The Laid-Back Lagoon - IM 50 Gallon AIO

001 · Mar 2, 2023

Hello everyone

This is my second run at this hobby. In 2012 I acquired a 28 gallon nanocube that was home to live rock and sand which had been running in someone's home for over a year. They never found the time or desire to add livestock.

On a very tight budget, I purchased it and turned it into a work-in-progress oasis. In 2013, I moved to Chile and had to part with my first tank.

Fast forward ten years and I figured now is as good a time as any to receive another baptism by fire in this hobby. Blessed with a bigger budget, more patience, and a deeper appreciation for life of all forms, I am eager to get started.

For this one I went with an Innovative Marine 50 gallon lagoon AIO.

Some other non stock equipment:

2 mp10 vortechs
1 xr30 radion g6 pro
DIY ato
Heaters and all that

I chose five words to inscribe into the DNA of this build and wrote them on the back of the tank:

Health
Balance
Dynamic
Love
Fun

Words have great power when combined with intention and purpose!

Been running for 7 weeks.

Built the scape over about 5 days. In total the scape is 46 pieces of rubble pieced together. The plan is to primarily house rock dwelling fish.

I'm going to take my time and focus on balance of the ecosystem. Added two jars of Poseidon feast pods from algae barn today, just as I'm starting to see small dots of algae on the sand bed. The first real sign of life.

Thanks for reading.

blaxsun · Mar 2, 2023

Laid back, minimal maintenance (ha, yeah right!) tanks are awesome.

evo187 · Mar 7, 2023

following! love the scape!

001 · Apr 4, 2023

About 3 months in, pretty happy with how things are progressing. Had a healthy diatom bloom a few weeks ago and now starting to see some hair algae pop up.

About a week ago I noticed tiny coraline spots on one of the rocks. Now early purples and pinks are forming all over.

Pod population is thriving and going to add another jar next week of the galaxy pods from Algae Barn. Id like as diverse a pod population as possible.

Going slow with the livestock additions...

Residents are a pair of white clowns (orange semi storms), a yellow watchman goby, tiger pistol shrimp, CUC, and three zoa frags

Not sure what's next but it will likely be coral additions for awhile.

FTS from today

001 · Jun 1, 2023

Day 125 FTS

Back on track after a nasty bout with GHA. I bought a refugium (HOB-R Hang-On-Back by Aquamaxx) when I first purchased the aquarium. However because of the radion RMS mount, I was unable to fit the fuge on the back. I knew I had to either figure out a new mounting system or find a different fuge option. While I was going back and forth, I wasn't paying close enough attention to phosphates (like literally not testing). Nitrates were pretty good at ~10.

It got pretty nasty for a few weeks. Some of the rocks were basically covered in GHA. I decided to DIY a new mount and am quite happy with the result.

After I installed the fuge with chaeto, about every two or three days I spent at least an hour pulling algae off of the rocks and out of the sandbed. I had to move all the corals back to the sand because it was getting smothered. It was a massive pain in butt to say the least.

I made a few mistakes early on, like thinking that brushing the algae would make it go away. Turns out it just spreads everywhere else! lol

At one point my phosphate was a .40

I've gotta shout out to Craig at The Salty Side. I found this article and it was immensely helpful. I wish I had found it sooner. https://www.thesaltyside.com/how-to-get-rid-of-green-hair-algae-in-a-saltwater-tank/

But here we are, big lesson learned, and better off for it. Corals are remounted and looking good. Attached a few pics at the end.

Plans for the next month will be to just monitor things and make sure I keep the algae away and the corals are healthy/growing before I add anything new. But I would like to add a few acros asap.

Since the last update I added a few corals:

Octospawn
Frogspawn
Goniopora
Handful of zoas and palys

Been having a bit of trouble with the clowns acting up. I still think the little male hasn't bent the knee. I had to put the female (or at least the bigger one) in a quarantine box for 5 days. When I released her they seemed to not want to fight as much. So fingers crossed things get ironed out there. Luckily the little guy doesnt have any marks or scars, although his pectoral fins have been nipped a bit.

Hope y'all are enjoying spring or whatever season you're currently in.