Frag tank

drdude05 · 03-25-2008, 03:02 PM

Could I make a sucessful frag tank using a 10 gallon tank and a 70W Viper HQI MH?

jrpdriver · 03-25-2008, 03:40 PM

I don't see why not, you're going to plumb it into your current sytem right?

drdude05 · 03-25-2008, 03:59 PM

Well, no ... I was going to try and set it up as a stand alone, unless that won't work? I figured that I could do water changes in leu of a skimmer and use powerheads for current.

jrpdriver · 03-25-2008, 04:16 PM

Parameters need to be very stable for frags so they can heal and begin to grow, I woul not set-up a frag tank that small unless it was to plumbed into your main system.

chrischris · 03-25-2008, 05:18 PM

i agree i think a 30 gallon might work but im not sure

Bender 2 · 03-25-2008, 05:27 PM

I agree with the others. I am setting up a 20l frag tank and plumbing it into my 180 w/ 50gallon sump. I am doing this for temp and water quality stability.

bosscrab · 03-25-2008, 05:38 PM

In theory a frag tank is suppose to be stand alone in case of a crash.

phiberop840 · 03-25-2008, 05:40 PM

Yes, definiteley plumb it in the main system. I have 150 gallons of Frag tank that I am propagating in that is plumbed off my 210. Make water parms killer and forgiving. dont need the forgiving part as i think, my husbandry is overkill. Now I just need more coral to frag and grow.

Also, if you were to use a 10 gallon, Halides I do not thing would be necessary. I run T5s over 2 of my props and my growth and color is stunning. I am doing some testing on HQI vs. Halide round socket, and T5, to see what is giving me the best color. My display is winning in the color area with HQI's, and the T5's are winning for growth.

Mike

jrpdriver · 03-25-2008, 05:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bosscrab

In theory a frag tank is suppose to be stand alone in case of a crash.

Thats a good point but many people simply use them for grow-out and/or aclimating new frags. My point was that a 10g was not big enough for a stand alone sps tank, and if he wanted to use that 10g it should be plumbed into his main system

Wiskey · 03-25-2008, 05:55 PM

I have a friend who has a 10G Frag tank plummbed into his 90G main system with a 250W MH bulb over it and that works great! I don't think I would do a stand alone 10G for frags, especially SPS frags however.

Plumbing it into the system involves much less matenence

That being said I do have a 15G Q tank that I use to Q SPS corals and it works quite well,.. but it's just for Q not growout.

Whiskey

whatevva · 03-25-2008, 06:37 PM

I'd go standalone. I was able to save a few frags before my SPS crash.

I have a 15 gal with a prism skimmer, and it works great.

drdude05 · 03-26-2008, 08:14 AM

Thanks for all the help guys. I chose a 10 gallon with the Viper 70W HQI because I have them already from another project that I chose not to do. After 10 plus years in the hobby I also have spare heaters, powerheads etc as well. So I thought I could set something decent up without any cost. I figured that since I wasn't putting in sand, rock, etc that the bioload would only be the coral frags which would help in keeping water levels optimal for NO3, NO2, NH3, PO4 etc etc. The rest is keeping to a regular schedule of top off to keep salinity stable and adding trace elemens as needed.

I too thought that frag tanks were supposed to be stand alone. That way if there was a tank crash, you had a coral supply to start with. i.e. you don't lose everything.

crvz · 03-26-2008, 08:19 AM

Well they're not supposed to be anything... it just depends on the application. A QT is supposed to be independent of the main display, but a frag tank is usually an area to grow frags out for sale or trade, so if it's easier to hook it up to the rest of the system, great, if it's not than that would be fine too. I've got an area in my sump that I've recently dedicated to frags, and we'll see how well it does. I slapped a 150W MH over it.

drdude05 · 03-26-2008, 09:17 AM

Quote:

Well they're not supposed to be anything...

It's supposed to be a frag tank ...

sorry ... don't take offense to that but I couldn't resist.

I appreciate your comments about hooking it up to the main system if you can, or let it stand alone if it can't be plumbed into the main system. In my case, plumbing to the main system is not an option. Mainly because I have a 180 gallon display and the stand has a closed back except for vents. I don't feel like draining it, moving it, drilling holes, running pipe, to ultimately have a 10 gallon sitting on a file cabnet next to the tank with a bunch of visable plumbing.

As for my application, I've had two issues with my lighting that has cost me specimins. I wish I had setup a frag tank sooner so I would have had some cuttings to repopulate with. Granted, lighting issues would not preclude plumbing to the main display.

dacro · 03-26-2008, 10:40 AM

I ran a separate 20 tall for approx one year with no issues. Of course, this tank served as a QT as well...

Good luck!