IM Lagoon EXT 25gal

[Lulu_Lunette]

My newest build came out from an unusual circumstance.  I was in the middle of dealing with one of my clownfish having popeye.  Feeling helpless and completely unmotivated I received an email from a representative from Innovative Marine saying I had won a 25 gallon lagoon EXT from their Instagram giveaway.  At this point I had no idea what I had won.  The EXT’s where their newest line and was completely different from anything else they had.  Hardly any plumbing came with it and it required a sump that is also did not come with.

 

About a month later the tank and stand arrived.  All the research I had done left me feeling completely lost and overwhelmed, I needed to step away for a little bit and think this through.  After I got the tank together is sat empty in my office until I could come up with a game plan.  Even though at this point I have had my Fluval Evo 13.5 almost a year, I still feel completely new to the hobby with this traditional setup. 

 

I started looking again into everything about a month ago. I decided in starting with looking for a sump.  I knew this would probably be the hardest thing to find.  The stand had a weird size.  It quickly became obvious that none of the store bought options would work – they were all just a tad too big to fit in the stand.  Shoot.  Now what?  A friend suggested that I look into OceanBox Designs – they sold kits to convert a ten gallon tank into a sump.  I did have an empty ten gallon tank laying around from an old setup.  Carefully, I got it into the stand – it barely fit.  Shortly one of their kits and filter sock holders were on their way to me.

 

After the kit came, I went to pick up some hermit crabs for the Fluval Evo and ended up picking the light, return pump and plumbing (and plan) for the IM.  Oddly this was the easy part.  The IM was moved from my office down to the basement since I didn’t feel like lugging water up a flight of stair.  Now the tricky part – building the sump and routing the plumbing. 

 

I cut out the footprints of all of the equipment that was going to go into the sump – it was a lot tighter then I initially thought.  Eventually it was all mapped out.  I started to silicon on the side with the return pump.  I used painter’s tape to keep the lines straight and consistent.  Once I got the hang of it, it went really smoothly.  I let is dry for a few days and then started working on the plumbing.  I decided to use hard plumbing throughout the entire build since I thought it would look cleaner. 

 

 

 

Originally the return was planned to have two 45s to it but it made the whole tank stick too far out from the wall for my liking.  I swapped it out for a 90 and now its flush with the overflow box.  I did switch the main drain and the emergency drain because of the way the plumbing flowed into the sump and it allowed easier access to a gate valve being on the side with the tank against the wall.  I dry fit everything together and let it sit for a week to make sure I was happy with it.  This weekend started with gluing everything together and testing for leaks.  Luckily there were no leaks. 

 

  

 

I left the water in it and continued to run the system while I went to pick up sand and live/dry rock.  I was planning on cycling this tank with new materials.  Not how I started the Fluval with a mini tank transfer.  I ended up with marco rock over dried live rock.  I liked the way the pieces seemed to fit together better and no risk surprise hitchhikers. 

 

For this scape I wanted more islands and wanted to stay away from the arch.  Make it completely different from the Evo.  This time I did secure the rocks I stacked before anything else. I used Fiji Pink sand in this build as well.  I really like the way it looks.  Saltwater was made five gallons at a time, and then put into the tank with a strainer in hopes to not disturb the sand too much.  I’ve used this technique in planted tanks so you do not uproot your plants.

 

   

 

I’m working on fine tuning the “Herbie” drain and will hopefully have it dialed in within a day or so.  The plan is to use Dr. Tim’s for the cycling process.  Overall I am surprised by how quieted the system is.

 

 

Current Equipment:

Light: EcoTech Radion Xr15

Sump: 10 gallon with OceanBox Design baffle kit

Return: Sicce Syncra Silent 2.0

Tank: Innovative Marine 25 gal Lagoon EXT

Skimmer: tbd

Powerheads: tbd

[LogicalReefs]

I’m calling the cops. You just stole my dream tank. 

 

Awesome rock scape! I wish I could buy a shrink ray and then shrink that so it fits in my IM10. Lol. 

[Christopher Marks]

Beautiful system you've built @Lulu_Lunette! Nice use of the @Oceanbox Designs sump kit, those are great!

20 hours ago, Lulu_Lunette said:

  

This is seriously such a killer aquascape, I don't know if I've seen a floating shelf design quite like this before. The layers in the overhead view will really be nice as it fills out with coral.

 

Will you be keeping your Fluval 13.5 going as well, or will it merge into this new one?

[Lulu_Lunette]

 

18 hours ago, Christopher Marks said:

Beautiful system you've built @Lulu_Lunette! Nice use of the @Oceanbox Designs sump kit, those are great!

This is seriously such a killer aquascape, I don't know if I've seen a floating shelf design quite like this before. The layers in the overhead view will really be nice as it fills out with coral.

 

Will you be keeping your Fluval 13.5 going as well, or will it merge into this new one?

The plan is a little of both. Some stuff will get moved to the new tank some will stay. The plan is to have the two up and running for a little while at least. I’ll work on updating the Evo thread so

[Oceanbox Designs]

@Lulu_Lunette @Christopher Marks Thanks for giving us your support and I know you may have other choices! You have this setup perfectly planned on the back of your hand and as OCD as I am with looks, that is as clean as you could go with a DIY silicone job on the first try (I assumed). Can't wait to see what's next on your mind!

[HarryPotter]

One comment: you should be TRYING to mix up your sand, as much as possible. Get all the gunk out before you add livestock. 

 

Other than that, looks great! Definitely a top notch silicone job. 

[Lulu_Lunette]

5 hours ago, HarryPotter said:

One comment: you should be TRYING to mix up your sand, as much as possible. Get all the gunk out before you add livestock. 

 

Other than that, looks great! Definitely a top notch silicone job. 

That’s a good point and something I honestly didn’t think about. I just didn’t want to wait days before I could see in my tank again. I did add a powerhead after I got everything setup and it has been moving the sand around - hopefully it’s enough. 

[1891Bro]

29 minutes ago, Lulu_Lunette said:

That’s a good point and something I honestly didn’t think about. I just didn’t want to wait days before I could see in my tank again. I did add a powerhead after I got everything setup and it has been moving the sand around - hopefully it’s enough. 

He means thoroughly rinse the sand before you even use it. Maybe that’s what he meant. That’s what I would’ve done.

it does look like an awesome start though. 

[HarryPotter]

27 minutes ago, 1891Bro said:

He means thoroughly rinse the sand before you even use it. Maybe that’s what he meant. That’s what I would’ve done.

it does look like an awesome start though. 

 

No, I meant mix your sand in the tank to allow the excess crap to be filtered out. 

[FISHnChix]

3 minutes ago, HarryPotter said:

 

No, I meant mix your sand in the tank to allow the excess crap to be filtered out. 

That's what I thought you meant but I was going to ask how you did it bc its takes forever to clear that way. I was thinking of pre rinsing my sand before putting in my tank .. I know brs says not to do that but what do you think?

 

Also sorry to crash your thread a bit. I do love what you have done here. I was going to do the same thing in a little bigger tank I love the new im external but by the time I priced a sump and stand it was more than the red sea reefer so I went that route.. 

 

Following along happy reefing..

[CrazyEyes]

Should add a brace to the back of the stand for the drains to rest against. 

[1891Bro]

16 minutes ago, HarryPotter said:

 

No, I meant mix your sand in the tank to allow the excess crap to be filtered out. 

Well if that’s what you meant why not just rinse the #### out of it?

[Lugmos12]

YES!

[HarryPotter]

44 minutes ago, 1891Bro said:

Well if that’s what you meant why not just rinse the #### out of it?

 

Because bacteria? Or at least that’s my thinking. I used arag-alive.

[HarryPotter]

57 minutes ago, Weikel said:

That's what I thought you meant but I was going to ask how you did it bc its takes forever to clear that way. I was thinking of pre rinsing my sand before putting in my tank .. I know brs says not to do that but what do you think?

 

Also sorry to crash your thread a bit. I do love what you have done here. I was going to do the same thing in a little bigger tank I love the new im external but by the time I priced a sump and stand it was more than the red sea reefer so I went that route.. 

 

Following along happy reefing..

 

If it’s live sand, I think pre-rinsing defeats the purpose- hence BRS recommendation. After it’s in the tank though, it seeds the rock, filtration media, etc. nothing wrong with cleaning out some of the light crud-. 

[1891Bro]

38 minutes ago, HarryPotter said:

 

Because bacteria? Or at least that’s my thinking. I used arag-alive.

 

36 minutes ago, HarryPotter said:

 

If it’s live sand, I think pre-rinsing defeats the purpose- hence BRS recommendation. After it’s in the tank though, it seeds the rock, filtration media, etc. nothing wrong with cleaning out some of the light crud-. 

It’s all lies. IF (notice the big if) it’s truly seeded with bacteria how would rinsing kill it? You can rinse with tap, rodi, salt, even toilet water. These are some of the toughest organisms on the planet. Tougher that cockroaches, you can slap your rocks with a shoe, out of water, all day and you’ll still have bacteria (the good kind) all over it. Rinsing the sand (even the “live” stuff”) gets all that finely packed garbage out. The stuff that clouds the water. The stuff that loves to trap all the crap that feeds all the stuff you don’t want in the display. 

 

Point is, you can’t kill good bacteria with tap water. Or hot, cold, dirty, distilled, salty, clean, or whatever kind of water. Rinse the damn sand. 

[Lulu_Lunette]

I did not rinse the sand. I added a powerhead to move it in the tank. I think if I rinsed in and filled the tank the same way I would have gotten the same result in the tank clearing up fast. 

 

I set up my Evo with rinsed sand, the biggest thing I did notice was a lot of the smaller sediments ended up in the filter. 

 

All in all all I think this is one decision that is completely personal preference. 

[Lulu_Lunette]

I have added the last component to this build - TIA-110 Cadlight skimmer. It fits perfectly into the sump and makes it look completely 

 

[MrObscura]

Awesome scape. Only thing is my ocd tendicies would make me fill in the gaps between the top shelf and side rocks to make it look like on piece. Lol

[Stoops718]

Congrats on winning! Great job with the setup. Looking forward to watching this progress.

[clayjess]

I won the IM 30L EXT tank , and I have thought about making my own sump as well with the @Oceanbox Designs kits as well. But I might be able to use the 20L sump kit. Good work the tank looks great !

[Lulu_Lunette]

It’s been awhile since I have written an update on the lagoon.  I have been battling diatoms and algae for a while and have finally just accepted that it is what it is for now.  This tank has a completely different startup then my Evo has so I’m learning the differences. It wasn’t until a few weeks ago that thinks finally started to look better.  I don’t feel much has changed since the last update until recently.  I have had some bad luck in adding livestock to the system.

 

My local club had their annual fall frag swap.  I decided to get an anemone.  I picked up a rock flower anemone and a small clam.  I am extremely impressed with the anemone.  Since placing it in the tank it has not really moved and it is so colorful and beautiful.  I like it so much I’m contemplating getting another one.  The clam however I did not have the same amount of luck.  It was small and I was feedin it regularly but one day it was fine when I went to bed and the next morning it was gone.  I may try a clam again later down the road.

 

  

Rock Flower Anemone

 

 

The end of last year I did add a sexy shrimp.  This was a total surprise.  Sometime in early 2018 I had added three sexy shrimp to my Evo.  My clarkii clownfish in that system ate them up almost immediately, or so I had thought.  I was cleaning out the sump of the Evo when I saw this big chunk of debris go flying through my siphon tube and into the bucket.  Somehow this lonely sexy shrimp made it.  I was shocked.  I moved him (or her) to the lagoon since my hawkfish George would make a snack out of it. I also moved the frogspawn from the Evo into the lagoon so the sexy shrimp would have something to hide on.

 

Long Lost Sexy Shrimp

 

 

Two weeks ago I took a big step and added a bunch of fish to the system at once.  I moved my solo clownfish over from my Fluval Evo and paired it with a new clown in the lagoon.  I figured this would be the best for both since neither had territory in this system.  I also added a McCosker’s wrasse, cleaner shrimp and royal gramma.  About a week later I added a pearly jawfish.  It has been a week since I last added any fish and so far everyone is doing well with the exception of my midas blenny.  He unexpectedly past away from some unknown reason.  I plan on getting another midas blenny but am going to wait a few months before adding any new fish and focus more on adding corals.

 

Flash

 

McCosker’s Wrasse

 

 

I have found that some of my corals that are currently are in the system are not doing as well as I had hoped.  I’m currently working on my light schedule and intensity but am finding it difficult.  Does anyone have any tips or suggestions?  I have a radion xr15.  In the meantime - here are a few more photos that I have taken.  I hope you enjoy!

 

 

Full Tank Shot

 

Cleaner Shrimp

 

Favia 

 

Hermits

 

Zoas

[clayjess]

The Lagoon looks good @Lulu_Lunette. I am totally jealous that your system/free price is up and running. I still have to wait some good little time to get my IM prize up and running. I am sorry I don't have many tips on the rations I wish I did. 

 

[Lulu_Lunette]

1 hour ago, clayjess said:

The Lagoon looks good @Lulu_Lunette. I am totally jealous that your system/free price is up and running. I still have to wait some good little time to get my IM prize up and running. I am sorry I don't have many tips on the rations I wish I did. 

 

You’ll get there. It took me almost six months before I really started getting it together 

[Poodges]

I like your tank and choice of fish.  That wrasse is a beauty.