Lagoon 25 EXT Barebottom Revamp

Tyler White · Jan 6, 2020

Thought id throw my current project out there and see if anyone else has done something similar and your take on this type of system
I had this tank running as a mixed reef and after a year of running it pretty much crashed and other than the fish and some LPS and Zoas was a total loss...
But with the things i have learned about these small tanks and flow in regards to SPS I have decided to go barebottom!! As well as retire the refugium for now and handle nutrient control the old fashioned way with water changes and a skimmer. I just could not for the life of me keep nitrate and phosphate up despite pounding food and cutting the photoperiod.
The system will have:
Aquatic life T5 (non dimmable)
2x Ai primes that will be mounted on the edges pointing in to help with any and all shadowing and PAR on the outside edges of the tank
1x Noopsyche k7 pro II for the center
SCA-301 skimmer
2x Jaebo OW-25
1x Icecap 1k Gyre
1x BRS 300 Watt Heater
1x 150 Jaeger Trutemp (for backup heating)
Tunze 3152 ATO (I know people give it crap and mine has bugged out on me before but it was for the most part a general maintenance issue and not the product itself)
Jaebo 3 channel doser running 2 part and eventually amino acids on the last doser head
The rock is a mixture of STAX rock and Marco mortar

Everything will be controlled with a Neptune Apex with the Trident helping to keep everything stable for the longterm plan to make this an SPS dominant system.

Picture was taken this evening running good ol tap water and a god awful amount of vinegar through the system to kill off whatever is left in the piping and pumps to get everything ready for the final cleaning before i silicone the ABS sheet to the bottom and start the cycle! It will be a longer cycle for sure closer to that 4 month WWC/BRS hybrid cycle but i will try to keep this thread updated with any progress or setbacks that will happen along the way!

reef lover · Feb 2, 2020

Sounds like a solid plan. Look forward to the build!

Tyler White · Feb 2, 2020

Just a little update.
Been cycling about a week now
Just need to build a proper skimmer stand and fix some gaps in the aquascape due to the pillars not being totally flush with the bottom.
As well as put together a screen top and add a vent to the sump area as i didn't account for the humidity the skimmer puts off.

Not to mention the cord management im behind on lol.

Still thinking about fish stocking.. anyone have any ideas?

Going to have to space out the fish additions because of the biological instability without sand as well as manage aggression.

I know the very last thing i will add will be a tiny flame angel and pray to the gods they are not a coral eater.

Sayn3ver · Feb 2, 2020

Random question, is that American beech hardwood flooring? Or a stained maple?

Tyler White · Feb 2, 2020

Sayn3ver said:
Random question, is that American beech hardwood flooring? Or a stained maple?

Actually good ol' laminate mobile home trailer park special flooring lol

Tyler White · Feb 24, 2020

Not really a whole lot going on with the tank at the moment. Still cycling and actually had it stalled for the longest time with super high nitrite and after watching Dr Tims talk at MACNA 2019 and after a couple larger water changes have it down to acceptable levels where the bacteria can get back at it.

In more exciting less microbacterial news. My stock IM return pump in my IM40 finally kicked the bucket and it did it with a BANG (almost)

The wire running to the pump completely pulled out of the pump body and was pumping current into the tank for a few hours after a water change!
Fish are all fine but my corals on the other hand are pretty p'd off and have only lost one hammer frag so far here's hoping that's the end of it.

Since the cycle is coming to a close soon does anyone know of a clean source of coralline? I was going to try the ARC bottle and will probably still go with them but after some drama involving possible hitchhikers on their rocks that come int he bottle im looking for any alternatives

reef lover · Feb 24, 2020

A fellow reefer is the best way to get some.

Tyler White · Feb 25, 2020

Gettin a little sunburn this morning getting some par values.
Let me tell you now this noopsyche light is powerful stuff... im running all of my leds as of right now way underpowered and getting crazy par numbers.

Just for gigs i cranked everything to max and got on the top of my rock structure 1200 par.

I honestly think i would get a tan under these things lol

Tyler White · Feb 25, 2020

After a few hours of tuning my lights i have everything dialed in right around that 250-350 mark on all the rockwork even on the bottom in some spots.

Not only that my cycle is back on after my 50 percent water change.. that nitrite level being through the roof was holding things back bigtime.

The picture i added was last night on the right and just now on the left. Still a little tint to the water but I'll take that anyday.

Just one more month till fish.

Going to order some salt and other things this weekend and with my lack of local reefers off hand im gonna grab a bottle of that ARC coralline and dump in there and see what happens.

Tyler White · Mar 26, 2020

One month later and we are well on our way to getting this tank going full force.

Added the first fish and have had the lights going to power through the ugly stage and so far have had minimal algae and i owe that to letting the right types of bacteria build up on the surfaces of the tank and keeping up with my water changes (for the most part ;Playful )

I went with a Pictus Blenny and Longnose Hawkfish for the blennys algae picking skills and the hawkfish for hunting down (hopefully) smaller pest type critters that might show up and plus i can already tell he is going to be THE fish of the tank that im going to bond with hes just so goofy lol.

I added my Carbon reactor today finally after dealing with painfully cloudy water and whatever meds these guys may have had on their slime coats and such. Plus i have been putting it off way too long lol.

The only thing i have left to do is get my dosing system set up and ready to go and have not yet decided on dosing pumps.

I have a jaebo 3 head doser that i have used with success in the past BUT now that i have the trident i have been looking at neptunes doser because i believe it works with the trident in tandem to keep your tank stable.

Has anyone had any experience with the DOS? pros/cons and any insights on how well it works with your trident.

This has been your irregularly scheduled programming

reef lover · Mar 27, 2020

Looking good!
Probably won't need supplemental dosing for awhile but I have the trident and dos and so far I like it!! Only thing is ,and I may not have given it long enough before I manually changed amounts in the system, i wanted and set my all for 9 it was at 8.5 and it didn't add anymore than the 20ml i programmed to raise it up....i did lower the difference ratio to .25 dkh so it should have adjusted dosing...but I'll give it some more time before i think that it won't self adjust.

Tyler White · Jul 20, 2020

It has been a WHILE!

So between everything going on between life and the tank not doing so hot i didn't want to come back with bad news BUT! once i was ready to pull the trigger on some corals i did and boy... boy did that not go how i planned.

So at the Carolina Reef Experience i bought one of those ceramic frag holders that i placed in my sump with the intention of using it later on down the road to hold my frags at the bottom of the tank until i moved them to their forever home (terrible idea) All that new real estate perfectly white and ready to grow god knows what BAM

Dinos

I could go on and on about what i tried to get rid of it to no avail...and until i got in there and physically removed as much of it as possible i didn't start making headway to the point a few weeks ago to where i was dino free after having raised the tank temperature to 82 for a week which seemed to knock them out (or so i thought)

Oh man... going back through this thread... well i guess i have more bad news... pictus blenny got ate by a powerhead and the hawkfish i had named Scoob cause he followed me around the tank like a puppy or something jumped out despite my best attempts at lidding the tank. So right now the only inhabitants are a lawnmower blenny my yellowtail damsel and my coral beauty angelfish.

This leads us to last friday when i got in some tester SPS yet again and they seem to be doing a whole lot better than the last corals i tried (not having a mat of dinos over them helps) and between the coraline taking over and the new sps frags i had to start dosing and to mitigate a small rise in salinity from god knows where i figured i would do a small 5 gallon water change just to help get my calcium and mag up a bit and next thing you know BAM dinos again. albeit not that bad this time around im probably going to bubble scrub the rocks a bit and remove any that i can get ahold of tonight because of of these acros i got ahold of are beautiful and i really dont want to lose anything else.