Nart's Im25 Lagoon Build

Temp acclimated and did just a quick water acclimate and got it in the tank. I really really hope it likes this spot

 

Nice! Are those new mushrooms in this pic too?

 

No mushrooms in the pic. Waiting for the gsps to open on that rock before I get a good pic. It's a pretty good size rock he gave me.

So y'all are probably thinking what in the world? Haha. I was on my local reef club's forum late last night and I saw that this guy I met before was selling all his corals in his 55 gallon. He listed his RBTA for $25... what a great price right? Y'all know it wasn't the price holding me back but because if it decided to roam around I would be fudgesicle out of luck. I was talking to Inappropriate Reefer and asked him about it and he said to give it a try. So what the heck right? Met up with the seller this morning and I had only asked about the mushrooms and gsps but when he said it came on rocks... I was hesitant because I didn't want to put more rocks in my jammed packed tank. Decided to pass on all the other things and just get the RBTA. When he handed the container to me he said he tossed in the sunny d's and gsps also. I'm like wow you did not have to. So I gave him all the cash I had in my wallet which was $32. I felt bad because the sunny d piece he gave me was a pretty nice sized colony. Easily worth $150. Even better the gsp rock was long and slender and filled with green mushrooms on the bottom. So stoked! I'll get more pics once they open up.

For now... I have to start on the anniversary painting for my wife... and of course I won't leave y'all hanging for pics!

Here's some pics mainly of the RBTA and wanted to show y'all my progress with my first SPS frag the Tubbs Stella. The tubbs Stella is on the highest point of my tank which has probably the par the RBTA would want... but I wasn't about to pop off the tubbs stella and mess up its encrusting.

Enough talking. Here are the pics

Tubbs Stella starting to encrust pretty well!



View of RBTA from Tubbs Stella's perspective. The tubbs stella is probably saying "bow down to me nem!"



Closer view

 

Wow you won with that haul, I'm so jealous of the sunny d zoas I love them, the nems a top specimen too by the looks of it on the pics, probably worth a lot more than $32 id say any way. Never buy a nem from a shop not a bta any way they rip you off, there's always a reefer selling one somewhere at one point even I got one here lol.

 

Yeah Grant. The RBTA's color is wow.. very nice specimen.

And so it begins.....
It has moved right next to my blastos



You can see the colony of Sunny D's here



stella1979 the green mushrooms on the gsp rock

 

Very nice haul NART !!! I can't believe what a deal you got. Kinda jealous, but super happy for you. Hope that nem works out.

So, how's the anniversary painting going?

 

Don't be jealous. That RBTA is like a ticking time bomb in the tank lol. I'm kind of nervous, but it looks like it found its place to settle down. We shall see.

I attempted the painting... went horribly wrong. I didn't have the paint colors so I tried to wing it. Nope. Scrapped it in the trash. I already bought a nice wooden wall clock I think I am going to get a canvas print of a picture from our wedding and call it a day. I originally wanted to edit the entire wedding videos to a nice short movie but that's too last minute now

 

Don't be jealous. That RBTA is like a ticking time bomb in the tank lol. I'm kind of nervous, but it looks like it found its place to settle down. We shall see.

I attempted the painting... went horribly wrong. I didn't have the paint colors so I tried to wing it. Nope. Scrapped it in the trash. I already bought a nice wooden wall clock I think I am going to get a canvas print of a picture from our wedding and call it a day. I originally wanted to edit the entire wedding videos to a nice short movie but that's too last minute now

Great idea!!

 

Holding my breath this morning as I walked up to the tank... The RBTA remains in the same spot it's moved to! Whoo hoo.
One thing I am curious about... BTA's required par is 250-350 where it's currently at in my tank my guess is 150PAR at most..

The GSP rock opened up. Holy smokes these are some nice well aged gsps with long stalks. I'm tempted to let that rock touch one of my main rocks and let the GSP start creeping... I'll see.

 

Holding my breath this morning as I walked up to the tank... The RBTA remains in the same spot it's moved to! Whoo hoo.
One thing I am curious about... BTA's required par is 250-350 where it's currently at in my tank my guess is 150PAR at most..

The GSP rock opened up. Holy smokes these are some nice well aged gsps with long stalks. I'm tempted to let that rock touch one of my main rocks and let the GSP start creeping... I'll see.

Can't wait to see a pic! Back to the office today Summer flew by too fast and school starts Monday. I'd rather be watching my fishes.

 

Temp acclimated and did just a quick water acclimate and got it in the tank. I really really hope it likes this spot

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Do you not dip your corals? I dip everything before it goes in my tanks after dealing with some montI eating nudis that happened to come with the tank. (Didn't know it was infested or that I should have dipped before setting everything back up.) once I'm done QT my fish and leaving the DT fallow, I'm going to set up a coral QT that will stay in use for all new arrivals.

And you got a heck of a deal on all of those corals! Wow!! You must be throwing some good karma out there or something!

 

LJC6780 Right?? I couldn't believe this guy Frank giving me so much. He was an older guy, I met him before from another local club frag fest. I think I am going to do my part in fragging some of the Sunny D's and GSPs out and giving some away to my local club for any beginners.

I am terrible about dipping. But, one thing I do go with is with my gut feeling of who and where I am getting it from. If it looks sketchy then I'll treat as needed. Otherwise I am pretty confident about it. On the flip side though LJC, if I had a bigger system, yeah, I wouldn't chance it without a dip and QT.

grantm91 Hey Grant - what did you say your Nitrates were in your tank with the BTAs again? Kind of concerned about keeping my RBTA in a 6-10PPM Nitrate environment...

 

I'm on a apI so I can't be accurate but I just never exceed 20. Not been any where near that in a while though, since owning the 32g id say I'm under 10 right now. Salinity and kh I am more bothered with in my reef tank, nitrates are never an issue you will be fine 100%

 

Gotcha.
Again, some of these mis-leading information on the web about people saying their BTA's do horrible / never survive in tanks past 5PPM Nitrates. Then you'll have other people keeping their BTA's in 50PPM Nitrates and do just fine. Talking to the reefer I got the RBTA from right now... he said that's completely fine. Psshh... I'm starting not to like write-ups where they recommend you to keep Nitrates as close to zero as possible. I think other factors lead BTAs and other corals to their demise, not just because of Nitrates.
If you do a quick search on BTA's care requirement, you'll see countless sites saying 'keep nitrates at 0' whomp whomp. I'm not concluding anything just yet... we'll see.

 

Totally agree, nitrates get the blame for a lot of things as its like a scape goat, the third thing people test for as soon as something goes bad I go for the salinity and then kh first in my sw. Obviously I'm an amateur and I wing it but I'm not having that even 20ppm nitrates are going to see off a big bad BTA.

 

I'll admit, when I first started out and not knowing anything. Through research alone you'll start believing that keeping a reef tank with Nitrates close to 0 is best.
Then as I started to attend these frag fest and talk to experienced reefers and just knowledgeable people about the hobby... they said "Yeah, I'm not sure why the hobby evolved into keeping Nitrates to zero is best".

 

I read a lot of that stuff too and believed it to be good info its all over, I just always deemed it irrational and thought if I just roll under 20 il be fine, and so far so good id say even with the apI I'm doing great like 10-15 max but not been at it long and not had the bta long. So I will just have to see, I don't test much either, once every month out of curiosity but I tested a lot recently because of the algae I had.

 

Some pic updates.

RBTA is still in the same spot. Just seemed to be sprawled out more



Gsps on the mushroom rock opened up! Wow. The colors are much more vibrant than the ones I have.... what gives?!
Oh yeah. Also a view of my acan garden. I gotta start using the gel filters again to take some pics so y'all can see better.



teaching the clowns on "how to anemone"

 

teaching the clowns on "how to anemone"
View attachment 344071

you're such a geek!

 

That will probably work over time with mature clowns. Tanks lookin great

 

LJC6780 Right?? I couldn't believe this guy Frank giving me so much. He was an older guy, I met him before from another local club frag fest. I think I am going to do my part in fragging some of the Sunny D's and GSPs out and giving some away to my local club for any beginners.

I am terrible about dipping. But, one thing I do go with is with my gut feeling of who and where I am getting it from. If it looks sketchy then I'll treat as needed. Otherwise I am pretty confident about it. On the flip side though LJC, if I had a bigger system, yeah, I wouldn't chance it without a dip and QT.

grantm91 Hey Grant - what did you say your Nitrates were in your tank with the BTAs again? Kind of concerned about keeping my RBTA in a 6-10PPM Nitrate environment...

It has been ingrained in me to "always dip" no matter who it's from. You never know when someone could have critters they don't know about. I didn't know my tank had anything wrong because I asked the guy I got it from and he said here had been no issues. I trusted him. He was very adamant on showing me everything about it and making sure I knew what to do when we went to get it. Now I dip everything!

And yeah ... frag some up and pass it on! I have been taking frags to our frag fests to donate to the raffles. I've gotten so much from our club so far that it just feels right to give back. Last meeting I took some small yuma frags.

 

LJC6780 What LJC said about dipping is very true! Not dipping is at your own risk lol.

So my wife looks at the tank yesterday and said "the tank is packed full of corals now" I looked at her and said "it just begun..."
But really, I either have to get my frag tank started quick or start selling/trading/giving away some of these corals. It's annoying me like heck with all these random frag placements of mine.

Meanwhile the RBTA is starting to stretch itself out some more. What the heck! haha. The seller, Frank told me it's only the size of a fist.... yeah right... whose fist? King kong's? lol.
I think I'm going to relocate my corals on the right rock and just let the GSP and RBTA grow on that right side and move all my other stuff over to the left...

All in all... I think I need a bigger tank

 

New tank or do some coral selling lol how long have I had my BTA? That's what mine was like when I got it, wait till it gets settled. Mine opens out like a big carpet and extends from its foot.
you see it likes the foot to be protected and away. I think I done good with this placement.


then there it is when I got it. 21st of June I got the BTA.

 

Wow that's huge!

 

Yeahh... I'm excited and nervous about keeping the RBTA in my tank. Kind of fun and challenging though, like stella1979 says it "you like to play".

My next mission is to get these clowns to go in the anemone.

 

Of course you need a bigger tank! You should have just started with like a 250 or something! lol I started with a BC29 and quickly realized I wanted to go big. 4' 85 gallon is as big as I can go in this house but some day I'd like to have a bigger tank I think! I do really love this tank though!

 

Imagine a 150+ reef tank and you could use your 25 as a frag tank and put that sweet rack to use!

*Edit - all after the big move of course.

 

Complaining about tinny tanks ?hehe

How about a 4,5 gallon one ?

And I have lots of fun with it

 

Complaining about tinny tanks ?hehe

How about a 4,5 gallon one ?

And I have lots of fun with it

View attachment 344496

That is actually really cute! I am getting to experience something a tid bit similar because I just set up a 2.5 gallon hex pod/shrimp house. I'm also trying to get a phyto culture going to feed it. I bought a new cleaner shrimp the other day that happened to be carrying eggs so I figured might as well experiment and see if I can get any of the babies to survive.

 

Hmmm I dunno how big of a tank I would actually go.
Bigger tanks unless you get great deals that comes with the major equipment can get expensive realll quick. Imagine me trying to get Radion lights on a 200 gallon... broke in a week lol.

Micro Reef Tank I personally don't like putting clowns in anything smaller than a 10g, but that's just me.

 

Yeah, think of the water changes too! That's a ton of salt. Lighting, big powerheads, sump, ect.

 

If I went with the 200 gallon route in my future forever home... I would go the Triton test route and eliminate water changes entirely.

 

If I went with the 200 gallon route in my future forever home... I would go the Triton test route and eliminate water changes entirely.

How would that eliminate water changes?

This guy in our club set up his dads huge tank and he is lucky enough to have a big fish room for all the stuff. He has 2 HUGE bins that he uses for water changes. They are both plumbed to the system and he just opens a gate valve and closes another for water changes! Like he keeps 1 bin connected so it adds that much water volume too ... then he closes it off and opens the one with new water. Done. Crazy! I mean, he does have to mix new water but no siphoning. No filling buckets. Our meeting is at his house this Saturday and I can't wait to see it in person! You should check this out! This is how I'd want a huge setup done. You know, if I win the lottery!
Big Al's 230 Reef in Hot Springs

 

How would that eliminate water changes?

This guy in our club set up his dads huge tank and he is lucky enough to have a big fish room for all the stuff. He has 2 HUGE bins that he uses for water changes. They are both plumbed to the system and he just opens a gate valve and closes another for water changes! Like he keeps 1 bin connected so it adds that much water volume too ... then he closes it off and opens the one with new water. Done. Crazy! I mean, he does have to mix new water but no siphoning. No filling buckets. Our meeting is at his house this Saturday and I can't wait to see it in person! You should check this out! This is how I'd want a huge setup done. You know, if I win the lottery!
Big Al's 230 Reef in Hot Springs

You live by hot springs?! Lol I now live in Chicago but all my family lives in paragould, AR. Small world.

Triton method eliminates water changes because of all the things you add. The theory behind it is amazing. Basically they say today's technology allows us to never do water changes and water changes actually don't do much for our tanks. After reading about it I was tempted just couldn't deal with buying all the supplements

 

That is actually really cute! I am getting to experience something a tid bit similar because I just set up a 2.5 gallon hex pod/shrimp house. I'm also trying to get a phyto culture going to feed it. I bought a new cleaner shrimp the other day that happened to be carrying eggs so I figured might as well experiment and see if I can get any of the babies to survive.
View attachment 344568

Hi

Please pay attention that I have this 4,5 gallon Reef tank by mistake, today I wouldn't have it for clown fish.

I had no idea of how a reef tank should be and I never had one before when I bought this one

I bought this tank to hold a couple of clownfish and a blue tang, to my daughter's birthday

Unfortunately I was so ignorant that I didn't realize I was going to kill the blue tang with amônia in the first week

My LFS wasn't strong enough not to sell me what I wanted to buy, so I bought a fresh water equipped tank to hold those three fish

After "Dori"'s death, and that really broke my heart, I read and studied a lot to keep alive the clown fish

I had plastic decoration in my tank, no live or death rock, no skimmer, no cleaning crew
Just this in a fresh water equipped tank, with salt water inside:




So, it's easy to think or say that we shouldn't keep clownfish in a 4,5 gallon tank when we understand how Reef tanks care is not before it.

I know now that I should have them in a bigger tank but I can t for now and I have the clowns to take care and keep alive.

I don't have proper equipment, money or time for it

But I manage to have this tank balanced wile clownfish are still young

And I know that sooner or later I will have to upgrade to a bigger tank or quit the hobby and sell or offer what I have

But till then I will keep doing my best to give them the best quality life I can

So, my advise with my experience is that who starts on this hobby should read a lot and decide what kind of tank they want to have

All big tank owners will tell us we shouldn't have fish in a 4,5 gallon tanks, as many people say we shouldn't have dogs in an apartment or a house with no garden

I would love to have a bigger tank, as I bet that many of abandoned dog owners would love to have a garden to their adopted dogs, just an example how life isn't how we would love to.

So, if you are in time to decide what kind of reef tank you want and can afford, please read before you set your Reef Tank

Because the money you will need to spend will be in accordance to the size or your tank and what seems big at first, soon will look small, as you will want to have more fish and more corals

From what you see in my first tank set up I mange to transforme it in this














And NART yes I would love to have my clown fish in a at least 10 gallon tank :-(

 

Yeah please pay attention NART . Haha

 

You live by hot springs?! Lol I now live in Chicago but all my family lives in paragould, AR. Small world.

Triton method eliminates water changes because of all the things you add. The theory behind it is amazing. Basically they say today's technology allows us to never do water changes and water changes actually don't do much for our tanks. After reading about it I was tempted just couldn't deal with buying all the supplements

I live in Benton actually. Slightly closer to Little Rock than hot springs, right on I30. Indeed, it is a small world!

Hi

Please pay attention that I have this 4,5 gallon Reef tank by mistake, today I wouldn't have it for clown fish.

I had no idea of how a reef tank should be and I never had one before when I bought this one

I bought this tank to hold a couple of clownfish and a blue tang, to my daughter's birthday

Unfortunately I was so ignorant that I didn't realize I was going to kill the blue tang with amônia in the first week

My LFS wasn't strong enough not to sell me what I wanted to buy, so I bought a fresh water equipped tank to hold those three fish

After "Dori"'s death, and that really broke my heart, I read and studied a lot to keep alive the clown fish

I had plastic decoration in my tank, no live or death rock, no skimmer, no cleaning crew
Just this in a fresh water equipped tank, with salt water inside:

View attachment 344866

So, it's easy to think or say that we shouldn't keep clownfish in a 4,5 gallon tank when we understand how Reef tanks care is not before it.

I know now that I should have them in a bigger tank but I can t for now and I have the clowns to take care and keep alive.

I don't have proper equipment, money or time for it

But I manage to have this tank balanced wile clownfish are still young

And I know that sooner or later I will have to upgrade to a bigger tank or quit the hobby and sell or offer what I have

But till then I will keep doing my best to give them the best quality life I can

So, my advise with my experience is that who starts on this hobby should read a lot and decide what kind of tank they want to have

All big tank owners will tell us we shouldn't have fish in a 4,5 gallon tanks, as many people say we shouldn't have dogs in an apartment or a house with no garden

I would love to have a bigger tank, as I bet that many of abandoned dog owners would love to have a garden to their adopted dogs, just an example how life isn't how we would love to.

So, if you are in time to decide what kind of reef tank you want and can afford, please read before you set your Reef Tank

Because the money you will need to spend will be in accordance to the size or your tank and what seems big at first, soon will look small, as you will want to have more fish and more corals

From what you see in my first tank set up I mange to transforme it in this



View attachment 344867

View attachment 344868View attachment 344869View attachment 344870View attachment 344871
View attachment 344872

And NART yes I would love to have my clown fish in a at least 10 gallon tank :-(

I think you misunderstood my comment. Many people have pico tanks and are successful. I was saying your tank looked nice. I didn't say anything about your fish. My small tank is to grow pods (and see if I can raise the baby cleaner shrimp born today) to feed my 85 gallon tank ... it will not be housing corals or fish.