DeFarts' IM 50gal Lagoon Journey

[ReyDeFarts]

Are those SpinStream nozzles? How do you like them? Any issues? Been thinking about trying them out there is another brand I think.
Paul

Hey Pj. Yes they are. So far they are working well. It takes a little time for them to quiet down. If you listen closely, you can hear them. They definitely need a good amount of flow to work properly. I purchased two of the IM dual nozzle attachments and four of the spinstreams. In order to run all four, it would need a powerful return pump. I opted for 2 smaller pumps to run each side and it is working well.

The rotating flow dynamics makes sense to me. More so than RFG nozzles honestly. I am getting a lot of surface agitation which is nice and they hit so many different spots below too. When those are rotating and the MP10 goes into a higher setting, I see a lot of random movement throughout the tank. I still have at least one more wavemaker to add to the back for detritus movement.

I haven't added any corals yet though, so we shall see how good they'll do to help with that. They are a little unsightly for some folks, but I'm trying to learn to ignore them. I figure eventually, when all the coral are in the there, it will be easy to ignore.

 

[ReyDeFarts]

I was able to get a species ID and it would make sense that Salty Bottom Reef rocks are from the gulf of Mexico. Provided by someone on R2R

Posting it here for reference and for additional insight in case someone has a rebuttal to the ID.

Species: Neogonodactylus wennerae

As of right now, this little guy will get to enjoy this tank as his new home. My family has voted and he gets to stay. I will be working on convincing them that he'll do much better in the fluval 13.5. They aren't convinced and want the challenge of finding him in the DT.

 

[derek_SR]

Awesome!! I think that looks like a good ID, but what do I know. Looks like it will stay nice and small too.

Let me know how this goes, I’m very interested. Do you have any inverts in your tank yet?

I have emerald crabs, several species and sizes of shrimp, tons of hermits and snails. Haven’t seen any signs of small inverts being killed at all. I did lose that maxima clam to sudden predation (or that’s what it looked like to me) and I suspected the mantis but I’m not sure..

When are you adding coral?

 

[ReyDeFarts]

Do you have any inverts in your tank yet?

I just added two trochus snails this evening to help me with algae.

When are you adding coral?

I was thinking of adding some last week, until those diatoms came on strong. Decided to leave the tank alone, keep feeding phyto, and leave the lights off. It has slowed down thankfully, and I can visually see a bunch of tig pods on the glass! So at least I know they are alive. Definitely going to wait before I add fish and let their population expand much more. I need more species diversity though.

Anyone know a good place to buy multi-species bottles?

I'm also down to my last 5 or 6 days of phyto!

 

[Darkxerox]

I just added two trochus snails this evening to help me with algae.

I was thinking of adding some last week, until those diatoms came on strong. Decided to leave the tank alone, keep feeding phyto, and leave the lights off. It has slowed down thankfully, and I can visually see a bunch of tig pods on the glass! So at least I know they are alive. Definitely going to wait before I add fish and let their population expand much more. I need more species diversity though.

Anyone know a good place to buy multi-species bottles?

I'm also down to my last 5 or 6 days of phyto!

A lot of people ship from Algae Barn for like ecopods which is a mix of them. Not sure if it's any better than using donor rock from established tanks.

 

[Srt4eric]

A lot of people ship from Algae Barn for like ecopods which is a mix of them. Not sure if it's any better than using donor rock from established tanks.

I just ordered 16oz of pods and 16oz of live phyto shipped from a local guy. Nathan Zach on Facebook. Most pods I've ever seen crammed into a bottle.

 

[Darkxerox]

I just ordered 16oz of pods and 16oz of live phyto shipped from a local guy. Nathan Zach on Facebook. Most pods I've ever seen crammed into a bottle.

Is that the guy that shows up at the CFM?

 

[H2OPlayar]

I just added two trochus snails this evening to help me with algae.

I was thinking of adding some last week, until those diatoms came on strong. Decided to leave the tank alone, keep feeding phyto, and leave the lights off. It has slowed down thankfully, and I can visually see a bunch of tig pods on the glass! So at least I know they are alive. Definitely going to wait before I add fish and let their population expand much more. I need more species diversity though.

Anyone know a good place to buy multi-species bottles?

I'm also down to my last 5 or 6 days of phyto!

Come grab some of my rubble in Sunnyvale before I break things down. That will seed your tank with all of the best everything.

 

[ReyDeFarts]

I just ordered 16oz of pods and 16oz of live phyto shipped from a local guy. Nathan Zach on Facebook. Most pods I've ever seen crammed into a bottle.

I think I may have seen him post something in a group. I may give that a go.

Come grab some of my rubble in Sunnyvale before I break things down. That will seed your tank with all of the best everything.

I wish I could get up there, but it would literally be cheaper for me in gas to order something online. You're 1.5 hrs away north of me

I do have a fair amount of pods and I imagine various species of them scurrying about all over my tank walls. I'm assuming the rocks I introduced and the bottle of Tig pods I put in helped a lot.

 

[ReyDeFarts]

I hope everyone has a wonderful and blessed New year's!

It's been a crazy week! But it's also been full of good times with my reef tank. This new hobby has brought me a lot of joy. I'm hopeful for a much better 2024!

I'm continuing to battle the diatoms and other algae species. Thankfully the copepods are reproducing and there are signs of them everywhere!

I did some rearranging of rocks...again. Trying to make more mounting surface area. Moved a couple rocks to the back section. They're a little too bulky/round though so I may attempt to break them into flatter pieces.

A couple weeks ago, I visited High Tide and had a cool visit with Kenny. Before leaving, I picked up the first two corals for this tank! They were in the fluval until a couple nights ago when they finally got introduced into the IM50. The goal is to have a mixed reef. With Kenny's encouragement, I took the plunge and picked up my first SPS! Bullet proof so to speak and it did great in the fluval for a couple weeks.
A purple Stylophora and an awesome Ricordea Florida

Inside the Fluval with the stock light and Orphek 15k filter

Named these guys the Grinch Twins

Inside the IM50 with mixed light

Taken with full actinic setting and highlighted with UV flashlight. Hard to capture it accurately, but it's close. These polyps are gorgeous with UV light.

Mixed light and color corrected.

Another exciting addition!
Holy Grail Micromussa! I've wanted one of these for a long time. Got a great deal from a local reefer. Those seem to be few and far between around here.
Actinic lighting with Kraken lens filter & color corrected

Actinic lighting with UV flashlight

 

[ReyDeFarts]

The tank is coming along nicely. I took this pic yesterday when I was getting par readings. This is white light only for the pic.

Some of the mature rock is sprouting coralline algae in various spots! So that makes me happy. Unfortunately, there's also a bunch of other algaes popping up everywhere too. Turf algae and you can see all the green covering just about everything.

I'm pretty sure a couple different types of bryopsis too. Not positive this is bryopsis, but I have a few spots where this has sprouted up.

I recently watched the presentation that @Thales gave for the first Cocktails and Corals. That was a lot of good info about algea control. So my first step will be more herbivores before going with fluconazole.

I've also managed to get more pics of other hitchhikers. Some good and some potentially bad...

Looks like a type of anemone with a type of asterina starfish nearby.

Over the past week, I've had a lot of areas getting bubbles. In the algae and especially on top of the sand. What causes this? The start of bubble algae? Is it as easy as disturbing the surface whenever it pops up.

Also got some cool pics of other inhabitants.

Does anyone have a possible ID for this coral? I'm thinking some sort of favia. It's chowing on some mysis soaked in BRS Reef Chili, Benepets Reef powder, aminos, and live phytoplankton.

Holy Grail Micromussa getting the same blend of chow.

Got a decent shot of the polyps on this Hollywood Stunner Chalice. This thing has some long sweepers! Going to let it have the back corner all to itself.

And here is this thing again! Someone on R2R identified it as a possible type of sea cucumber. I know @JVU was asking for a video, so I managed to get a better video today.
ShrimpNReefDude YouTube Short

 

[richiev]

The tank is coming along nicely. I took this pic yesterday when I was getting par readings. This is white light only for the pic.
View attachment 51939
Some of the mature rock is sprouting coralline algae in various spots! So that makes me happy. Unfortunately, there's also a bunch of other algaes popping up everywhere too. Turf algae and you can see all the green covering just about everything.

I'm pretty sure a couple different types of bryopsis too. Not positive this is bryopsis, but I have a few spots where this has sprouted up.
View attachment 51946
I recently watched the presentation that @Thales gave for the first Cocktails and Corals. That was a lot of good info about algea control. So my first step will be more herbivores before going with fluconazole.

I've also managed to get more pics of other hitchhikers. Some good and some potentially bad...
View attachment 51947Looks like a type of anemone with a type of asterina starfish nearby. View attachment 51942

Over the past week, I've had a lot of areas getting bubbles. In the algae and especially on top of the sand. What causes this? The start of bubble algae? Is it as easy as disturbing the surface whenever it pops up.
View attachment 51941

Also got some cool pics of other inhabitants.
View attachment 51940

Does anyone have a possible ID for this coral? I'm thinking some sort of favia. It's chowing on some mysis soaked in BRS Reef Chili, Benepets Reef powder, aminos, and live phytoplankton.
View attachment 51944
Holy Grail Micromussa getting the same blend of chow.
View attachment 51948

Got a decent shot of the polyps on this Hollywood Stunner Chalice. This thing has some long sweepers! Going to let it have the back corner all to itself.
View attachment 51945

And here is this thing again! Someone on R2R identified it as a possible type of sea cucumber. I know @JVU was asking for a video, so I managed to get a better video today.
ShrimpNReefDude YouTube Short
View attachment 51943

cool progress.

A couple thoughts/responses to a couple questions:

• bryopsis -- that definitely looks like bryopsis to me. My experience is nothing really eats it (though maybe a fox face would). I know people are anti-chemicals, and I generally am, but that's one thing I'd personally pull immediately if I saw it, scrub the rock and cover the area thoroughly with peroxide, and consider jumping straight to chemiclean. Possibly just chemiclean individual rocks if you have a QT you can do it in
• bubbles in sand -- bubble algae is a hard green algae bubble. The bubble is like a plant, not an air bubble. Assuming it's not bubbles getting caught somehow from a pump circulating them, bubbles being produced in the tank usually would be dinos or cyano. Dinos being the more fear-inducing in most reefers. I wouldn't think dinos though would produce underneath the sand, and the bubbles in the sand are interesting. Chemiclean also is meant to take out cyano, though if you are trying to go out of your way to get natural bacterias and such, chemiclean is like the opposite of that (designed to kill bacterias).

 

[ReyDeFarts]

cool progress.

A couple thoughts/responses to a couple questions:

• bryopsis -- that definitely looks like bryopsis to me. My experience is nothing really eats it (though maybe a fox face would). I know people are anti-chemicals, and I generally am, but that's one thing I'd personally pull immediately if I saw it, scrub the rock and cover the area thoroughly with peroxide, and consider jumping straight to chemiclean. Possibly just chemiclean individual rocks if you have a QT you can do it in

I've got lots of rocks and lots to scrub then. But no QT unfortunately. I'd have to setup a tub I suppose. If I pull all the rocks and treat them separately with chemicals, I imagine it could cause a bacterial crash when I pit them back in.

• bubbles in sand -- bubble algae is a hard green algae bubble. The bubble is like a plant, not an air bubble. Assuming it's not bubbles getting caught somehow from a pump circulating them, bubbles being produced in the tank usually would be dinos or cyano. Dinos being the more fear-inducing in most reefers. I wouldn't think dinos though would produce underneath the sand, and the bubbles in the sand are interesting. Chemiclean also is meant to take out cyano, though if you are trying to go out of your way to get natural bacterias and such, chemiclean is like the opposite of that (designed to kill bacterias).

I do have bubbles underneath the sand. It seems to work it's way up to the sand surface. Yesterday, I ran my tongs all along the sand surface to break it up. I also see some bubbles on various parts of rocks where algae is growing.

I would prefer to not kill off all my beneficial bacteria.

 

[Darkxerox]

I'd dip the affected rock in peroxide like @richiev said. The bacteria in your tank have been growing on every available surface, especially the sand, so don't worry about dipping/scrubbing. Bryopsis is a nightmare and you want to nip it in the bud sooner than later. Maybe grab a tuxedo urchin if you don't have one yet.

 

[Turkeysammich]

try not to dose the whole aquarium with anything if you can. You don’t know what it kills. You might kill the good stuff trying to kill the bad stuff. We are our own worst enemy in this hobby.gulf rock is known for brypsis.

 

[derek_SR]

Other than the bryopsis (which I'd deal with now) all of these uglies look pretty typical of a (mostly) dry rock start. The brown bubbly stuff looks like dinos to me, but they should pass. Hopefully more quickly than usual since you did include some live rock in there!

Love the coral pics...jelly. What lense are you using?

 

[richiev]

Tricky situation. The good and the bad of maricultured rock.

I'd do more research on the bubbles in the sand. Maybe someone here can chime in on what that means.

For the bryopsis, if it was me, having fought it in my frag tank, I'd do an ounce of prevention approach. Move the corals out of the way, reminding yourself that any corals added early on should be considered sacrificial, try a bit but be ok if they die, items (just so you don't fixate on their placement and such).

I'd then pull any rock I see visible bryopsis on and use a tooth brush repeatedly dipped in peroxide to scrub the areas. Rinse with saltwater afterwards.I t looks like it's in your sand too, so I'd carefully scoop out any affected sand. Either just toss the sand, or soak it in freshwater then let it dry and add back days later.

I'm not sure that'll solve it, but again if it was me I'd at least try. If there's rock that's really bad, or you can't get at it, I'd consider just giving that rock a freshwater soak.

Alternatively maybe there's a chemiclean dip approach. Buy a Rubbermaid or a cheap 10 gallon. Toss the rock in it with chemiclean. Leave until the bryopsis dissolves away (I vaguely recall reading light helps with that though).

 

[ReyDeFarts]

Maybe grab a tuxedo urchin if you don't have one yet.

I definitely want to get one. I worry about any frags that I don't have attached with epoxy and glue.

try not to dose the whole aquarium with anything if you can. You don’t know what it kills. You might kill the good stuff trying to kill the bad stuff. We are our own worst enemy in this hobby.gulf rock is known for brypsis.

You mean the fluconazole? I haven't added anything to the tank yet. I was really going to try my best to rely on herbivores first.

Other than the bryopsis (which I'd deal with now)

So the only option I have then, is to pull rocks and pull it off right? If I try to take it off while in the tank, they just spread correct?

all of these uglies look pretty typical of a (mostly) dry rock start.

ok cool. Then I won't worry too much about it. I also have seeded the tank with a couple different species of pods. I have been feeding them live phyto, but maybe I should stop so they can start eating the crappy stuff too. Lol

The brown bubbly stuff looks like dinos to me, but they should pass. Hopefully more quickly than usual since you did include some live rock in there!

I've been stirring it up when I can. Every time I turn off my pumps for feeding, I start seeing a lot of air bubbles build up and release throughout the tank. Normal?

Love the coral pics...jelly. What lense are you using?

Thanks! It's a combination of phone and sometimes color balance filters and close-up filters. The SLR has stayed in the bag...mainly because I'm being lazy about it. The idea of having to transfer the images from the cards to the PC or wireless transfer to my phone, just makes me not want to do it. But I really should stop being a lazy bum and bring them out.

 

[ReyDeFarts]

Tricky situation. The good and the bad of maricultured rock.

I'd do more research on the bubbles in the sand. Maybe someone here can chime in on what that means.

For the bryopsis, if it was me, having fought it in my frag tank, I'd do an ounce of prevention approach. Move the corals out of the way, reminding yourself that any corals added early on should be considered sacrificial, try a bit but be ok if they die, items (just so you don't fixate on their placement and such).

I'd then pull any rock I see visible bryopsis on and use a tooth brush repeatedly dipped in peroxide to scrub the areas. Rinse with saltwater afterwards.I t looks like it's in your sand too, so I'd carefully scoop out any affected sand. Either just toss the sand, or soak it in freshwater then let it dry and add back days later.

I'm not sure that'll solve it, but again if it was me I'd at least try. If there's rock that's really bad, or you can't get at it, I'd consider just giving that rock a freshwater soak.

Alternatively maybe there's a chemiclean dip approach. Buy a Rubbermaid or a cheap 10 gallon. Toss the rock in it with chemiclean. Leave until the bryopsis dissolves away (I vaguely recall reading light helps with that though).

Sounds good. Thanks for the insight. I will probably start pulling rocks later today and slowly start working on this. I wish I could identify what's bryopsis and what's not. I think I have at least 2 or 3 species at this point. But I also don't want to just get rid of all algae. I want my CUCs to have something to munch on.

 

[ReyDeFarts]

One of my new CUCs added this week. There's no shortage of food for it apparently. LOL

Wanted to share a quick pic I got this morning of my Turkey Wing clam/bivalve.

Plus I finally got a better pic of this anemone looking thing. I can't remember if I posted this here already. But I'm contemplating smothering it with epoxy.

Thoughts on exactly what it is? Species of aiptasia?