Sabdali's 50 gallon lagoon

[Sabdali]

I managed to get an amazing deal on a nearly complete set up for a 50 gallon lagoon and so my journey to saltwater begins. I have zero experience with saltwater and I'm hoping having the journal and the help from everyone hear will allow me to not kill everything I put in the tank. I do have aquarium experience as I have been keeping freshwater tanks for the past 12 years. 

 

The tank is still in the process of being set up but my current equipment is:

 

Tank: 50 gallon lagoon 28 x 24 x 18

Filter: 30 gallon sump 

Skimmer: Reef octopus classic 150sss

Lights: currently viparspectra black box

Flow: 2 generic wavemakers

Ato: tunze osmolator

 

Currently, the lights I have are too big for the tank. I'm sure it'll work but the light bleed will be pretty rough. Will replace as soon as I can. Also, I will be putting just a bit of sand at the bottom. Nothing remotely close to a deep sand bed though. 

 

I plan on keeping mostly easier corals such as zoas and mushrooms, with an emphasis on euphiyllias like hammers or torches. Ideally, it'd eventually be relatively low maintenance with little dosing although I can always learn how to dose if it comes to that. 

 

I've made a rough aquascape that looks pretty appealing but im not sure if it's good for flow or coral placement. Any advice and help will always be appreciated. 

 

Here are some pictures of current progress. This will be a relatively slow build as I'm in my senior year of college and that will take priority. 

[Matteo]

Excited for it to get wet! 

 

What kind of light you thinking? 

[Sabdali]

Hey Matteo! I actually just read up on your tank journal. It really is an inspiration. 

 

I'm thinking of putting a radion xr15 since black friday sales will be really nice. If not, I'll probably browse the marketplace and try to pick up a quality light used. 

 

For the initial setup, the viparspectra will be fine from what I see. Definitely has a lot of power but it is bigger than the tank by about 2 inches so it doesn't really look appropriate for the tank size 

 

Also, any thoughts on the aquascape? 

[Matteo]

5 minutes ago, Sabdali said:

Hey Matteo! I actually just read up on your tank journal. It really is an inspiration. 

 

I'm thinking of putting a radion xr15 since black friday sales will be really nice. If not, I'll probably browse the marketplace and try to pick up a quality light used. 

 

For the initial setup, the viparspectra will be fine from what I see. Definitely has a lot of power but it is bigger than the tank by about 2 inches so it doesn't really look appropriate for the tank size 

 

Also, any thoughts on the aquascape? 

Thanks mate that means a ton! Nah the scape is great. I love the two island hardscape look. 

 

Nice I'm sure there will be some good deals for sure! 

[caas1496]

Love the dimensions of this tank. Really cool scape too!

[Sabdali]

3 minutes ago, Matteo said:

Thanks mate that means a ton! Nah the scape is great. I love the two island hardscape look. 

 

Nice I'm sure there will be some good deals for sure! 

I'm definitely planning on stocking up a year's worth of good salts lol. Hopefully I'll have the tank set up in 2 weeks or so. Need to shut down one of my planted tanks and get this one in place of it which will take some time. Of course, I also plan on doing a ton more research and get some live rock to speed up the cycling process when I get to that point 

[Sabdali]

1 minute ago, caas1496 said:

Love the dimensions of this tank. Really cool scape too!

Thanks man! I have a 90p that's currently set up for a planted tank but I wanted to change up the dimensions and I've seen some amazing lagoon style reefs. So when I saw the chance to pick this tank up, I jumped on it immediately. It'll definitely be a fun transition to reefing

[Wonderboy]

Awesome first SW setup! Excited to follow along  :]

[Poodges]

Looks like a sweet set up.  Scape is perfect.  I look forward to seeing what you do with it.  

[Sabdali]

About a week has gone by and a bunch of changes have happened. Probably too fast but black friday is truly hard to ignore. 

 

I've filled the tank up, picked up live rock and sand (caribsea aragonite Fiji pink) to supplement the cycle, and picked up a pair of black misbar clowns, frogspawn, toadstool leather, unnamed zoas, and a purple and green Lobo. 

As a side note, I purchased the hanna salinity checker and while it's expensive, it's incredibly easy to use. I'm firmly in the camp that making things easier will make me do them more. I will be monitoring parameters closely and hopefully catch anything before things go downhill. 

 

I'm thinking of adding a 6 line wrasse and a purple dottyback. Any thoughts on this? 

 

Here are some pics documenting the process. 

[Matteo]

Yay! You may want to thrown in a bottle of biospira to help with the cycle of the new tank. 

 

New light progress yet? 😁👀

 

Looking good! 

[Sabdali]

1 hour ago, Matteo said:

Yay! You may want to thrown in a bottle of biospira to help with the cycle of the new tank. 

 

New light progress yet? 😁👀

 

Looking good! 

Definitely going to get the bottle. No progress on a new light just yet. Will roll with the current light until I see a good deal on a used quality light. 

[Sabdali]

I found a decent deal on a single ai hydra 26hd. Do y'all think that would be enough to cover the light without too much shading? 

 

The only sps I plan to keep is plating montipora. Aside from that this would mostly be LPS and euphillia tank

[Sabdali]

 I'm trying to avoid significant dosing is why most sps will be avoided 

[Matteo]

2 hours ago, Sabdali said:

I found a decent deal on a single ai hydra 26hd. Do y'all think that would be enough to cover the light without too much shading? 

 

The only sps I plan to keep is plating montipora. Aside from that this would mostly be LPS and euphillia tank

High End LFS uses a single Hydra26 on their IM50 EXT. If I'm not mistaken should be almost identical dimensions to your tank. 

 

They mostly have lps, zoas, high end shrooms, and a nice bta in there. 

 

With the sps you plan on keep you are totally fine. 

 

To help with shadowing I HIGHLY recommend buying two 24" Sunblaster HO T5 fixtures on Amazon ($32ish w/reflector) and buy an ATI coral + and an ATI Blue + and you'll be Golden Pony Boy! But just the single Hydra will totally suffice your needs for now. 🙂

Is it @teenyreef or @mitten_reefwho uses sunblaster? 

[Sabdali]

12 minutes ago, Matteo said:

High End LFS uses a single Hydra26 on their IM50 EXT. If I'm not mistaken should be almost identical dimensions to your tank. 

 

They mostly have lps, zoas, high end shrooms, and a nice bta in there. 

 

With the sps you plan on keep you are totally fine. 

 

To help with shadowing I HIGHLY recommend buying two 24" Sunblaster HO T5 fixtures on Amazon ($32ish w/reflector) and buy an ATI coral + and an ATI Blue + and you'll be Golden Pony Boy! But just the single Hydra will totally suffice your needs for now. 🙂

Is it @teenyreef or @mitten_reefwho uses sunblaster? 

Thanks! I've been reading a lot of threads and seen amazing success with hybrid light systems. I'll have this be my next purchase before any other coral or livestock. 

 

BTW I picked up about 10ish frags during the wwc live sale yesterday so next week will be the coral drop day. So excited for the coral to be here. 

[Matteo]

22 minutes ago, Sabdali said:

Thanks! I've been reading a lot of threads and seen amazing success with hybrid light systems. I'll have this be my next purchase before any other coral or livestock. 

 

BTW I picked up about 10ish frags during the wwc live sale yesterday so next week will be the coral drop day. So excited for the coral to be here. 

NICE! 

[mitten_reef]

1 hour ago, Matteo said:

High End LFS uses a single Hydra26 on their IM50 EXT. If I'm not mistaken should be almost identical dimensions to your tank. 

 

They mostly have lps, zoas, high end shrooms, and a nice bta in there. 

 

With the sps you plan on keep you are totally fine. 

 

To help with shadowing I HIGHLY recommend buying two 24" Sunblaster HO T5 fixtures on Amazon ($32ish w/reflector) and buy an ATI coral + and an ATI Blue + and you'll be Golden Pony Boy! But just the single Hydra will totally suffice your needs for now. 🙂

Is it @teenyreef or @mitten_reefwho uses sunblaster? 

Not me. 

[teenyreef]

On 12/3/2019 at 6:27 PM, mitten_reef said:

Not me. 

It's me 😁

I like mine over the 40g tank. It really made a big difference. 

[Sabdali]

Quick question on lighting. Just saw a deal for a hydra 52 non HD for 100.

 

Should I do a hydra 26 HD or go with the 52 non HD? 

 

 

[Sabdali]

10 hours ago, teenyreef said:

It's me 😁

I like mine over the 40g tank. It really made a big difference. 

Time to stop by your thread and read about how you set it all up. I was actually thinking of diying a housing for the hybrid lighting fixture. Still far from actually buying and implementing it but it's fun to think of diy projects 

[Matteo]

1 hour ago, Sabdali said:

Time to stop by your thread and read about how you set it all up. I was actually thinking of diying a housing for the hybrid lighting fixture. Still far from actually buying and implementing it but it's fun to think of diy projects 

IF you wanted I have built a LOT of DIY lights including T5 hybrids. If you do find a fixture and but not confident in the DIY maybe we can figure something out where you send the light to me and I build it. 

 

No charge as it's fun for me. We'll just figure out shipping. 😉

 

Just throwing it out there! 

[Sabdali]

53 minutes ago, Matteo said:

IF you wanted I have built a LOT of DIY lights including T5 hybrids. If you do find a fixture and but not confident in the DIY maybe we can figure something out where you send the light to me and I build it. 

 

No charge as it's fun for me. We'll just figure out shipping. 😉

 

Just throwing it out there! 

Wow I really appreciate the offer! Ill spend some time over the winter break to really understand fixtures and hybrid systems and if I can figure it out, I'll pm you for help. 

 

I really have a love for diy and enjoy making useful things. My craftsmanship isn't the best tho so it never looks the best but it's always been functional regardless of what I made. I treat it as a fun learning process! 

[Sabdali]

Much needed and overdue update. 

 

Lots has changed since when I first started up everything. This is the 5th week since the tank has been fully up and running. Current stock list is:

 

2 ocellaris clowns

6 line wrasse

Purple firefish 

 

10? Hermit crabs

3 nessarius snails

3 trochus snails 

 

Coral stock list is:

 

         Zoas:

Radioactive dragon eyes 

Salted agave white zombies 

Fairy God mother 

Raggedy Ann 

Bambams

4 other unnamed zoas that are pretty nice

 

          Euphyllias:

Green tipped tonga torch colony

Blue tipped gold crista torch

Green frogspawn 

Purple headed green wall hammer

 

Other coral:

Purple green platygyra 

Purple green favia (bleaching) 

Winter riccordia florida

Orange riccordia florida

Superman mushroom

Long tentacle leather 

Red chalice monticap

Starburst chalice monticap 

Pulsing xenia

2x lavender duncan

Hollywood stunner chalice

Green pocillopora

Green star polyp 

Birds nest sps

 

I may have the jumped the gun a little on coral but so far everything except for the favia has shown growth and seems to be happy. Also, I changed the light to a ai hydra 26hd so the viparspectra is no more (traded for coral lol). 

 

For some bad news, I had a purple dottyback that decided my living room floor was preferable to the nice expensive tank and has now passed away. So far, that's been the only loss but I'm still very carefully checking everything to ensure nothing is out of order. 

 

General updates to the tank phases:

 

Diatom algae was relatively short lived. The first week had a large bloom but every subsequent week has shown a rather significant decrease in it. Currently, it's only in a few spots along the sand bed. Some type of green algae has appeared on the rocks but I'm letting all algea (including some parts of hair algea) grow until it can support some time of algea eating fish, probably a lawnmower blenny. Currently, the tank seems stable and is not overrun or seemingly about to be overrun with algae which is great. Some zoas have been randomly closing up or crinkling on the edges but I've not seen any signs of pests (fingers crossed). 

 

My current plans moving forward will be just monitoring and letting things grow. I don't want to add any more livestock but if I do, it will most likely be a pistol shrimp goby pair and some type of angelfish. I toyed with the idea of getting a copperband butterfly in the future but I don't think my tank footprint is the best for that type of fish. 

 

Now time for the pics 

OK. So I didn't not realize the 25mb cap on photos. Photos will be in multiple posts then

 

 

 

[Sabdali]