Adding a frag tank to my established system!

[Ober_Reef]

Hey Everyone,

My wife recently gave me the thumbs up to add a frag tank to my current system. It won’t be anything huge, roughly 20” x20” tank plumbed into my already established 90 gallon system. I would love any tips or tricks anyone has from experience in doing this. Pitfalls and drawbacks are greatly appreciated too!

Thanks Everyone!

Attached is the tank I’m thinking about purchasing.

 

[John1966]

Biggest worry is large enough sump to prevent overflow in case of short-term power outage. The more tanks you have in a system, the more water in the pipes, and above the overflow level in the tanks.

Another big concern for a multi-tank system is that you will change your plumbing repeatedly as you optimize things, add filtration modules or decide to expand even further. Make your plumbing so you can reach it and it can be disassembled/changed, without moving/draining tanks. I use 1" Lasco PVC push connect fittings on my PVC water lines.

I run a big (8 tank) system. Some of my tanks are on high turnover (5-10x volume/ hour) and others, especially frag tanks are on low turnover 1-2x hour (using cheap USB pumps). Low turnover works fine if you have powerheads or other circulation pumps in the add-on tanks, and most of the water has a fast turnover in the larger tanks.

I do like the stability of a multi-tank system and fewer tanks to test. But problems such as vermitid snails, dinos or algae blooms can impact all tanks at once.

 

[Ober_Reef]

Biggest worry is large enough sump to prevent overflow in case of short-term power outage. The more tanks you have in a system, the more water in the pipes, and above the overflow level in the tanks.

Another big concern for a multi-tank system is that you will change your plumbing repeatedly as you optimize things, add filtration modules or decide to expand even further. Make your plumbing so you can reach it and it can be disassembled/changed, without moving/draining tanks. I use 1" Lasco PVC push connect fittings on my PVC water lines.

I run a big (8 tank) system. Some of my tanks are on high turnover (5-10x volume/ hour) and others, especially frag tanks are on low turnover 1-2x hour (using cheap USB pumps). Low turnover works fine if you have powerheads or other circulation pumps in the add-on tanks, and most of the water has a fast turnover in the larger tanks.

I do like the stability of a multi-tank system and fewer tanks to test. But problems such as vermitid snails, dinos or algae blooms can impact all tanks at once.

Thanks! This is exactly the type of response I was hoping for. In my case I have two things going for me, first I went big with my sump when I started my current tank. My Bashsea sump takes up basically the entirety of the space under my tank, its actually something I regretted for a while do to the lack of space for other equipment and cord management but now I hope to see a benefit in it. The other thing is when I went to pick up my return pump from my LFS the owner had a couple of return pumps go out on him and had to use the one destined for me, instead I had to take the larger model for the same price and run it on its lowest setting.

Anyways thanks for mentioning the power outage issue as I was not thinking about that and I will keep it front of mind !