32g Frag Tank Build

[jharding08]

Hello all,
I am upgrading my frag tank to a size that fits my stand better and provides me more room/volume for frags. I am getting good growth with my current setup, but I am having the following issues:

-Egg crate is getting a ton of algae in between. Need to siphon out every water change
-"Stairs" setup is good for display and light acclimation, but I cant get to the bottom of the tank to clean, retrieve fallen corals easily.
-"Stairs" are too high and too close to front of tank. Current frag tank is 36"x12"x12". Stairs are 9" high x 9" deep. This provides 4 levels for corals, but when I turn off the return pump the top level is out of the water and the first level is too front close to the glass where I cant get the mag float by it without catching on the egg crate.
-The whole egg crate stairs floats and moves without enough weight on it.


Luckily, my father-in-law is in the acrylic manufacturing industry and surprised me for xmas with an acrylic frag tank made out of 3/8" acrylic with 1/2" front panel built to my specifications.



The back panel is black acrylic to hide the plumbing.

There are no bulkhead holes drilled yet. I plan on doing a bean animal overflow with 1" plumbing and the returns will be drilled into the back wall on the outside of the overflow with 3/4" bulkheads and loc line.

The overflow bulkheads are spaced 6" apart so I can put a 1" 90 elbow and a street elbow for my siphon, open channel drains. I will use a straight 1" PVC for the emergency drain. The open channel will be 3/4" taller than the siphon line so I can get a full siphon on restart and the emergency line will be 1/2" taller than the open channel, but below the tank water line





I currently use a Sicce 2.0 (568 GPH) on my 22 gallon tank with a SCWD and can either continue to use the 2.0 or move to a 5.0 (1321 GPH) for the 32 gallon tank

I plan on ditching the egg crate for the new tank and using long/wide/low pieces of live rock, where I can create islands on the bare bottom tank and attach the corals to the live rock and to the bare bottom.

For flow, I will stick with the SCWD alternating flows from the return pump until I can determine if I need more flow with a powerhead. A Gyre might be in order.

For lights I am using a RapidLED Onyx unit wired to my Apex for dimming.

I am keeping the same sump until I can get my father-in-law to build me one of those to my specs as well.

Let me know what you think. I plan on drilling the tank this weekend.

 

[jharding08]

Here is the current frag tank. I had to assemble the egg crate stairs inside the tank with zip ties, not fun. The stairs float, even with all the coral on them and they get caught in the mag float when I clean the glass.







I plan on drilling the new tank in the next couple days

 

[ebond009]

Gl bud. haha "surprised" you with your dimensions eh? someones got a keeper of a wife .

 

[jharding08]

Yeah, the tank is pretty sweet. I drilled the drain and return bulkheads the other week.









I still need to cut a piece of scrap polycarbonate to fit the bottom so I can glue frags to it and put the live rock on it.

i also need to figure out how to mount the light as the new tank will cover the entire stand and I wont have a place to mount the light mounts like I did in the smaller frag tank

 

[jharding08]

Tank is plumbed up and has water and livestock (pictures coming soon). I had a bad bulkhead that was leaking like crazy. I wound up having to replace it. The full siphon setup wasnt kicking in with the sicce 2.0 that I am using, so I just put plugged the full siphon bulkhead and used the open channel as a single durso with emergency drain. The water is flowing quietly and comes up right below the air hole in the pipe.

The last thing, that kept me up all last night, was how to mount the light. With the new tank, I dont have any stand space to mount a lighting mount like I did before. I cant hang from any wall or ceiling, as the tank is in a window area.

As of right now, I made a makeshift PVC light bar that has the stands in the tank. This will work from now, but I am trying to figure out how to hang it.

I was thinking of the mounting arm used for pendulum lights, but would two of them be strong enough to hold a full LED light fixture?