Frag Tank

[Mikec0078]

I have decided to start a frag tank to help support aquaculture and help eliminate unnecessary taking off natural reefs. I drew up a plan and started putting it together. I have a 400w Metal Halide light which I am still getting ready to hang from the joists (It's in the unfinished part of my basement). I will be running either a 6700k or 10000k temp bulb on it. I have built a light fixture for the display fuge which will house 2 23w compact fluorescent bulbs, in which I will use the daylight temp bulbs. I am just waiting for the paint to dry on that and it will be suspended as well. In the display fuge I want to put all sorts of caulerpa, mangroves, kelp and whatever else will help with nutrient export and look nice and natural. Yes I will be putting a skimmer on this system, but I am trying out a Super Skimmer 65 on another system and although it does pull nice skimmate, it seems to want to overflow... A LOT! The drain is fairly quiet, but I'm not worried about noise in the basement, and using a powerhead to supply water to the fuge seems to be working fine.

 

I did have a few questions for all of you veteran propagators. What type of frag plug/disc is the best or what brand. I have seen a lot of different ones, plastic, concrete, natural, mixed. Don't know which to go with. I have thought about buying a small amount of each and trying them out for myself, but I though input from you guys would help my decision as well.

 

edit: Almost forgot. For flow I only have a MJ1200 with the sureflow 1600 mod kit on it... claims about 2000gph.. and it seems to move the water amazing... ly!

 

Here are some pics. Please let me know if you see any potential problems with the setup. Thanks!

 

 

[tangboy]

Looks interesting, you just have a pump in your display puming water directly into your fuge then fuge overflows into display? Pretty reverse what it usually is but I like it

[dtfleming]

skip the mangroves and caulprea. Mangroves do nothing for nutrient export and the caulprea will go sexual on you and become a PITA. Cheato, some brown algaes or red aglaes will work. www.live-plants.com.

[Mikec0078]

tangboy - yeah there was a few reasons for this, 1. I wanted to do something a little different and have the fuge in viewing area. 2. It was my first time drilling a tank with a dremel and it was cheaper to screw up on a 10g then a 30g 3. Why not!

 

dtfleming - Thanks for the input, I will look into that site for other ideas. I just want to get good nutrient export and still have a good looking fuge, more natural looking I guess. I am kind of getting sick at looking at a green glob of chaeto all the time (although I know it's some of the best for nutrient export).\

 

Thanks for the input and comments.

[Mikec0078]

Here's an update. I got the MH pendant hung up and just have to wire it all up now, and get the new bulb, in which I have decided to go with a 10000k temp bulb so the corals keep some good color. I finished building my DIY fuge light with 2 13w compact fluorescent 6700k bulbs and homemade reflectors. I painted it black to kind of match a little more. I got the modded MJ mounted differently and put my Hydor Flo deflector on the end of my fuge pump, so the water coming into the fuge is ... deflected?! You can see where I made an acrylic cover for the right side of the frag tank where the drain comes in.. I was getting ridiculous amounts of salt spray there. All better now. Tank looks a little foggy due to the new sand.

 

[cowboyrn]

Gumby, tagging along. I am going to start a 20L soon and have been following your other thread as well. I am a newb, but have been trying to reasearch as much as I can, and would love to grow into a coral prop set-up. One question though, are you going to get enough flow across your corals with this set up? You might want to consider moving your MJ all the way to the left to be pulling water across the coral rack. I don't know a lot, but it looks like you might have a low flow zone on the left side of the tank. Just a thought.

[ReeFur]

dont expect nice colors with a 10k bulb..expect a lot of growth

[Longinus]

I love the reverse fuge, follows the same idea as a lot of the hang on back type fuges. I know I am going with something similar for my new tank, so this will be really great to watch grow.

[Mikec0078]

cowboyrn - The MJ I have in there is modded with the sureflow 1600 kit. It provides ridiculous (good) flow all the way across the tank. The only somewhat slow space is by the live rock on the right hand side of the tank. I do plan on putting a modded MJ600 on the left side of the tank though pointing to the right, and it will be placed underneath the eggcrate to keep detritus off the bottom. Let me know when you start a thread on your system, I would love to watch it come to life!

 

ReeFur - I was originally planning on using a 6700k bulb, but I knew the colors would be bland, so I thought with a 10k bulb it would give a little more color but still provide a good growth rate. I have contemplated getting a 20k bulb to use just a few days at a time before selling any frags to ensure good color up. Thanks for the input.

 

Thanks for the comments and replies, I am suprised because the aquaculter section of the forum seems a little slower than the rest of the site.

[Mikec0078]

Here's an updated pic. The MH seems to have the coverage I was looking for and it looks good and it's a 400w 10,000k Coralvue bulb. The fuge is just booming with life and seems to be maturing faster than my other newly setup system. I have added 3 Astrea's and they seems to be doing a great job on the GHA, and it's only been a few days. They have almost cleaned up the whole front glass. There are tons of bugs all over the glass and I hope they continue to populate at this rate. This fuge is doing great. Soon I will go in and start aquascaping the fuge and maybe incorporate a few more macros.

 

 

[Mikec0078]

This setup has been dismantled due to a leak in the seal of the 30g tank. I was losing about 4 gal of water/day but slow enough to make it hard to find the leak. I guess Fish happens.

[Mikec0078]

Back up and running, better than ever. I did dismantle the system and reconfigured it the KISS (keep it simple stupid) way. I have some test frags in there and they seem to be doing very well. I will update this thread every so often.

 

 

[Aqua newbie]

What is the growth rate of your green star polyps. Mine hasn't grown at all and i've had it for a quarter of a year.

[Mikec0078]

Depends on which of my 3 tanks its in. In my most mature tank it grows the fastest due to the higher nutrient levels because of the larger bio load. I think they are like xenia in that they can grow faster in a "dirty" tank because they basically use up excess nutrients to grow.

[Aqua newbie]

Really? Three fish in my 28 and one of them's a tang-yes I know about the tang laws.

[nanoty]

Wow, now that you took the fuge off it looks almost exactly what I'm doing.

[Aqua newbie]

Thanks

[Mikec0078]

Wow, now that you took the fuge off it looks almost exactly what I'm doing.

 

Nice Setup as well. Biggest difference is that I have a 400w MH suspended in the heavens for obvious reasons! I really need to buy an AC110 to mod for a fuge and I will be set I think. Probably get some more LR in there and soon a few fishies. I am a firm believer that coral growth is better when you have a bio load in the tank.. basically fish poop!

[nanoty]

Yeah I still am in need of lighting. I suppose a 400w would be best although I was originally leaning towards 250w. I don't think I am going to have any type of fuge with this tank unless I mod one of the HOBs I already have.

[Mikec0078]

Yeah I still am in need of lighting. I suppose a 400w would be best although I was originally leaning towards 250w. I don't think I am going to have any type of fuge with this tank unless I mod one of the HOBs I already have.

 

Don't do a 400w MH. The 250 is your best bet as I think that the 400 is overkill for what I'm using it for. I am just cheap and don't want to buy another light when I can just raise the 400 another 5"