MarcosTacos' First Mixed Reef: Innovative Marine Nuvo Lagoon 25

[MarcosTacos]

I'm making this thread to get insight from more knowledgeable reefers and also document my tank's progress.

First, a bit of background info. I initially bought a cheap 40$ Fluval Evo 13.5g off Markeplace to get into freshwater aquascaping, but after some research found out it was better suited for reefing (mainly because of the light). I then decided to try out reefing as I saw people get pretty good results with the same tank.

So 3 weeks later here is the tank. I cycled it with fritz turbostart 900 and liquid Ammonia, after 5 days my parameters were all good, I did a water change to lower nitrates and added a pair of ocellaris clowns a couple days after that. The tank hasn't changed since, I got a diatom bloom 2 weeks in and turned off the lights since.



I found out the stock light was not ideal since there is no adjustability. I like to have options and so I started shopping for lights, which lead to a new screen top, then media baskets, new pump, rfg nozzles, and so on and so on. I realized my small budget tank would start to cost a bit more than I anticipated and so I started looking at some used tanks for sale. I figured, instead of dropping a bunch of money into the evo, I would find something a bit bigger which would be easier to care for and would allow more space for corals and fish.

This is when I saw this fully equipped established IM Lagoon 25 for sale about 3 hours away from my house. The tank had been running for about 2 years and the owner just didn't have time to care for it anymore. Long story short, friday afternoon I drove to Montreal and picked up the tank for 600$. I got a bunch of goodies with it too :
- Reinforced Ikea Stand
- Aquanest Aquamax M60 light (not a lot of info on these)
- Red sea DIY Mesh Lid
- Eshopps Nano Skimmer
- UV sterilizer
- Eheim heater
- ATO
- 2 wavemakers
- Filter socks
- Hanna test kits with reagents
- Red sea test kits
- Aquascaping tools
- Coral food and feeder
- Frozen food

Also livestock:
-Corals: Couple of zoas (will have to look them up), Couple of Motipora digi , Hammerhead, Frogspawn, Pulsing Xenia (I think?), and a green mushroom type coral (will also have to look that one up)
-Fish : Pair of clowns, bangaii cardinal, six line wrasse, purple firefish
-Inverts : Tuxedo urchin, 3-4 electric blue hermits, bunch of snails

The tank is doing well now, there is a hair algae outbreak in there, possibly due to overfeeding by the previous owner but I will have to test my water parameters, I just haven't had the time to properly test everything.

Here is the tank right after the inital setup on friday.

Here is the tank 2 days later. I know it's dirty, I cleaned it up a short while after.

My plans are pretty straightforward for now:
- I want to sell the Fluval evo, will probably switch my snowflake clownfish with the ones from the Lagoon.
- I want to take care of the algae, I already pulled out a lot yesterday and vacuumed it. Will look at my parameters and decide what to do from there.
- I want to upgrade the filtration. The tank is running 2 filter socks ATM, some bio balls and ceramic balls. I would like to either get 1 media basket and run a sock on the other side, that way I could rotate between socks. Or I run 2 media baskets. Would love input on this.
- I want to add sand to the tank once the algae is taken care of. I will also rescape the tank as for now it's a bit of a mess since I just threw it together to let it run once I got back from the trip. I would love to try a negative space aquascape but doubt I could do that with the current rock without killing the bacteria, and I don't want to restart the tank from scratch.

 

[ShepherdReefer]

Thanks for sharing. Looking great.

 

[gsepanik]

I just set up a lagoon as well, will be following along!

 

[MarcosTacos]

First update!

The tank has been doing great. Everything survived the move and I even started to see some growth on some corals.

I also checked some things off of my TODO list:

- I sold the evo and got my designer clowns in the lagoon.
- Took care of almost all the algae. Big water changes and a big toothbrush-rock cleaning session did the trick. My urchin and snails also helped quite a bit .
- I upgraded my filtration: Got a 3d printer and designed a bunch of stuff for the tank: 2 media baskets with integrated floss holders. Also printed some RFG nozzles and adapters. All the files are available in this thread.
- I started to re-scape de tank. I broke down my live rock in pieces with a hammer and chisel, then glued the pieces together with the thin glue and sand method. I used this glue (gluemasters alternative in Canada) and it worked like a charm. I am not done yet as I didn't have enough rock dust to complete the scape. I will go get some sand this week to add to the tank and finally be done with my aquascape.


Some things I want to do now:

- Finish my scape and add some sand.
- Get some more corals and glue my current ones to my aquascape.
- Figure out the light mounting. My current light mouts are on the side glass and I find it annoying since the screen top can't fit properly and the mounts are flimsy.

That's it for now, will post pictures when I have the time!

 

[MarcosTacos]

Its been 2 months since I got the tank setup at my place.

I got to work on the aquascape and finally think I'm done! I added sand to the bottom and am quite happy with the result! If you plan on re-scaping your already established tank, it is definetly doable! Just take your time and make sure you wet the rock regularly. Also keep in mind the height you want to reach, we added some archways on the larger piece and they are just a tad bit too high for my taste. Sorry for the white light pics, don't have an orange filter yet.

Other changes I have made include removing the RFG nozzles as my pump didn't push enough flow to make them that useful. They also took quite a bit of space in the tank and didn't fit in with the new rockwork. I bought a used MP10 to take care of the flow. I run it on lagoon mode at about 30-40% intensity. I really like it so far as it seems to create some nice flow all around the tank. There might be some small deadspots but I don't really think they are a problem.

I also got some more corals! I got a green torch from a local reefer. Also went to a small lfs and got an orange hammer, a candy cane coral, some gsp and some zoas. The guys from the store is a great dude and gave me the zoas for free. I am going to glue the corals down at some point but for now I am still experimenting with placement.

Now let's talk about the not so great stuff going on with the tank.

I am seeing some cyano popping up. It might be from the new rock that was added to the tank or from exposing the inside of the live rock after breaking them up. In any case I just vacuumed it up while doing a water change and now there are only a couple spots left.

I also tested my parameters and seem to be running low on calcium (380) and phosphate (0). My nitrates are quite low too at around 0.75 ppm. I am not feeding much since I heard this is a common mistake beginners make, but will try to ramp that up a bit and hope to see some increase in phos and nitrate. I also removed the skimmer in the hopes that it will help bring them up a bit. I also bought some kalkwasser to try and dose through my ato when I figure out my calc and alk consumption.

Finally, my red forest fire montipora digi are not doing as good as they were when I got the tank. They seem to be growing fast, but their popyp extension is not great. Especially for the larger frag which I accidentally broke a piece of. The other two frags have a bit more polyp extension. I think this might be because of the recent changes in lighting and water parameters. I will try to monitor them as I get the parameters under control.

That's pretty much it for now. I am currently working on a mounting solution for my light and will try to post an update once that is finished.

 

[dailygrind81]

I'm getting this same tank. How do you have everything setup in the back built in sump area?

 

[MarcosTacos]

I'm getting this same tank. How do you have everything setup in the back built in sump area?

My setup is fairly simple. I have 2 media baskets with integrated floss holder which I designed and 3d printed. I run pink floss which I swap out every few days once the water starts overflowing from the floss holder. I also have a heater in the right 2nd chamber and the Eshopp Nano Skimmer in the left 2nd chamber. Finally, pump in the center chamber. The pump is a cheap one which is rated at around 400 gph but i'm pretty sure it's way lower than that. I also have bio media in the center chamber but I am going to remove it since I already have a lot of live rock in the display.

I'd like to figure out a way to integrate rfg nozzles into the back wall without them sticking out so much. Will have to generate some designs and test stuff out with my 3d printer.

 

[MarcosTacos]

So, alot has happened in the last 2 months.

The tank got infested with Prorocentrum dinos after using chemi-clean to treat the cyano. I had low nutrients for a while and that did the trick to start the outbreak. I joined the Mack's reef dino club on facebook and started the recommended treatment. Dosing silicates, dosing phosphates and nitrates, pods and phyto. After a month the dinos only got worse and worse which lead to my corals dying. I also had my six line die off, even though I ran carbon which got changed regularly, I think the dinos had taken over too much. Lots of corals seemed irritated and I lost some of them too. I did an ICP test and nothing seemed off, so the dinos must have been the cause of all this mess.

I have since sold off all my remaining livestock to local reefers as I didn't want them to suffer anymore in my tank. I also am selling most of my equipment with the tank right now.

I bought a used lifegard 24 gallon AIO for a great price, and will be starting a new build thread to document the progress. I will try a more simple approach, mainly by adding softies and maybe a little bit of sps. My goal will be to have a low maintenance tank.

Reefing is a challenging hobby with it's ups and downs, I won't let this discourage me as I have learned a great deal from this build which I will use to better plan my upcoming one.