Opotter’s IM 25 lagoon

[Opotter]

Hello again everyone!

 

New aquarium journal for my new IM 25 lagoon set up.  This tank is an upgrade from my Fuval EVO, necessary after I’ve given up the 18 month battle with bad hitchhikers from my live rock.  Used Life rock shapes (dry rock) and Nature’s Ocean pink samoa live sand this time around.

 

Equipment List:

1. IM 25 lagoon + Nuvo APS stand

2. AI prime Hd + 12” flex arm x2

3. Aquamai KPS x2

4.  Cobalt 100 w neotherm heater

6. CyberPower 1500Va/900w UPS battery backup

7. Digitial thermometer

8.   AutoAqua Smart ATO micro

9.  IM 5 gallon Hydrofill reservoir

10. IM MightyJet 326gph pump-> upgraded to the midsize 538gph for better flow through the RFGs

11. Vivid Creative RFG x 2 with drop down adapters

 

Coral:

-Ricordea (WWC- rainbow x 2, sour apple x 1; Cultivated Reef- pink x 1, blue x 1, teal x 1, neon green x1)

- WWC gold branching hammer

- WWC Neon Duncan

- WWC 5th element Blasto

- WWC teal green finger leather

- WWC speckled leather

- Speckled cup coral 

- Japanese Pink Nepthea

- Giant Bali Xenia

- Green Weeping Willow Toadstool- tried x2.. guess these aren’t for my tank

- Deepwater purple frilly feather gorgonian

 

Inverts/ CUC:

- Orange Chesnut snail x 1

- Astrea snails, Trochus snails, Fl ceriths + Tongan nassarius snails 

- hermit crabs x 8 (scarlet + blue legs)

- porcelain crabs x 4

 

Fish

Pink Streak Wrasse

Yellow Clown Goby

 

8/26/19

 

11/11/19

 

1/13/20

[Tigahboy]

May a reef phoenix rise from the ashes of your burning live rock.  Good luck with the reboot!  

[Christopher Marks]

It can be nice to have a fresh start! There's a lot to learn in the beginning, and a lot of gear and livestock choices to be made right at the start, I think most hobbyists have wanted a do-over at one time or another 🙂 

 

The IM 25 lagoon will make a great new tank, looking forward to seeing it go up @Opotter!

 

[Opotter]

It’s heeeerrrrrreee!  I was pleasantly surprised that the stand came with a shelf.  Most of the negative reviews were about the lacking of shelving inside the stand.

[ReefCap]

I’d be carful with the neotherm heaters. I know tons of people use them and are fine but I’ve had 1 to many fail on me to trust them again. Look at a titanium heater with a secondary temp controller. If something were to go wrong having a back up temp controller can save the whole tank.

 

love the 25 lagoon great choice! Even better choice going with 2 primes!!!

 

i also use the smart ATO and love it.

 

whats your plans for stocking?

 

P.S. be super careful moving corals over because you can bring those same nasty hitchhikers over and start over with the same issues. Cut and glue to new plugs and dip dip dip!

[Opotter]

Thanks for the advice!!  My understanding is that if the neotherms fail it is usually the seal at the top letting water down into the unit.  Plan is the keep the top part out of the water.  I tend to treat the heaters as disposable and replace every year.  But I will definitely would like to put a temp controller on eventually, so that may be what I do when this one runs out it’s one year time limit.  

 

Dip dip dip..is definitely on the agenda.  It will be some time before I have to deal with that though.  

 

Stocking will coral and inverts only.  I like being able to leave town for the week and not have to worry about fish or feeding daily.

 

Just I packed the liferock shapes!  Stuff is neat.  Great shapes!   A few broken pieces, overall shipped well though.  But I was expecting some breakage (and why I ordered extra). Saturday afternoon will be beer and rock LEGO’s I think 🙂

 

 

[Opotter]

Aquascape attempt # 1

 

-Too high in the front I think, but like the top down profile.

[Opotter]

Aquascape Attempt #2

 

 

[Opotter]

Aquascape Attempt #3

 

 

[Opotter]

Aquascape Attempt #4

 

I think this one is my favorite.  Thoughts? 

[kimdawg]

I think they all look great.  I like number three the best.  It has a lot of levels for coral.

[Opotter]

Tank is wet!  Cycle Day # 1

 

Added DrTim’s one and only + Micobacter 7 today (plus DrTim’s ammonia).

 

 

[Fernzpat]

I think this is the same tank as mine?  Nuvo 25 EXT,  I got the same stand and was surprised by the shelf as well!.   Interesting to compare notes as the tanks grow up.  🙂  Followed.

[Opotter]

1 hour ago, Fernzpat said:

I think this is the same tank as mine?  Nuvo 25 EXT,  I got the same stand and was surprised by the shelf as well!.   Interesting to compare notes as the tanks grow up.  🙂  Followed.

I’ll follow along with you too!   Will be nice to have someone to compare notes with!

[Opotter]

So far no progress on the cycle (no surprise there, 4 days in).  Ammonia is still hanging at 2ppm.  Nitrites and Nitrates are just above detectable.  

 

I did make some progress on a few other things though.  The smart ATO micro and IM reservoir arrived today, and got put in. So far so good, seems to be in working order.  I love that little ATO.   I do notice the magnet doesn’t stick quite as well for the sensor on the thicker glass.  Anyone solved that?

 

I also found some cool little cheap LED lights that have a little remote control (or you can tap them to turn on).  Looks nice in the stand and gives you some light to find what you need.  I mounted those, the thermometer, and mighty jet controller with some heavy duty velcro (with a 10lb test weight.. and man.. they aren’t coming down anytime soon, glad I liked where I put them).

 

Still need to do some cord management, but waiting on everything to get put in first.  For now I just have the cords bundled with twist ties so they aren’t a total rats nest.

[Wonderboy]

Great work so far - love the scape, it has fantastic movement and balance to it not to mention places for coral and fish to swim, oh my! Lol, looking forward to this one  :]

[Tigahboy]

Love the scape as well!  Nicely done.

[Opotter]

Cycling.. cycling.. cycling.. just keep swimming, swimming, swiming.

[Thrassian Atoll]

Pretty high nitrate for still having 2 ppm of ammonia.

[Opotter]

I just re-dosed with ammonia yesterday because it was down to 0.5 and the nitrite was less than 1.  Nitrate was already 50 at that point.   Just keeping an eye on what the nitrate is doing for now. There isn’t anything any the tank but water, rock and added bacteria at this point, so nothing to hurt with it being so high.   I double checked the pH to make sure that the nitrates being so high hasn’t dropped it below 7 (and risk a stall in cycle), but it was 7.7.  But I agree, pretty high.  Hoping it means I’m getting close or at least progressing, but we shall see how quickly the ammonia falls.

[Opotter]

So I did a thing!  I was getting super frustrated sorting through testing boxes to find the tests I was looking for (and looking at the mess under my stand). Will create nice labels later, but so much better already!  Works so nice when testing.  Only downfall of the new test kit organizer is the stupid calcium test takes up 2 bins... everything else fits neatly in one.  

[Thrassian Atoll]

You should be pretty close on the cycle.  Once it takes ammonia from 1 to 0 in 24 hours your good to go.

[BKATZ1]

• Everything looks awesome. Great layout. I just brought home my 25 lagoon and aps stand this week. Can’t wait I get going! 

[WV Reefer]

On 8/19/2019 at 5:14 PM, Opotter said:

Hello again everyone!

 

New aquarium journal for my new IM 25 lagoon set up.  This tank is an upgrade from my Fuval EVO, necessary after I’ve given up the 18 month battle with bad hitchhikers from my live rock.  Used Life rock shapes (dry rock) and Nature’s Ocean pink samoa live sand this time around.

 

Equipment List:

1. IM 25 lagoon + Nuvo APS stand

2. AI prime Hd + 12” flex arm (will eventually pull prime off Evo set up for 2 over the new tank)

3. Aquamai KPS (may use the second off the Evo setup  if I need more flow)

4.  Cobalt 100 w neotherm heater

6. CyberPower 1500Va/900w UPS battery backup

7. Digitial thermometer

8.   AutoAqua Smart ATO micro

9.  IM 5 gallon Hydrofill reservoir

10. IM MightyJet 326gph pump

 

Eventual coral (moved from Evo):

-Ricordea (WWC- rainbow x 2, sour apple x 1; Cultivated Reef- pink x 1, blue x 1, teal x 1, neon green x1)

- WWC gold branching hammer

- WWC Neon Duncan

- WWC purple/green Blasto

- WWC 5th element Blasto

- WWC teal green finger leather

- WWC lemon clove polyps

- WWC speckled leather

- Hidden cup coral 

 

Eventual Inverts/ CUC (moved from my Evo):

- Orange Chesnut snail x 1

- Astrea snails x 3

- various dwarf ceriths+ Fl ceriths + nassarius snails 

- peppermint shrimp x 1

- hermit crabs x 8 (scarlet + blue legs)

- porcelain crabs (as many as I can catch)

- micro brittle stars (if I can figure out how to catch them)

 

 

8/26/19

 

Looks great so far. 😊 I really like the scape.  

[banasophia]

On 9/6/2019 at 4:08 PM, Opotter said:

So I did a thing!  I was getting super frustrated sorting through testing boxes to find the tests I was looking for (and looking at the mess under my stand). Will create nice labels later, but so much better already!  Works so nice when testing.  Only downfall of the new test kit organizer is the stupid calcium test takes up 2 bins... everything else fits neatly in one.  

This is awesome! Where did you get it? So much better than the caddy I’m using for mine.