Hey everyone,
I have a 125G SCA tank (60" x 24" x 20.5") (for details see build thread) with 40G sump. I have been mulling over the design for an additional frag tank for the last 6 months or so. I would appreciate some thoughts or suggestions on my ideas. Honestly, the main goal of the frag tank is another display that offers top-down views (versus my main display which is def designed to look thru the glass). I'm thinking dimensions somewhere along the lines of 48" x 24" x 14-16".
On my display, I'm running reef moonshiners, and doing an ICP approx every 3 weeks. I also test big three 4 times each day via trident, and nitrates/phosphates about every other day via hanna checker. Basically, I'm very closely managing the chemistry.
Thus, I am dead set on somehow engineering the system so that I only need to manage one chemistry. But here's the issue... For a few different reasons, I'm opposed to the idea of actually plumbing the two systems together. First, with the way my system is currently plumbed, I think the best solution would be draining the main tank to the frag, then drain frag to sump. The issue is in my "sump room" (which is the utility room), the plumbing for this would just be really hard to fit in (limited space). In addition, the idea of completely re plumbing my three drain bean animal setup seems daunting, and frankly risky. Finally, having an entirely different junction, with piping to the frag tank, in my opinion just offers more opportunities for failures / leaks. It just scares me.
Thus.... I devised a potential "in-between" solution that I think simply marries the above concepts - I'd like to hear yalls thoughts on it. What if every day I used a neptune DOS pump to "swap" 4 gallons of water between each the frag tank and display tank. That would essentially marry the chemistry of each system, while not having to worry about actually plumbing them. The frag tank would be approx 75-90 gallons, so 4g / day would be 30-40% each week.
The only issue I foresee is eventually the pumps wear out / get out of synch, i.e. not exactly 4 gallons on each. Could cause potential issues with salinity, so maybe I'd get a salinity probe (but I hear these suck) for the frag tank.
What are your guys thoughts on this? Thanks in advance.
I have a 125G SCA tank (60" x 24" x 20.5") (for details see build thread) with 40G sump. I have been mulling over the design for an additional frag tank for the last 6 months or so. I would appreciate some thoughts or suggestions on my ideas. Honestly, the main goal of the frag tank is another display that offers top-down views (versus my main display which is def designed to look thru the glass). I'm thinking dimensions somewhere along the lines of 48" x 24" x 14-16".
On my display, I'm running reef moonshiners, and doing an ICP approx every 3 weeks. I also test big three 4 times each day via trident, and nitrates/phosphates about every other day via hanna checker. Basically, I'm very closely managing the chemistry.
Thus, I am dead set on somehow engineering the system so that I only need to manage one chemistry. But here's the issue... For a few different reasons, I'm opposed to the idea of actually plumbing the two systems together. First, with the way my system is currently plumbed, I think the best solution would be draining the main tank to the frag, then drain frag to sump. The issue is in my "sump room" (which is the utility room), the plumbing for this would just be really hard to fit in (limited space). In addition, the idea of completely re plumbing my three drain bean animal setup seems daunting, and frankly risky. Finally, having an entirely different junction, with piping to the frag tank, in my opinion just offers more opportunities for failures / leaks. It just scares me.
Thus.... I devised a potential "in-between" solution that I think simply marries the above concepts - I'd like to hear yalls thoughts on it. What if every day I used a neptune DOS pump to "swap" 4 gallons of water between each the frag tank and display tank. That would essentially marry the chemistry of each system, while not having to worry about actually plumbing them. The frag tank would be approx 75-90 gallons, so 4g / day would be 30-40% each week.
The only issue I foresee is eventually the pumps wear out / get out of synch, i.e. not exactly 4 gallons on each. Could cause potential issues with salinity, so maybe I'd get a salinity probe (but I hear these suck) for the frag tank.
What are your guys thoughts on this? Thanks in advance.