Miles's raceway frag tank build

[rinckemd]

Is it wrong to have a frag tank bigger than your display? Hope not, here we go!

My plan is to do some major aquaculturing and use different light combinations from my display. (Display tank thread in signature)

Here's the 8ftx3ft pentair trough tank. 180g I can fit two of these in my basement space if things work out. I'm using a 100g Rubbermaid as my sump. I love that my basement drain is in the perfect spot in case of disaster.

150w red dragon return pump, manifold for carbon, chaeto reactor, etc

Water station, already had this built for the display

Start of the equipment board, just testing stuff out, so it's a mess.

I may add a third drain running full siphon soon to quiet things up. Not sure how much surface skimming I really need.

Here's a shot from the end, just got water moving! I have a gyre on this end too, anxious to see what the flow is like and if it will be too linear. May add some pumps on the side.

Next up is cycling and adding lights. Probably a couple of weeks before that will happen.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Very nice!

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Looks great!! Very nice setup!

Is it wrong to have a frag tank bigger than your display?

If this wrong, then I don't wanna be right.. LOL

 

[Mebeknob]

Next up is cycling and adding lights. Probably a couple of weeks before that will happen.

Very cool!
What lights are you going to use?
Do you think you'll need powerheads/extra flow?

 

[rinckemd]

Very cool!
What lights are you going to use?
Do you think you'll need powerheads/extra flow?

Thanks. I'm going to be doing the T5/Reefbrite combo, and MH Radiums over this tank. I've got LEDs on the display and I want the freedom the frag and move things around to see what colors I can get. I will probably need some powerheads. The gyre might be okay, but it could blast too much at the end, leaving me with less space to use.

 

[Royal Reef]

Gyre won't have enough power but if you're looking for a gyre affect you can use tunze and just blast them across the top.. according to BRS testing you'll get a very nice gyre affect that way.. I'm in the process for doing a very similar setup with the same main tank

 

[Mebeknob]

Gyre won't have enough power but if you're looking for a gyre affect you can use tunze and just blast them across the top.. according to BRS testing you'll get a very nice gyre affect that way.. I'm in the process for doing a very similar setup with the same main tank

I think the gyres could work well especially with the depth of the tank; you can put them almost at the surface of the water.
I would probably put them shooting across the width of the tank though... you'd get a spiral gyre effect I believe.

 

[rinckemd]

I think the gyres could work well especially with the depth of the tank; you can put them almost at the surface of the water.
I would probably put them shooting across the width of the tank though... you'd get a spiral gyre effect I believe.

I'll give it a try once I get some coral in there and see what happens!

 

[ELwirePros]

Very cool! I was planning on a similar setup to use as a grow out tank for those micro sized frags everyone seems to be selling now a days. If I may ask, where did you get your pentair tank and what was the cost? And to answer your question, reefing is never wrong, no matter how large we go. By the way, my wife strongly disagrees with me quite often...

 

[Husker]

Did you consider T-ing that drain off to have a valve-controlled drain going right into your floor drain? That sure could make for easy water changes.

 

[Triggerjay]

This is wrong! It's in my dining room!! Cycling it now, and still have to mount lights.

 

[rinckemd]

Gyre won't have enough power but if you're looking for a gyre affect you can use tunze and just blast them across the top.. according to BRS testing you'll get a very nice gyre affect that way.. I'm in the process for doing a very similar setup with the same main tank

I saw that video! I may go that route. Was hoping to utilize the stuff I had, but it may not be enough. I'll get some polyp swaying videos in a few months and we'll see.

 

[rinckemd]

This is wrong! It's in my dining room!! Cycling it now, and still have to mount lights.

Ha! I think the existing light is perfect. Fit a MH bulb in there and you're good to go.

 

[rinckemd]

Did you consider T-ing that drain off to have a valve-controlled drain going right into your floor drain? That sure could make for easy water changes.

You know I hope to not do a lot of changes, but it's a good idea. (Man plumbing bores me, I'm happy it's done and leak free) I run triton on the display and have maybe changed 25g out in the last year during various cleanings. Low fish, lots of chaeto.

 

[rinckemd]

Very cool! I was planning on a similar setup to use as a grow out tank for those micro sized frags everyone seems to be selling now a days. If I may ask, where did you get your pentair tank and what was the cost? And to answer your question, reefing is never wrong, no matter how large we go. By the way, my wife strongly disagrees with me quite often...

Here you go. The tanks are actually pretty light, but they assured me it would hold without side bracing. I don't plan on growing huge colonies, so shallow was fine. Only thing I didn't like was the angled sides. I suppose I could have used uniseals, but I went with bulkheads instead. The moment I hit the buy button I knew this was for real.

http://pentairaes.com/fiberglass-troughs.html

 

[Brad Shook]

Looks good

 

[Dallaswinefan]

This is really, really awesome! I've been looking at frag tank setups and the tanks can be pretty expensive, almost cost prohibitive. Please keep us updated!

 

[rinckemd]

Here you go. The tanks are actually pretty light, but they assured me it would hold without side bracing. I don't plan on growing huge colonies, so shallow was fine.

http://pentairaes.com/fiberglass-troughs.html

This is really, really awesome! I've been looking at frag tank setups and the tanks can be pretty expensive, almost cost prohibitive. Please keep us updated!

Well, it's not cheap at all. But hopefully I can recoup a bit of cost down the road.

 

[timrocks311]

very cool. I love frag tank setups like this. Good luck with it.

 

[FarmerTy]

The Zoomedic Low Boy Frag tanks are super cheap and made of glass if people were looking at other options.

I'm in the process of doing something similar so I'll follow along.