Minimum Equipment Necessary for Frag Tank

[ggNoRe]

I have a 10G long tank that I was using as a brine shrimp culture that I'm considering turning into a frag tank. I really don't want to have any sump or skimmer and would like thoughts on how to set it up using the minimal amount of equipment necessary. I already have a heater, lights, and power head. Is adding fish necessary to keep the tank cycled? Thoughts on filtration? Thanks in advance.

 

[Arthacker87]

Corals eat nitrate, fish poop, fish foods. If your supplementing that, should be fine. Inky issue would be over feeding g but if you have a good water change and top off schedule, should be fine. And also depends on coral you're keeping also

 

[Glenner’sreef]

A couple of fish are good to have in a frag tank to keep algae and pests down. The attached photo is a Steve Tyree video of the LA Frag Guys facility. There very successful frag tanks don’t use protein skimmers. Look it up on YouTube, you’ll find it interesting. Good luck.

 

[ggNoRe]

Ok so just feed coral food and do regular water changes? No filter or bio media?

 

[Thatguyfish]

use chromis or other very hardy fish for your frag tank like 1-3. Remember all coral tanks can still crash due to coral bio warfare so it wouldnt hurt to have stuff like carbon and ect on standby.

 

[MaxTremors]

Ok so just feed coral food and do regular water changes? No filter or bio media?

If you’re keeping any soft corals (zoas and leathers specifically), I would run some carbon. Either in a HOB power filter or even in a media bag in the tank near the powerhead.

 

[Tamberav]

I have a 10G long tank that I was using as a brine shrimp culture that I'm considering turning into a frag tank. I really don't want to have any sump or skimmer and would like thoughts on how to set it up using the minimal amount of equipment necessary. I already have a heater, lights, and power head. Is adding fish necessary to keep the tank cycled? Thoughts on filtration? Thanks in advance.

Heater, light, rock, flow. ATO is nice.

Fish is optional. My frag tank doesn’t have any fish as I use it to QT inverts. All the corals do well. I don’t even really feed anything but the rock is live mature rock and there is so many pods and worms and brittle stars everywhere so plenty of poop recycling micro algae and debris.

I don’t use a skimmer or floss or even carbon lol I used to but my kitten kept pulling it out of the back chambers so I gave up…. then realized that the tank was the same without it so meh. Easier maintenance and less money spent on my end.