My first tank: Innovative Marine 40G Lagoon

[JoJosReef]

The clowns will probably enjoy a large toadstool, and that would be a good coral to get things started in the tank.

*Branching* GSP is another excellent starter. Regular encrusting GSP is also great but you have to take care where you place it or it may take over. Same goes for Xenia, kenya trees and anthelias, but they are risker because they wil drop branches and establish all over the place.

Zoas/palys are always a good choice to add color. Just take care which and where.

 

[apex_everything]

Awesome! You can't go wrong with mushrooms, and toadstool! Be careful with running GFO right off the start and add it in once you have phosphates starting climbing. You don't want to take all of it away from corals!

Im running gfo right now. So take it out for a month or so? My phos is like .08 if I remember right.

 

[apex_everything]

Tank has been up and running for a month now. A little bit of algae is growing in a small spot of the tank. Copapods were added a few weeks ago. Also added a yellow golby, pistol shrimp, firefish golby, 11 blue hermit crabs, two zoas and one mushroom. Only running carbon and my roller filter right now. Running the tank at 20% light capacity right now. Not sure when to start using GFO. Im assuming when phos reaches .15 or so. Weekly water changes, one scoop of all for reef a week for now. I plan on just adding corals for the next few months. The two clowns are really doing well and growing. I feed twice a day or more. Once of frozen food, once or twice of the mysis shrimp flakes.

12/15 phos .10
PH8.2
Salinity 1.026
Ammonia 0
Nitrate 0

 

[apex_everything]

 

[apex_everything]

Hello! Tank has been up and running for about 2 months. A little it about the tank, its a 40G Lagoon, copepods were added after month 1. Zoas, mushrooms, ken tree/hammer was added a few weeks ago. CUC of 3 turbos, 12 mini blue leg hermit crabs, 1 large hermit crab, 1 very small golby/pistol shrimp, 1 fire fish, 2 ice clowns, 1 peppermint shrimp. Went on vacation with nutrients kind of high (12/28 PH7.8 Salinity 1.026 Ammonia 0 Nitrite 0 Nitrate 30-40 Alkalinity 8 Phos .24 Calcium 459. Added GFO media bag the day before leaving because it was trending up the past few weeks. ) After a week, my parameters after the water change today are 1/7 PH.8 Salinity 1.025 Nitrate 5-10 Phos 0. I removed the GFO bag because I know we don't want to be 0 phos. First month, no lights. Lights have been around 30-50% after month 1. I turned my lights down today and this is what it sits at now. It was running for about 8 hours a day but now it's 6.
Do I need to turn off my lights for a few days or add a bigger CUC and if so what do you recommend? I don't plan on adding a tang because I don't have an option for QT.

 

[JoJosReef]

Tank is too small for a tang. For herbivore fish, you're probably looking at a lawnmower blenny, but they don't have a great reputation for keeping a tank clean. Probably more down to your CUC and the way you maintain the tank.

However, I think you've overdone it on your CUC. 3 turbos in a new tank will likely starve. When I am out of algae (and you don't have enough algae for them), I feed each turbo snail a 1in square piece of nori per day. They eat the whole thing. I gave them (and my urchin) away since they just don't have enough to eat.

My $0.02, you're in for a rough ride in the next few months, but keep truckin'! That dry rock and sand is going to soak up phosphates and then leech them back into the water continuously making a lovely environment for nuisance algae (this is what @jabberwock is alluding to with switching to ocean rock/sand). I don't think there's any amount of GFO or other filtration you can do to stop that. Might as well "let it ride" and try not to do too much. The other option that some people do is start loading that tank up with coral. Sounds counter-intuitive, because most people say "go slow", but what you have is a massive amount of real estate for something to grow on, and that something is going to be algae if you don't put something else there. Some tanks like @Reefing_addiction are doing great, and she takes a very active approach in getting coral to fill up her tanks. You have nutrients but not much to consume the nutrients. If corals/nems/macroalgae aren't consuming them, then algae will be all too happy to do it. You can also get something that really sucks up nutrients like an algae scrubber, which @VintageReefer uses effectively. I think there are HOB algae scrubbers or some type that you might be able to plumb into that AIO tank. I, personally, like using decorative macroalgae to help with nutrients: pom pom gracilaria, codium, Botrycladia and Halymenia, just to name a few. They aren't as effective as a scrubber, but they look nice! NOTE: an urchin will decimate these and turbo snails will also eat them, so take care when putting macros in a heavy CUC tank. Trick is, get that tank filled with consumers that you want, so that the consumers you don't want don't have a place to live or food to eat. ;-)

 

[apex_everything]

Tank is too small for a tang. For herbivore fish, you're probably looking at a lawnmower blenny, but they don't have a great reputation for keeping a tank clean. Probably more down to your CUC and the way you maintain the tank.

However, I think you've overdone it on your CUC. 3 turbos in a new tank will likely starve. When I am out of algae (and you don't have enough algae for them), I feed each turbo snail a 1in square piece of nori per day. They eat the whole thing. I gave them (and my urchin) away since they just don't have enough to eat.

My $0.02, you're in for a rough ride in the next few months, but keep truckin'! That dry rock and sand is going to soak up phosphates and then leech them back into the water continuously making a lovely environment for nuisance algae (this is what @jabberwock is alluding to with switching to ocean rock/sand). I don't think there's any amount of GFO or other filtration you can do to stop that. Might as well "let it ride" and try not to do too much. The other option that some people do is start loading that tank up with coral. Sounds counter-intuitive, because most people say "go slow", but what you have is a massive amount of real estate for something to grow on, and that something is going to be algae if you don't put something else there. Some tanks like @Reefing_addiction are doing great, and she takes a very active approach in getting coral to fill up her tanks. You have nutrients but not much to consume the nutrients. If corals/nems/macroalgae aren't consuming them, then algae will be all too happy to do it. You can also get something that really sucks up nutrients like an algae scrubber, which @VintageReefer uses effectively. I think there are HOB algae scrubbers or some type that you might be able to plumb into that AIO tank. I, personally, like using decorative macroalgae to help with nutrients: pom pom gracilaria, codium, Botrycladia and Halymenia, just to name a few. They aren't as effective as a scrubber, but they look nice! NOTE: an urchin will decimate these and turbo snails will also eat them, so take care when putting macros in a heavy CUC tank. Trick is, get that tank filled with consumers that you want, so that the consumers you don't want don't have a place to live or food to eat. ;-)

Thank you for all this infomation. I like the idea on taking my time until the 5 month mark then I'll add some nems/Acroporas. I think I'm good on zoas/mushrooms. Do you recommend Cyphastreas for now? or encruster corals?

 

[jabberwock]

Thank you for all this infomation. I like the idea on taking my time until the 5 month mark then I'll add some nems/Acroporas. I think I'm good on zoas/mushrooms. Do you recommend Cyphastreas for now? or encruster corals?

Stop. Wait. Don't add anything. When you think you have waited enough, wait some more.

 

[Reefing_addiction]

Hello! Tank has been up and running for about 2 months. A little it about the tank, its a 40G Lagoon, copepods were added after month 1. Zoas, mushrooms, ken tree/hammer was added a few weeks ago. CUC of 3 turbos, 12 mini blue leg hermit crabs, 1 large hermit crab, 1 very small golby/pistol shrimp, 1 fire fish, 2 ice clowns, 1 peppermint shrimp. Went on vacation with nutrients kind of high (12/28 PH7.8 Salinity 1.026 Ammonia 0 Nitrite 0 Nitrate 30-40 Alkalinity 8 Phos .24 Calcium 459. Added GFO media bag the day before leaving because it was trending up the past few weeks. ) After a week, my parameters after the water change today are 1/7 PH.8 Salinity 1.025 Nitrate 5-10 Phos 0. I removed the GFO bag because I know we don't want to be 0 phos. First month, no lights. Lights have been around 30-50% after month 1. I turned my lights down today and this is what it sits at now. It was running for about 8 hours a day but now it's 6.
Do I need to turn off my lights for a few days or add a bigger CUC and if so what do you recommend? I don't plan on adding a tang because I don't have an option for QT.

That’s not a lot of algae and it will get worse before it gets better.

I started my 100g with rocks from my other tank….ghost fed a couple times and the. Started switching stuff over…. Tank was started in November (I think lol)

To clean the algae I added 10 turbo snails that already hate as they just knock things over.


Don’t turn your lights off - only delays the inevitable

You could go with some macro in your sump to help with nutrients

Concern is that as algae grows nitrate and phosphates read less and less …because the algae is sucking it up. Corals help remove some. But you need another way of removing stuff. A refugium, an algae scrubber, or…..drawing a blank…OH a skimmer, are all good options.
I run a refugium only on the 75 and that’s what I want on my 100.

You probably want to get your nitrates up if you have .08 of phosphates as this type of imbalance causes things like Dino’s.