My 6 tank frag system build

[TheSuspiciousFish]

Hey all,

I'm in the process of my biggest build yet. I bought a house in August and my wife let me take over the garage, which I've dubbed " The seashed" and it's housing my frag farm. About a year ago I decided to get a LLC and sell coral locally. I set up one 60g rr and sold coral out of a closet in my basement at the old house. It served its purpose and I was able to put those profits towards a much larger build which I started in September but is still in process. I'll post the pictures I've taken to today in this post and try to keep everyone updated as I get more done.

The tanks include:
-4-60g rimless seapora frag tanks
-a custom built 36x42x11 tank I found locally
-a 75g rr used for live rock
-a custom build 80g sump

Skimmer- asm g4
Lighting- 1 tank will have 2 maxspect r20r, 1-hybrid ai prime/t5, 3 tanks will have just t5s. The reasoning behind this is that I've been picking up stuff cheap along the way. Over time I'll switch to all radions or Phillips coral care lighting. These builds are expensive though and I'm limited to what I've profited over the last year.

Controllers-

Alktronic/dostronic/hydros (finally came in this week just in time!!!) This portion is the most exciting part to me. I was changing dosing constanly and had a few large alk swings kill a lot of coral in the past. When you add 30+ colonies to a system then take away coral when people buy them everyday I've found it extremely difficult to keep parameters and salinity consistant in the smaller system I used to have. Testing and dosing by hand daily will be a thing of the past. I even bought 2 ato's, one to refill saltwater after bagging and another to do the normal task.

From September to today I have insulated the garage, built stands, set the tanks, and ran 2-20amp circuits to the tanks. At this point I have 3 tanks running which houses my fish and some of the coral from my display at the old house my friends didn't have room for and a 75g with 200lbs of rock.

I'll update more in the coming days as I put together the electrical, controllers, and lighting in this weekend.. lucky for me a LFS not far away rents par meters.


The garage has CLUTTERED just ignore it, I needed the tanks in place so I know where I'll want the holding containers and cabinets to keep all the stuff tidy.


If anyone has ideas or sees something I've missed please please please let me know!!

 

[blaxsun]

So we know you came out of this with the garage... you had to cave on the walk-in closet, right? ;)
Seashed, seashack, seacave, seafarm... Seaquest!

 

[TheSuspiciousFish]

So we know you came out of this with the garage... you had to cave on the walk-in closet, right? ;)

she's getting a office in the basement to make her bedazzled tumblers and custom shirts. Once this project is done I have to start on hers. Theres no getting off Scott free doing something like this. She makes some really cool stuff though.

 

[blaxsun]

she's getting a office in the basement to make her bedazzled tumblers and custom shirts. Once this project is done I have to start on hers. Theres no getting off Scott free doing something like this. She makes some really cool stuff though.

There's never a free ride! How long are you "stretching" out, er - how long is your project going to take you? ;)

 

[TheSuspiciousFish]

There's never a free ride! How long are you "stretching" out, er - how long is your project going to take you? ;)

My estimates are horrible but I'm hoping to have everything installed this week sometime...so probably 3 weeks lol

 

[TheSuspiciousFish]

Its been a long week at work so I haven't gotten much done, I was able to hang a rail to hang the t5s and run a circuit to each stand for the powerheads but I was hoping to have alot more done.

The tronics finally came in but that's about it. This weekend I'll plumb the other 2 60g tanks into the system and get them filled with substrate and water.

I also put myself on a very exciting time crunch also... I put in a order from veitnam for some easy corals... just over a hundred high grade mushrooms, 13 colonies of zoas and lots of other leathers and anenome to get the ball rolling . I'll post another update when I have more done!

 

[TheSuspiciousFish]

The last couple weeks have been busy non stop working on this system.

My hippo tang got ick bad because of the moving stress so it was added to the mix also. I gave it a freshwater dip and moved it to a vacant tank where it's doing much better. It's amazing how attached you become with your fish, my heart was in my stomach for a few days until yesterday when it finally came out and was swimming around. Theres still a couple spots but it's back to eating like a pig and it's looking healthy again.

Alkatronic and dosetronic... MY LORD. read the manual...read the manual...and read it again.... then contact support to find out dosetronic has a new process to get it connected . I spent my weekend getting these things connected to the cloud and setup. Then when I compared it to the hanna master checker I won from BRS it was WAY off. Turns out that $400 super checker is garbage. It was reading the dkh as 6 and I'd put the same water in the handheld hanna checker and it would show 7.65, which still didn't match the alkatronic. Going through the calibration process again it turned out the water in calibration never saved.

All in all the tronics are absolutly awesome. Despite the tough setup and the new models having a new process to get them on the cloud not mentioned in the manuals I was looking at, these things rock. I've never felt so in tune with a tank. I have to make new reagent because I believe this is showing 1 dkh low but for now 7.8 is 8.5. The dosetronic loads a new schedule at midnight every night based on the consumption the day before. I love it, this is going to be such an important tool once the tanks are full of coral and demands change daily. I'm bringing the dkh up to 8 slowly.

I still haven't gotten to the organizing portion of the automation, theres a few things I have to get before everything is put in place permanently but they're running well. I'm still setting the hydros up but it isn't on the top kf the to-do list right now.


I did substrate in each tank, which I know is kind of a no-no in frag tanks but I did it for a few reasons.

1- most of the colonies I have are on rocks and conebottoms are just easier to keep on a sand bed.

2- I wanted each frag tank to also be appealing like a display. They'll be half display with colonies on the rocks and half racks with frags from the colonies.

3- I like to keep conches,brittle stars and other cool sandbed dwellers and clean up crews to sell when people need or want them.

4- I feel like sandbeds host a ecosystem in itself, it makes the system as a whole easier to maintain.

Over the last 2 days the tanks have started to bloom diatoms. The hundreds of various snails are in their glory

So far the system seems like it's running great and there hasn't been any big problems as of yet but there is still alot to do.


This week I bought an red bubble tip anenome. And put my 9 yr old clowns in that tank. They have always been hosted by a colony of frogspawn.

This week I'm running the rodi to a permanent spot and setting up my mixing containers. And getting organized in the seashed, its a mess!

I'm still trying to source a acrylic overflow for the last tank so I can set that up but it's been difficult. Some places are just priced too high, some are too busy to take on a small job like that. Some I haven't heard back from.

Again if anyone has advice let me hear it. I'd love to get opinions if I'm missing anything or could make life a little easier down the road.

 

[dcal1985]

This is a really cool build, following along!

How are you plumbing these tanks together and managing flow? I'd love to see some pictures of those details if you get a chance.

 

[TheSuspiciousFish]

This is a really cool build, following along!

How are you plumbing these tanks together and managing flow? I'd love to see some pictures of those details if you get a chance.

Thanks I think its pretty cool too. I'll take some pictures for you tonight. It's not a work of art in by any means like alot of the systems you'll see here. I still had a 2 tanks at my old house that needed to move asap. I wish I had the time, patience and skill to plumb this system like some the art we see on some builds. Maybe ill go back through sometime and redo it all once its up and running.

 

[dcal1985]

Thanks I think its pretty cool too. I'll take some pictures for you tonight. It's not a work of art in by any means like alot of the systems you'll see here. I still had a 2 tanks at my old house that needed to move asap. I wish I had the time, patience and skill to plumb this system like some the art we see on some builds. Maybe ill go back through sometime and redo it all once its up and running.

Awesome, thanks! I'm scheming a similar build at some point and I'm no master plumber so mostly just curious to see how you have it working.

 

[TheSuspiciousFish]

Awesome, thanks! I'm scheming a similar build at some point and I'm no master plumber so mostly just curious to see how you have it working.

I'll definetly go through it for you then. I spent alot of time deciding how to make it work and whether or not to run it on one system or keep it separate. There's positives and negatives to both but I decided one system would be better for the stability and being able to use a controller like the tronics.

 

[TheSuspiciousFish]

4ish year update lol sorry guys I’m horrible with social media stuff but wanted to kind of put a closing on this build thread since building the system has been an adventure. I came on here to see how people were outfitting troughs but that’s for another thread I’ll most likely forget about like this one.

In the last 4 years I’ve converted from a frag system where I used to order wholesale, frag and sell into a small farm system. In my eyes selling fresh wholesale coral seems almost dishonest? it’s not the correct word for it but over the last 4 years I’ve noticed that there was a decline in coral health coming in, prices have gone way up and I couldn’t really guarantee how healthy what I was selling was so it felt dishonest to me anyway. I didn’t feel right selling coral I wasn’t sure was healthy. it started as something where I was receiving shipments, treating for parasites etc. then holding the coral for a couple months while it acclimated to tank life, then when I saw growth from the coral it would be up for grabs. A year, maybe less into building this system I started collecting frags to grow out and completely to aquaculture, and when you switch to aquaculture it’s a right of passage to become one of those people you tend to acros like they’re your off spring. There’s some pictures below for my fellow acro lovers.

In the last 4 years I kept the four 60 gallon frag tanks and grow out colonies in those, added a 8ft 120g frag tank strictly for frags that extra colonies ended up going into, and added a 3’x4’ tank strictly for frags of my acros to encrust for frag swaps in the spring complete with a recirculating flow system, a few gyres and stadium lighting. mainly frag farmers markets where I’m next door to WWC, unique corals, and across the hall from POTO. And a couple other smaller swaps cherry corals and Jason Fox attend. To me it’s turned into a competition, so year round I’m staring at these acros trying to grow the best and biggest frags for a day or three a year. Doing this has kept it fun and bringing my kids to help at the swaps has been something we look forward to every year.

In addition to the tank changes I had to keep up with the added water volume so I ripped the 80g sump out and put in a 150 gallon Rubbermaid bin and ditched the 75g tank with rock. I drilled a 2” intake and installed 6 port manifold to feed the three pan world return pumps that provide flow to all the tanks, uv and extra ports to expand from there. I’ve been using this sump for 2-3 years now and it’s been great. The system is organized chaos but it works like a charm. Once I get in some troughs I’ll get it all organized better with the last few years of wisdom on what works and what doesn’t behind me.

Here’s some pictures of what the tanks hold now, about 200 types of acros, lots of different leathers, collections of hammers and torches, chalice and of course acros… everything else cool I’ve picked up to grow since starting this up. When I convert to 3 4’x2’ pentair troughs this summer I’ll start another thread and try my best to keep up on the process of changing everything over.

 

[me & my baby]

Looks good , do you ship?

 

[TheSuspiciousFish]

Looks good , do you ship?

here and there when I have extra boxes, I have a couple kicking around