover about 1/3 the bottom.


Basically the question is, is no skimmer the right thing to do to get better growth of the softies and lps (mostly acans) with a nutrient richer environment? skip the chaeto or sand? Looking for any input!

 

[PJS]

Following...
I'm considering doing the same thing with a 30 long I have set up and empty. Curious to see the suggestions.

 

[SeahorseKeeper]

Looking forward to the his coming together!

 

[tangerine3486]

 

[tangerine3486]

So its real, but I did not get any feedback for the original questions. To sum it up:

I'm setting this up to replace the biocube 14, and it will serve as a coral growing / frag tank or whatever you want to call it. It will have live rock, a light fish bioload and NO SPS. The questions: Sandbed or no sandbed? Do I skim or will that keep me from a nutrient rich environment that I hear softies like? Don't bother with Chaeto or Chemipure for the same reason? Any feedback will be great!

 

[tangerine3486]

@PJS @SeahorseKeeper , I decided to go with sand bed instead bare bottom, and No skimmer. I'll run PhosGuard if necessary to keep phosphates down and probably do chemipure elite. I do anticipate aligning my nitrates a little high for the Softies and LPS. I will use chaeto if I have to do weekly water changes to keep nitrates/phosphates down. Well that is the plan.

Build thread started:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/tangerines-lagoon-25.296871/#post-3629944

 

[Flatlandreefer]

A skimmer is not necessary unless your bio load is high which it sounds like it won't be. The one potential issue I can see is only relying on your return pump for water movement, even with the upgraded pump there won't be significant flow coming from the return outlets. I suspect that you will have significant dead spots, I am running an mp10 at 100% on mine and I am wanting another powerhead, granted that is for sps and it has live rock blocking some flow. If you do just use the return pump I would recommend spin stream nozzles to break up the flow pattern. If it is for a frag tank I would say no sandbed, it will be easier to maintain and less algae problems!

 

[tangerine3486]

Thanks for the advice! Unfortunately I added the sand two days ago. However I looked at those spin stream nozzles and they look awesome. I will be investing in those!

 

[Flatlandreefer]

Some people report them being loud when you first install them but they should get quiet once they break in.