Frag tank recommendations

JOKER · Feb 26, 2015

I plan to start a frag tank in the near future. Never had a frag tank and looking for recommendations on size and what all I should add. Planning t5 lighting and a sump. Have a biopure media block I plan to use. Was thinking may add sand but not a must. For sure a sump. Plan a small cuc and maybe a few fish but mainly frags.

ptpablo · Feb 26, 2015

Sounds like you and I are on the same page. About 2 months ago I set up a 45 gallon DSA rimless(48Ã—18x12) frag tank. I have an aquatic life T5 4 bulb, sump, vertex 130 skimmer, biopure block as skimmer stand. Sand bottom, no cuc yet but will probably add some soon. I have a small yellow tang for algae and a striped hog fish for pests. So far everything I've put in is thriving. Very happy with set-up. Frag racks is the next project.

JOKER · Feb 27, 2015

Nice looking tank!

schneid0c · Feb 28, 2015

mine is a 14 gal from advanced acrylics. i have blue glow frag racks and have it attached to my main system i have a snowflake clown and a cuc in there. thinking about upgradeing to a 50 ish gal frag tank in near future.

JSeward · Mar 2, 2015

It doesn't matter what size you go with, you'll wish you went bigger. My recommendation is shallow and as simple and low maintenance as possible. You'll also want to make sure you design it for the types of coral you want to grow. You can certainly build something that will sustain soft stuff, LPS and SPS in the same tank, but you won't get great growth from anything.

I built my coral propagation system using hydroponic equipment after I got the idea from a setup Bulk Reef Supply used to sell. Total water volume is about 50 gallons with the sump, 8 square feet for coral, and being only 6 inches deep makes it easy to light and a breeze to work in. My only filtration is about 20lbs of live rock and some macro algae. I feed a lot of small particulate food several times a week and there is absolutely no mechanical filtration to remove it from the water column. No skimmer, filter socks or sponges. I prune the macro frequently and I do a 20% water change every 6 to 8 weeks. It's definitely not perfect, but it has been running for almost 2 years now and I'm really happy with coral growth. I've tuned this setup to grow Z&P's and a wide range of LPS really well, but SPS frags may last a week before they're a white skeleton. I have a red planet acro that's growing nicely, but that's the exception.

JOKER · Mar 3, 2015

I will need to be able to keep sps too.. Looking at frag tanks and man its hard to decide.lol. I want something shallow and am planning T5 lighting. Thought about an all in one but haven't decided yet. I have a skimmer rated for 100 gallons I plan to use. Nice setup by the way!!

JSeward · Mar 5, 2015

For all in ones, the JBJ rimless frag tanks will get the job done. They come with an LED fixture and wouldn't have room for a large skimmer. So, probably not what you're looking for. Something larger to look into would be the Deep Blue frag tanks. I like them a lot.

ptpablo · Mar 6, 2015

I had a small acrylic frag tank. Total water volume was about 15 gallons all in one. I ran into some serious algae problems with it. Total water volume was the problem. I like to feed my acans and if any is left over you can get huge fluctuations in parameters in a short period of time. For my money, the more volume the better. Love your set-up JSeward! That's a great way to do go!

JOKER · Mar 6, 2015

Well I ordered the jbj aio. I have a 20 gallon sump I plan to add to it also. Hopefully that will get my water volume to a more manageable level. With frag tank would I be better changing smaller amounts of water more often?

ptpablo · Mar 6, 2015

I ended up changing about a gallon 2-3 times a week. After doing that for a few weeks things definitely improved. With the sump add-on you should be in pretty good shape.

maroun.c · Mar 7, 2015

ist thing would be knowing the real purpose and your expectations out of it, are you planing just a small frag tank to grow and share frags with friends or is the plan to sell frags for profit. I tend to look at my frag system as a small investment I'm making and I would like to see a return or profit from it. that will dictate a minimum size to grow a number of corals at the same time so it's profitable. you'll notice that some increases in size will allow for more space to grow frags at literally no cost whereas exceeding a certain size will necessitate much more expense (bigger skimmer, more lighting, heating or chilling) a running frag tank has usually more coral/water ratio than a DT so it makes sense to go big to keep things stable on the long run. these are decisions only you can make based on the space you have, how much you're willing to spend and the expectations you have. Bigger is always better is a very valid rule :)