Jump to content
Premium Aquatics Aquarium Supplies

Super Ghetto Frag System


yardboy

Recommended Posts

Thanks Maria! I hope the sun works well with the light rail to produce all the light the corals need.

This is going to be a pretty extensive system, but not just thrown together. If the refugium looks a tenth as good as your display, I'll be excited!

Link to comment
  • Replies 166
  • Created
  • Last Reply
  • 1 month later...

I've been steadily dismantling the old ghetto frag system, but with what I learned from that system I'm hoping the new frag setup will be even better. One of the racks I removed was quite overgrown in "coral's gone wild" so I ended up putting it in the new setup.

Whenfragsattackfragrack.jpg

Then moving lots of frags

TurbinariaandFungiapolypsadj.jpg

And even stuck some leftover mangroves in the overflow

centeroverflowwithmangrovesadj.jpg

As the ghetto system emptied out, I ended up scraping frags off the walls and eggcrate racks.

 

Ghettotanlyellowpolyps2adj.jpg

 

I finally got it set up and plumbed the way I wanted (using mostly stuff I already had. :P)

The far right tank is for zoanthids, running T5's, The center is a 20T refugium. There are a bunch of "refugees" in there now, waiting for a trip to the lfs and local club meeting.

Then on the left is the Rubbermaid sump, with an ASM G-4 skimmer, and running carbon. I keep frag tiles, plugs and flat rubble for gluing up frags in the sump soaking.

Water to the lower tanks is supplied by the 4 drains in the overflow. One each to the tanks and two to the sump. I plan on modding the ASM to be a recirc skimmer and using one of the sump overflows for that.

Return water is a Mag 7, but with all the overflows and tanks, I'm going to move up to something bigger when I find a deal.

BigFragTank091810.jpg

 

A few ideas I thought I'd try out

A "mangrove island" made from 4" clear (and opaque) PVC pipe. The clear one got all the really nice corraline rubble.

mangroveisland.jpg

 

And here's the scraped frags off the ghetto system. Red and purple mushrooms, yellow polyps and colt corals. As soon as they attach to the small bits of rubble, I'll glue them to larger pieces, to have some "reef rock"

 

loosepolyps.jpg

Link to comment

The "blue" one is a 20L with zoanthid frags in it. I took a pic but the glass was dirty on the outside and the blue lights aren't so amenable to good pics.

The fixture is a Tek 4-24W T5 with 2-ATI Blue Plus and 2-ATI Aquablue Special. I like fluorescing zoanthids!

 

I have a 150, a 40L (Gulf of Mexico Biotope), 30L frag tank, a 10 gallon SPS tank, and the three tanks you see in the pic. Yes it's excessive, but I buy very few corals. I either trade or collect livestock myself.

I'm just trying to move away from DIY ghetto. I't's been fun, but I'm going for more organized and reducing my maintenance costs. Note the frag system has a 250W MH on a light rail, the 4-24W T5 and the refugium, which has an LED PAR 38 (Evil Nano-Tuner) and CFL floodlight (but soon to be all LED)

Thanks for your interest. I really love the hobby but don't post as much as I do mess with the tanks!

Link to comment

Great stuff YB!

 

Wonderful to follow along on your builds, watching how they evolve.

 

I love how you show us all how much you can do with what you may already have on hand.

 

Or adding a new found "deal" and reworking the set up.

 

Well done Sir, well done. B)

 

Thanks for the update! :)

Link to comment

Thanks for looking Guys!

Now you've shamed me into getting an uipdate on the jetties nano. From 10 gallon, to 20L, now to the 40L Gulf of Mexico Biotope.

Link to comment
  • 1 month later...

Very well! Thanks for asking.

Over the years, for fragging, I've used liverock rubble, bought frag plugs, made them using babybottle nipples as a mold, travertine tile and now acrylic rod and besides being the cheapest, I think it works the best. I'll try and post some pics soon. I've been busy selling locally and now have become the president of our local club so I have lots to occupy my time!

Link to comment

Both frag tanks are great! The drum was a freaking brainstorm! I live in NJ and was wondering if you would ship frags to the armpit of the country.I really like the zoas and softies you have. Shoot me a pm if your interested. I'm lookin to stock a 12G NC, but I want to put some really nice stuff in there. Not to mention that you grow the corals and not harvest them. Ecofriendly and beautiful!! Gotta luv it!

Link to comment
  • 2 months later...
Funktastic Wint

hi yardboy!

i cant remember if i saw it in this post or not but i didnt wanna rifle through the whole thing. i believe i remember seeing a skimmer u made out of a water bottle or something similar. id be interested in seeing more about that, specifics and pumps used etc. thanks in advance! :)

Link to comment
hi yardboy!

i cant remember if i saw it in this post or not but i didnt wanna rifle through the whole thing. i believe i remember seeing a skimmer u made out of a water bottle or something similar. id be interested in seeing more about that, specifics and pumps used etc. thanks in advance! :)

 

Thanks for asking Funk. In my early days of experimentation I was trying to understand the process of skimming and made one out of a 1 liter soda bottle using a Maxijet 900 pump. The venturi was made from 1/2" PVC pipe fittings. It worked very well, but was a real beatch to clean so it was laid aside. I couldn't locate any pics of it, but I would encourage you to look around, try some experiments and see what you can come up with.

Link to comment
  • 1 year later...

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recommended Discussions


×
×
  • Create New...