TheWB’s IM Lagoon 50

[Hella_Reef]

Time to get a fish and a lps coral [emoji106][emoji106][emoji106][emoji106]

I runk kalk in my ato. Keep me at 8.1-8.2 ph. I also dose 100ml of calcium and alk a day

 

[TheWB]

Time to get a fish and a lps coral [emoji106][emoji106][emoji106][emoji106]

I runk kalk in my ato. Keep me at 8.1-8.2 ph. I also dose 100ml of calcium and alk a day

It is time to get a fish or four but I’m running into a snag with that. I was hoping to source a few prophylacticly treated and quarantined fish but that’s been delayed and may not happen at all. That would put me back to square one fishwise but I’ll deal with it. My job keeps me pretty busy so the idea of not having to babysit a qt tank was super appealing. I don’t really have a place to put one either. There are several LPS on my wishlist but I think an inexpensive zoa frag or two is what I will start with. There’s a really cool LFS near me that has tons of zoas and LPS, especially Acans, for really reasonable prices. I’m going to throw some business their way for sure. Their fish selection isn’t very good though, and most of the places around here are running hyposalinity and copper which makes fish selection and acclimation difficult if you don’t have a good qt setup. I’ll figure it out though, thanks for the details on how you're keeping your ph up.

 

[TheWB]

Pardon the extremely blue lighting but here’s the first picture of my new inhabitants. Finally got some fish in the tank. That’s a pair of Zebra Bar Dart Fish and a pair of Ocellaris Clowns (1 regular, 1 misbar) courtesy of Saltwater City in Bellevue WA. Picked them up and acclimated them yesterday afternoon. Clowns are captive bred from Sea and Reef. Acclimation went well and so far everyone is doing great. I have very lightly fed them three times so far today and all 4 are eating and left nothing behind so appetites seem pretty good. Finally set up my lighting for Ecotech’s preprogrammed LPS and Softy mode with a 4 week acclimation period which is why it’s so blue. Tank got wet on 1/6 and first fish went in on 5/26 s0 I stuck pretty well to my long cycle plan. Assuming these guys are doing well in another 4-6 weeks I’ll start thinking about some coral.

 

[Hella_Reef]

Congrats on the first fish. You definitely were patient with this. Good job!

What corals have caught ur eye and do u plan on putting in first?

 

[TheWB]

Congrats on the first fish. You definitely were patient with this. Good job!

What corals have caught ur eye and do u plan on putting in first?

Thanks, it was hard to keep waiting but ultimately I’m happy I did. My plan for corals is zoas and LPS. I’ve never done sps and if I decide to get into them it won’t be for a while. I really don’t want to set up a dosing system if I don’t have to. I’m thinking about different hammers, torches and frogspawn for the front lower islands. Maybe zoas on the island on the right with something taller at the top. I’m hoping a RBTA will eventually be a centerpiece right there in the middle high point under the light but I know they can be fickle and start moving around. I also want a small garden of RFA’s in there somewhere. I’ll mix in some blastos, trumpets, favias and acans as well. I want it to be pretty diverse within the LPS family. I’m sure I’ll run out of real estate faster than I think I will but hopefully in a year or so I’ll be happy with my selections.

 

[TheWB]

Ok, now comes the part where I apologize for every bad thought I had about my Apex 2016. I had a lot of trouble getting the salinity probe and ph probe calibrated properly and at one point I called it an $800 temperature controller. I liked having it but I was annoyed. I went back and learned a little more and was eventually able to dial in the probes which made me feel better about the whole purchase.
Now on to today. My Apex was trying to tell me something and I wasn’t listening. ORP dropped significantly, salinity raised significantly, ph dropped over a point, temp dropped over a point. I’m a moron so I thought there was something wrong with the Apex so I’ll just deal with it later right, after all I’m super busy with work and everything in the tank looks fine.
Finally this afternoon I look in the back chamber to check the heater because the temp was still down and all the other numbers are not where they are supposed to be. It turns out that the moron in charge of the tank forgot to turn the ATO back on after Sunday’s water change. There had been enough evaporation that the water had stopped flowing into the back chamber from the display. It must have just reached that point because the return pump hadn’t started spitting air bubbles and there was still water in the return chamber but the flow from the skimmer and heater sections had stopped. Turn ATO back on and problem solved.
Moral of the story is don’t forget to turn your ATO back on when water change is complete and when your Apex tells you multiple things are not right try not to ignore it. Apex 1, Me 0

 

[jtietz]

Ok, now comes the part where I apologize for every bad thought I had about my Apex 2016. I had a lot of trouble getting the salinity probe and ph probe calibrated properly and at one point I called it an $800 temperature controller. I liked having it but I was annoyed. I went back and learned a little more and was eventually able to dial in the probes which made me feel better about the whole purchase.
Now on to today. My Apex was trying to tell me something and I wasn’t listening. ORP dropped significantly, salinity raised significantly, ph dropped over a point, temp dropped over a point. I’m a moron so I thought there was something wrong with the Apex so I’ll just deal with it later right, after all I’m super busy with work and everything in the tank looks fine.
Finally this afternoon I look in the back chamber to check the heater because the temp was still down and all the other numbers are not where they are supposed to be. It turns out that the moron in charge of the tank forgot to turn the ATO back on after Sunday’s water change. There had been enough evaporation that the water had stopped flowing into the back chamber from the display. It must have just reached that point because the return pump hadn’t started spitting air bubbles and there was still water in the return chamber but the flow from the skimmer and heater sections had stopped. Turn ATO back in and problem solved.
Moral of the story is don’t forget to turn your ATO back on when water change is complete and when your Apex tells you multiple things are not right try not to ignore it. Apex 1, Me 0

A bit of knowledge i learned the hard way is to always no matter what keep your temp prob in the display tank. I had it in my sump and the ato didnt kick on cause of a dirty sensor causing my temp prob to read a low temp reading turning on my heater until it boiled my fish and corals. Oh yeah the best part is that it happened to me on a christmas morning. So anyone reading this put your temp prob in the display tank.

 

[TheWB]

A bit of knowledge i learned the hard way is to always no matter what keep your temp prob in the display tank. I had it in my sump and the ato didnt kick on cause of a dirty sensor causing my temp prob to read a low temp reading turning on my heater until it boiled my fish and corals. Oh yeah the best part is that it happened to me on a christmas morning. So anyone reading this put your temp prob in the display tank.

That makes good sense. Thanks for the idea.

 

[TheWB]

The smaller of the two Zebra Barred Dartfish escaped my tank today somehow. My son found it laying on the screen top right in the middle under the light. We got him back in the water and after about 20 minutes its swimming around normally when not hiding. Goes to show if there’s any room at all to get out, they’ll get out. Cautiously optimistic for a full recovery, not sure how long it was out of the water.

In other news, diatoms are going pretty good which is to be expected after fish were added and feeding was started. Trying to straddle the line between keeping the very small clowns well fed and keeping the nutrients down. My Chaeto died so that was never really helpful with uptake. I’ve been feeding just a few pieces of TDO Chromaboost at a time to make sure they eat everything with minimal loss into the overflow. Phosphates are higher than they should be and so are Nitrates. Going to do a 10 gallon water change this weekend and have ordered a reactor and some GFO. I want to keep the fish well fed so some additional removal capabilities for nutrients are in order. No corals yet so I can just concentrate on getting water parameters dialed in without worrying about algae all over frags. Slow and steady progress continues.

 

[TheWB]

Pre-water change yesterday Nitrates were at 5 on Salifert, Phosphate was at .06 on Hanna Checker. Don’t know if I believe that or not as the first run of the test came up as zero. There’s brownish algae coating the rock surfaces so I’m sure some nutrients are being used by that. Added some Chemi-pure Blue to the right overflow chamber to add a little phosphate reduction and water polishing. I’ll see how that goes for a week or two and then maybe add some gfo to the new reactor if phosphates stay elevated.

Current FTS

 

[TheWB]

I have added a larger cleanup crew from Reefcleaners. I got the package for a 37 gallon tank which matches my actual water volume. It’s been about 8 days and they are starting to make a dent in the nuisance algae present. I also picked up another ball of Chaeto for the fuge basket and some Ulva. Hopefully the Macros do better this time around with more nutrients in the system. I tried to put some of the Ulva in my display but it was hard to secure and ultimately it came loose with a little help from the Emerald Crab who came in the clean up crew. I also added a .01 mystery macro that came with the order and that seems to be doing well. I don’t know which kind it is, it wasn’t listed on the packing list and it doesn’t look like anything listed on the reefcleaners website.

 

[TheWB]

Meet my newest inhabitant, a Lubbock’s Multi Colored Fairy Wrasse from Saltwater City in Bellevue WA. Already out and about swimming after drip acclimation. Hard to see from the blue heavy pics but it’s a pretty colorful specimen. I know these are hit and miss on getting to eat in a new tank. Fingers crossed that it goes after tonight’s mysis feeding. We’ll see how it goes.

 

[TheWB]

So, interesting twist to the story. I asked for the Lubbocks Wrasse at the lfs. Guy goes to fish it out of the tank and I’m kinda browsing around, not paying much attention but out of my peripheral vision I see the Wrasse dive into a rock. He gets fished out and bagged but I’m not paying that much attention at this point. Turns out he snagged the wrong Wrasse. I didn’t notice during acclimation because the coloration went really dark. Now that it’s been swimming around and getting more comfortable it’s regular coloration is coming out. It’s very obviously an Orange Backed Fairy Wrasse. Definitely not what I intended to buy, it costs more than twice as much as the Lubbocks was supposed to cost. However, since I was rung up for the $29.99 for the Lubbock I guess I’ll take the Orange and like it. The fish store is over an hour away and I’m not gonna stress that fish out again to take him back. He’s eating mysis and generally fitting in with the other fish so I’m calling it good. Still want a Lubbocks though. Guess that will be waiting until next month.

 

[intricate_reefer]

Build looks like it’s coming along nicely. Love what you did with the stax rock. Also your wire management skills are on point. You don’t even wanna see mine lol

 

[TheWB]

Thanks for the kind words. I spent a really long time on the scape and as you can see it went through many changes. I’m happy with the end result. The wire management was sort of an accident, usually I would have had a rats nest going on but I stumbled into the wire routers accidentally and a lightbulb sort of went on. I’m following your thread and I do want to see you’re wire management, post up those pics .

 

[TheWB]

I’ve been trying to get some decent pics of the Orange Back Wrasse but he’s pretty elusive. I was finally able to log back into my ecosmart live account and change my Radion settings to something a little less blue so there are some FTS and side shots of the scape that hopefully look a little better than before.

 

[intricate_reefer]

Beautiful fish! How long before you start getting some coral?

 

[TheWB]

Thanks, he was a pretty cool mistake lol. Still can’t believe how that happened.
As for coral, it might be a while. The tank has been running since Jan but only had fish since the end of May. I don’t think it’s really stable yet. I think (subject to revision if necessary) that I might just leave it as fish only for a while as I complete my stocking list. I can use that time to really dial in nitrate and phosphate levels/reduction that get affected by feeding and bioload. I like a busy looking tank, lots of fish. Getting that sorted out might be the best course of action, stabilize the tank with a full load of fish and then start adding corals. What do you think, does that sound like a reasonable approach for long term success or am I way overthinking things?

 

[intricate_reefer]

I think that’s a great strategy if you have the patience. I didn’t lol, started tank January had corals in February. I’m more into coral though so it was hard to wait but if fish is your thing it might be easier. Overall I think it’s a smart move. I had a couple issues getting No3 and Po4 where I wanted them and the corals suffered when I got dinos, lost a coral or two but things bounced back.

 

[TheWB]

I think that’s a great strategy if you have the patience. I didn’t lol, started tank January had corals in February. I’m more into coral though so it was hard to wait but if fish is your thing it might be easier. Overall I think it’s a smart move. I had a couple issues getting No3 and Po4 where I wanted them and the corals suffered when I got dinos, lost a coral or two but things bounced back.

I’m really into both fish and coral. I just have this feeling that if I go too fast and put a bunch of coral in there I’m going to have a giant algae mess and that won’t be good for anything. I want to add coral but I’m going to wait. Establish the fish and let everything equalize. I know doing it this way is no guarantee that I won’t have problems with parameters later but it can’t hurt. It’s a bummer though because I was checking out a couple of the WWC frag packs that are on sale right now and it was really tough not to pull the trigger.