SUPER EASY Lagoon Using Natural Seawater! Full Tank Tour!

What's up reefers? Blaine here and today I'm with Nick and we have a ton of tanks we're going to be covering here at today house. Uh but first off, this is probably my favorite tank I have ever visited in the entire tank tour series. Nick, let's go ahead jump right into it though. How did you get into the hobby? You know, obviously we'll talk about the tank, but how did you get into saltwater fish keeping? Honestly, I I got into it from I had a freshwater tank. Okay. I was moving and I got a good deal on a tank and it ended up being saltwater. I always wanted salt water. So, I'm like, you know what? I'm just going to get this tank. And of course, one thing led to another. Within the first year, I had three different saltwater tanks. So, now I'm in here where I got huge tanks, right? The the bug bites you right over. It is easy. It's an addicting. You know how it is. Absolutely. And then the tank itself, lagoon style. What's the size of it? Acrylic as well. This is acrylic tank. 7T wide, 40 in front to back, 18 in tall. And then total water volume 260. 260. And then you've got the sump down. Got a sump. That's probably a 60 gallon sump down there. Okay. And then, as you guys can see, soft coral dominated system. There's a lot of bubble tips in here, too. What made you kind of go with this plan off camera? You said originally this was going to be like a predator tank, right? And now it's morphed into this, the kind of tidal zone tank. How did we get to this point? Well, I got I guess you could say a lot of people were giving me stuff and then one thing led to another and then it just kept getting packed and backed and then it got grow into this and here we are with full of coral that I didn't necessarily want but here I am having and I love it. I I think the flowing of, you know, all the soft corals is very cool. Something I mentioned to Nick as well is that normally when you get to trying to shoot a soft coral tank, a lot of the leathers are usually sucked in, but everything is really showcasing it. Um, so mainly leathers in the tank. Any other kind of coral species we've got going on? We got some palies and some zoas. A lot of different as you said, some anthilia, some Neptia, Kenya trees. There's a little bit of that little bit of every some star pallet back there as you can see. Zenia up top there. As for the fish you went with in the tank, how did you decide your fish selection? I didn't really decide. I just kind of, you know, I love fish. So, if I like it, it's going in there. Did you or have you always been a fish guy first or was coral something you really like? I'm a little bit of both. I love coral. I love fish. So, anything I see I like. If I can put it in there, I'm going to put it in there. Gotcha. Yeah, you've got a couple of really cool interesting fish in here. I know we saw that there's some maroons in here. Let's talk about kind of all the fish you have in here. I have a orange spot file fish. That's a new guy. That the pair of maroons that you said over there, the bully of the tank. I have a lot of little damsels in there, a couple rasses, and uh two puffers in there. One to be floating around somewhere. There's a Valentini and a checkerboard puffer in there. Uh, like I said, a couple rasses and there's a queen angel in there, but she's kind of it's sick right now, so she's hiding. And then for maintenance on the tank, keeping it easy. I I keep this tank very easy. I do water changes maybe once a month and that's it. I don't dose anything. I don't do anything like that at all. You answered that question. So, no dosing at all. Water changes a little bit. What salt are you using on natural sea water? Natural sea water. Yes. I have the benefit where I'm close to it. the benefit of being in Florida, right? Yeah. So, I go I go pump water every few months and then that's what this tank is. Do you use that on every system? Okay. Just this one specifically. Okay. Just this one. Every once in a while, I'll do like the the other tank I showed you over there with a little bit, but mostly it's just this one. Have you ever ran an ICP on this tank after running? Interesting. I would I would be curious to see what the natural seawater is kind of giving you back. For the cleanup crew, I see kind of a slew of different shells. Um, what are you running in? There's a lot of blue legs in here. A lot of snails, astro snails. Uh there's a couple sea cucumbers in here, urchins. Um that's probably it for the cleanup crew. They take care of everything as you can see. Pretty much the bubble tips. How many did you start with when you first did? Was it just one? And does it turned into this many? Uh I think it was a couple. It wasn't just one, but yeah, it's turned into this many from I I'll say three. and then it's turned into that. They're a little bit different. They're not all the same. So, if you look at them, like there's a couple of them, there's speckled ones and then there's a couple just regular rainbows. So, they then started to do different ones. I think something about this tank I really like is, you know, the aquacape and the way the corals have filled in have created this super lush kind of garden look, but there's a lot of really good hiding spaces for a lot of the fish. There is definitely a fair amount of fish in here, but at times you can't even see them, which is I think honestly really cool because for them naturally, it's probably making it a lot more of a beneficial lifestyle for them. Definitely. What do you feed in the tank? I feed pellets and I feed frozen and micesis. And how often are you feeding them? Whenever I walk by the tank, I say if I feel like feeding them, I throw them in there. Okay. But every night, I do feed. Gotcha. Are you specifically feeding the nens or you just letting them kind of do No, they do their thing. before you wanted to make that swap, right? Thinking that it was a predatory, you know, tank you were going to go with, what were some of the ideas that you had in mind? And then what kind of started making you see that this was making a transition into something different? I started getting a bunch of corals. I I I do a lot of tape breakdowns, so anything I get from those tank breakdowns, I I'll either keep or I'll donate. Then a lot of them, I just said, "Well, this is a perfect tank for it, so I'm going to throw it in here." and it ended up being where it's at now where I got a lot of coral from doing that. I think I've only done a couple of the tank breakdowns and that's where some of this came from. A lot of it I had, but it's it's turned into this. But I was planning on doing a predator tank for like groupers and angels and sharks and stuff like that and here we are with this. So, I'm like, "All right, it looks good. I'm keeping it." Okay, back to maintenance. I I have to ask. I personally have a tiny little acrylic tank on my desk and I loathe having to try and scrape the glass and deal with the acrylic. How do you manage the acrylic? Cuz obviously you've made it look pristine here for us today, but how do you manage it on a weekly basis? The the easiest thing I found is a magic eraser. Magic eraser works wonders for the acrylic tank. I first got into it with you know how they have the mag float for the acrylic. It does not I don't recommend it because one little grain of sand you'll see a scratch. All right. I have noticed that the Magic Eraser will take everything off and you won't have any issues. I do it, like I said, once a week and that's all I need to do and it does not get that much algae on it, believe it or not. Do you see the benefit of having an acrylic tank? Do you like I like Some people disagree, but I like acrylic. After having this tank, the the clarity to me is way better than the glass. It It's funny cuz when I first came in and was looking at the system, I even asked you, right? I said, "Is this glass first or is it acrylic?" And you probably have the cleanest acrylic tank I've personally ever seen. Cuz a lot of the time, you're right, people get a lot of scratches on them. They get buff marks. People have to go in and have to really try to clean it up, right? Is there I guess you're saying the Magic Eraser is kind of that secret potion. I don't know if it's a secret, but for me, it's great. It works. I haven't had any issues with it. I'm actually trying to figure out cuz I told you I'm having a new tank. The new tank is actually going to be acrylic, and that's going to be awesome. Yeah. So, I'm actually trying to figure out if I can take a mag float and make a scraper or a cleaner out of that. So, okay. I must try that and see what happens. I forgot to ask you, how long has the tank been running now? This tank has been running for a year. A year? Yes. This lush after a year. After a year. Yep. That is insane. I did have a tank before this. Okay. So, a lot some transfer in. Some of it did, believe it or not. There's a lot of it that didn't. So, but yeah, I had tanks right here before that. We sprung a leak. So, I'm like I always want a lagoon. So, here we are. Perfect. Yeah. Do is this one of your favorite kind of styles of I love this tank. I love lagoon. Like we were talking before, like lagoons are just they're just different. They're they're not your normal aquarium. They're low. They're easy to work on. I I just love them. And for everyone watching at home, I brought a mangrove to top shelf. I've got a bunch of mangroves at my house. I have to bring Nick up some really nice mangroves. And you guys will probably end up seeing it maybe in this video or one of the future videos cuz this is not the only tank we're going to talk about today. But I think adding in that element of some mangroves in here would be like the chef's kiss. That's what that was my goal when I set this tank up was mangrove for sure. I I had a couple in here, but it just unfortunately they didn't make it. So, but I do want another one. A question I ask everybody is the numbers. Let's talk a little bit about the numbers. I know we mentioned the fact that you didn't you haven't IPD this and you're using natural seawater. Kind of curious to hear what the numbers are. So the the pH is a little low. So I'm having to buff that. So I keep it it's it's roughly around eight. So I'll take it. It's better than nothing. Uh the calcium is around 400 to 450 sometimes. Uh alk is pretty low in this tank. It's about 78. Uh phosphates I don't even remember to be honest what the phosphates are. And then for the system too, something I always kind of try to mention to people that are getting ready to set up an aquacape is like that 2/3 rule. And you've gotten to this point now with especially with lagoon tanks. I think it's very unique with lagoon tanks cuz you only get so much space. Um what's the plan as you see things are kind of growing up, you know, like you said, you're giving some stuff away, you're fragging back. Where did you plan for, you know, the growth of the coral? Cuz I didn't plan. I didn't plan. It just happened. Right? I had all this stuff and it just happens and it grows and and then you're like thinking after the fact, okay, what am I going to do now? So, here I am. So, I I said, I need to downsize. So, I didn't really plan on anything. It just kind of happened. And believe it or not, I have rescaped this thing three, four times just to make room. And that was just so so you could keep fitting everything in. Just so I could keep fitting everything in here. I'm trying to as you could if you It's hard to see on video, I'm sure, but there's a kind of like a raceway, if you will, on the perimeter of the if you call this island. Mhm. So, I need I wanted room for all the fish. And if you look down, you'll see little cuts of everything where you can see all the fish can go through and everything. So, it works out, but I still need to trim it up. A critter I forgot to mention, too, in the back. You got a lobster. Pretty cool. Um, how did you decide to get a lobster in the I love lobsters. I lobster. I love lobsters. So, I wanted one. So, I'm I'm like, perfect. Let me get one. So, he's in there. He's growing. He's he he you'll see him on one side of the tank and then hour later he'll be totally up on the front. Good thing too. He's a good cleanup crew. Okay. He's picking up all that extra food and things like that. Y it seems like this tank has had a couple renditions if you will. You know, it's kind of gone through some different phases. We're kind of in this phase now. What have been some of the challenges that you've faced for this tank in particular? Room. No. You think it's it's a big tank, but you don't have a whole lot of room if once you get to this level here, once it gets full, it's it's tough. So, you got to you got to think, do I want to downsize what's in there or what do you want to do? So, that's that's a issue that I have ran into dealing with the room, right? And you always want to go bigger. I think that's something we constantly do in reef keeping and something that I mentioned in a previous video is like you may want to start small but going ultimately almost double the size that you thought you wanted to go with is the better option because I mean what we said this is 7 ft long so we've got 7 ft of space and we're running out of room which is and you got another bigger tank that's getting ready to be set up which is an 500 gallon. Wow. And then it's an extra foot long. Correct. Wow. That's 8 ft, 40 in front to back and 30 in tall. So, we'll definitely be making our way back soon once that tank is rolling. That's definitely a system we're going to have to check out. That would be something else I would say, too. Like, if you're getting into the hobby, go bigger. You'll you won't regret it. That's good. Yeah, I I think harping that is super important for people. Yeah, I know nano tanks can be easy and they're great in theory, but you know, I like the idea of having a single 5gallon bucket and you do all your entire water change with that's really nice, but you're limited. You know, space, you know, your parameters. There's a lot of things that kind of get constrained and kind of tightened in. But Nick, honestly, I I love this tank, dude. No, I really appreciate it. It's Everybody comes here, this is their favorite. It's a It's a centerpiece of the house. I have no complaints. I have seen a lot of tanks. I've been very lucky because of you guys watching. I get to see a lot of tanks and do these videos. I know a lot of people are going to give me some crap about this, but this is one of my favorite systems. It really is just the Lagoon style. I've said it before, I'm a tall dude, so being able to get an actual inside look is very unique. But I I love this one. This one's very nice. Well, it's still not bad cuz this is 40 in and you still have that much. So, right. It's not bad. It's it's it's really really cool. And the depth perception too, I think is interesting with this tank. I think you look at it too and you don't realize just how grand it is. You sent me the photo when we were getting ready to kind of make a plan and come up here and I had no idea what I was going to walk into and see cuz pictures never do it justice and that's kind of why we're here today, right? To film it and showcase. You can actually see it now. It's It's definitely a gorgeous tank. I saw over on the back silencers on the overflow. Is that what that is? Kind of like a herby style kind of. Yes, it silences. cuz it keeps a little bit quiet. And then when it comes to the equipment, we've got some lights up top. Let's talk about the lights you're running and then all the other equipment inside. I'm running three XR30 G4s and one gyer pump at the end down there. It's kind of like a peninsula style in a way. And that's it. And then the two return uh duck bills right there. And that's it. You made a point too earlier on about the gy pump, how it runs. Can you talk a little bit about that for everybody? Yeah, I accidentally set it on a setting. I didn't even mean to. It goes on for a minute and it shuts off for a minute and it kind of looks like the tank is still so there's no movement for a good solid minute and I really like it. So, I left it that way and I love it. Then the uh lighting, you know, schedule, how long is the schedule running during the day? It's they turn off at 9 or I'm sorry, they turn on at 9:00 in the morning and turn off at 10:00 at night. So, they ramp up from 9:00 and then the peak daylight is from 11 to 6:00 and then from 6:00 they start ramping down to blue from then on. And then the equipment down below. I know we kind of took a look at it earlier. Super simple system, right? Very simple. What's the equipment down underneath? It's just a sump, a skimmer, and I run carbon, and that's it. Okay. Do you really believe that for this tank in particular, biological filtration is kind of the key for it. That's all I need. And as you can see, the it's in the pudding, as they say. Proof is in the pudding. The grass is always greener in the hobby. If you could change anything in the system now, what would you try to shift or change? Or is there nothing you would want? Oh, I would change. I would honestly, like I told you earlier, I would I want to downsize this. There's It's great. It looks great. There's tons of fish hiding spots, but it's a little too compact. Like I really want stingrays in here. And as you can tell, it is full. So, I need to downsize it. So, anybody looking for some stuff, I have a handout for you. The other thing, too, you said it, you've got multiple tanks in here. A lot of times when people come into a home that aren't a part of the hobby, for all of us watching at home that are part of the hobby, there's a couple tanks in here that you may gravitate to a little bit more. You say that a lot of people really like this system, though. Yes. Like you said, I think it's because it's very flowy. It's very natural. It looks when you walk in, it's bam. It's right. It's in your face. So, I'm sure that's why. And I I can't say otherwise. I do love it, too. Yeah. I I mean, it ended up being one of my favorites now, too. I can't lie. It's out of all your systems, you got some beautiful tanks. This is easily my favorite cuz the top down look, the lagoon vibe, all the different corals. It It's truly something to witness and enjoy. I have to ask you, I ask every single video, we'll probably have to make you do a couple different tips because we're going to do a couple videos here today, but I ask everybody, Jake Adams did it, and he would ask, "Whenever I see a system that's as beautiful as this, right? What's a tip you would give a brand new reef keeper or reef keeper in general that's looking to get into the hobby? Because you would be someone I would want to lean on when it comes to a tank like this. I mean, it's beautiful. This system is what a lot of people kind of strive for. A thriving lush forest of corals and some really nice fish. Time time is of the essence. Don't rush anything. I'm sure everybody says that, but it's definitely you have to if you don't have any patience, you need to learn it because in salt water, nothing comes fast and nothing comes easy. So, that's my two cents. That is a great tip. I I again, I could probably sit and talk about this tank all day long, but we have a couple tanks we need to check out here at Nick's Place. If you guys enjoyed this one, I want to hear down in the comments your favorite part of the system. And if you've hung out all the way till the end, I want to say thank you very much. Be sure to like, subscribe, and hit the bell notification so you don't miss out on any future uploads. [Music]