IM25 Lagoon

The first thing to do start sanding... just had to buy an orbital sander and the proper sandpaper first. After a couple of hours sanding (and fielding a noise complaint from a neighbor) we had a proper canvas to play with.

Once sanding was complete, it was time to stain and seal. I wanted to go with a walnut stain and oil based urethane. T-minus 5-days until RAP and I naively thought I would have this stand done by Friday. I hadn't realized the stain would take 48hrs to dry and each coat of urethane to take 24hrs to dry. I had hoped that the +90 degree heat would have helped expedite the drying, I'm sure it did, but not enough to meet the tight timeline. Working on the stand also required quite a lot sweat, more than I would have liked lol Here's what the stand looked like after the coat of stain. The stain came out much darker than I would have liked, more like a paint. I really should have used the rag method (as shown on the bottom). Lesson learned the hard way, next time we'll do it right lol

T-minus 2-days until RAP the stain was dry and it was time to seal with urethane. It's looking unlikely that we're going to be able to apply 3/4 coats of urethane by the time the weekend ends. We'll try anyways... No time to apply urethane to each side and let level/dry on its own, we had to optimize. This meant doing all the exposed inner/outer sides at once. And applying thin coats to prevent dripping the best we could. As much as I tried, the last coat was applied on Saturday morning the first day of RAP. I ended up doing 4 coats on the outside and 3 coats on the inside.

While we waited for paint to dry there was still much to do surrounding the tank. One of the tasks was building a mesh LID for the tank. I could have bought the lid from IM for $60, but why buy, when I could just spend $30 on materials and make a worse version myself 🤪 I set out to 3D print the individual pieces of the frame and feeding port. Cut out some mesh netting and use window spline and super glue to secure netting to the assembled frame. Then secured the feeding port via nylon bolts and nuts, and used an x-acto knife to cut out the feeding hole portion. Here's what the final result looked like:

Another problem I set out to solve with this iteration of the tank was that of my pistol shrimp. In the old nano, the pistol shrimp was quite elusive. I'd only ever see him once in a blue moon, although I would heard his snap everyday or so. I wanted to create an environment where I could potentially observe and enjoy the pistol shrimp more often. Surely the pistol shrimp would appreciate an artificially made cave/tunnel. It would save him so much time, effort, and energy. And it sure would be cool if that tunnel was pressed alongside the glass, such that we could see exactly where the shrimp is at all times. It was time to fire up the 3D printer once more and print two tunnel systems for each side of the tank. If the shrimp didn't like one of the caves, it could always move and migrate to the other (hopefully). This time we used cream colored PETG filament to better match the color of the fiji pink sand going into the tank. Even went the extra step of doing reefs and crafts, by gluing sand to the top of the tunnels to preserve a natural looking sand surface. Here's what the tunnels looked like while prepping and what the final product in the tank looks like.

T-plus 1-day post RAP and the tank is ready to be setup. The biocube has been moved to a temporary location and the new stand and tank are in place. Time to load the sand, tunnels, rocks, and get this tank wet. I had bleached some old rock from a previous build and cured it with some bio-media from my main display tank's sump, this is the rock that should help drive the ammonia cycle. Some of this rock is just temporary until I transfer rock from the old system into this system. I also picked up some pukani rock from RAP, seen on the right side of the tank.

T-plus 4-days post RAP and it was time to get some more of the life support systems in place. Getting the Hydros controller, powerbar, powerstrip, inkbird, doser, ato, and eventually emergency bubbler in place. We'll even be nice to our future selves and use cable ties and adhesive clips to help manage the cables and probes in an organized fashion. To be extra cautious we'll mount the equipment onto the stand wall to prevent any possible saltwater damage from leaks or spills.

At this point we have just about everything setup, everything except one of the most critical pieces of reefing equipment... the lights. For lights we went with a DTC (direct from china) light, the Kassray T120 (the ATI Straton X clone). I was able to pick this light up used from a fellow hobbyist in the area (woohoo). No 2-week shipping time, and no big beautiful tariffs to pay. One problem though, this light panel is made of metal, and it's a beefy boi at about 7.5 lbs... The light came with a universal mounting arm with a 4-inch by 2-inch U-mount bracket, but I'd be crazy to mount this light directly onto the 8mm IM back glass, right? I didn't want to take my chances, so I had to devise a solution that could leverage the universal arm the best I could. After doing some digging on other reefing forums for mounting solutions, all answers led me to using extruded aluminum (aka adult legos). So I bought some 2040 and drilled pilot holes to mount the 24" rail to the wall studs to act as a bridge. I then had to figure out how to mount the mounting arm pipe fitting to the 2040. Again, 3D printer to the rescue. I designed an adapter to mount the pipe fitting via M3 screws and the adapter to the 2040 via M5 bolts and t-nuts.

After doing some more drilling to the 2040, it was time to mount this bad boy to wall. Just a couple modifications to the adapter needed; add 2 more m5 t-nut holes for 2040 support, and deepen the m5 head depth to keep the bolts from protruding onto the pipe fitting face plate.

Excellent job! Thanks for sharing. This is all very helpful as I consider my new build. Now the exciting part, livestock! Other than the clowns, what fish do you currently have and what do you plan to add? Will you be adding all fish (new and old) at the same time?

Great job, dude! You are definitely more talented than me! As you know, I used to have the IM25 Lagoon - love this size, btw. I’m sure you will like this setup. Following along for the ride…

Looks awesome!!! I can’t wait to see the rest of the journey!

Sick build. Super curious to see how that light will work for you. Maybe I should upgrade my 25ext to it too.....

@joeoliver wrote: Excellent job! Thanks for sharing. This is all very helpful as I consider my new build. Now the exciting part, livestock! Other than the clowns, what fish do you currently have and what do you plan to add? Will you be adding all fish (new and old) at the same time?

The immediate live stock that will moved over will be the clowns, RBTAs, some RFAs, and a mini max carpet nem. Along with some various leathers, gorgs, zoas, and mushrooms. I also have some CuC, 4 sexy shrimp, pistol shrimp, and decorator crab that will join them. I'm thinking I'll move all the coral over first to get the rock work and placement situated. Then shortly move in the clownfish, this should limit their ability to bite me while working on the tank lol As far as new livestock, I hope to eventually add a tailspot blenny, banded pipepish, and possibly a possum or pink-streaked wrasse. I'd also like to get some nice ornamental macro algae, and maybe clam.