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IM 25G Lagoon build


tprize

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Well I would normally start a build thread before my tank is fully up and running, but in anticipation of the Frag Swap, I may have hit the fast forward button to get ahead. I will still try to cover most of what I have done, my process what has worked and not worked, and everything in between.  To start out with let’s talk tank.

I was not planning on doing a tank for a long time, but the dark Indiana winters+ being WFH again for who knows how long, made me realize how much a tank can help someone. From the sound of water, to the sun replicating lights, a tank can really be a piece of therapy, and adds some much needed brightness to a winter home. 

I was looking at doing a Red Sea reefer XL200, but could not find all the plumbing in stock(stock valve is problematic), and with supply chain issues, I decided to build a tank based on what was available, that still fit my needs. I wanted a smaller tank(space limited) that I could do LPS and SPS in, with a few nice fish. 

I went by Modern Aquatix just to take a look and see if my youngest (4) had any interest in reef aquariums, and low and behold he had a 25g Innovative Marine Lagoon tank and APS stand in stock. I was torn thinking this tank might be too small, but based on the actual footprint, it had the same room coral wise, and was much cheaper overall allowing me to spend on the rest of the equipment.

So here is my new tank.

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Edited by tprize
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Looking good man!  I had the same tank a while back and really liked it.  The IM mighty jet was awesome and swapped to their Brandon soon streams for variable flow and then put a power head in the middle of those returns since there is a dead spot.  You should enjoy it!!  

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So the next step was aquascaping. Before even deciding on equipment, I take the time to create my scape. Originally I was looking at using the Marco rock like in my previous tank. I am very glad I did not. I went with the new Tropic Eden Morroca dry rock. It has made a massive difference in the early time of the tank. Normally I would be fine with the year of tan dry rock, but you no longer need to. So I got 15 pounds of the rock and went to work trying various layouts. Don’t be scared if the price per pound, if this is a tank you are staring from scratch, this stuff light, easy to stack, has tons of caves for fish, and gorgeous in person. My brand new tank looks like it’s been up for years just because of this rock.

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I finally landed on a layout and grabbed a bag of dry CaribSea Special grade.

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You will notice a theme “Dry” everything for the tank. I was trying a new cycling technique which I will cover in the next post

 

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  • 1 year later...

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