Frag Tank Help

sytanek

sytanek

New member
Ok, I've become interested in starting a frag tank. Only thing is, not sure what a frag tank requires versus a normal reef tank.

So far it looks as if I have a tank.

Some suggestions as to what else I would need for equipment.

Obviously lights, but do you need a skimmer, live rock for filtration, etc?

What type of flow should one use?

Interested in trying to propagate um....anything and everything.

Thanks guys!!
 
Ive seen prop tank with NO rocks in there at all.Just some egg crate to hold the corals closer to the light, as far as filteration and skimming Ill let others chime in on that before I give out any wrong info...Im tagging along!!
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Oh I also know many people plumb it into their main tanks which will mean its skimming, and flow I would think is important as well, ya can prob just get away with T5s, Ive seen many tanks like that with just them on it, the T5s are doing great in my main tank so itll be fine for that also
 
my thoughts are like george. shallow height tank, multi lights setup as in 6,500 to 10,000k for the growth and then a tank with 20k's to color and change there colors in some cases. i would use a skimmer if plumbing as a seprate system. you should be feeding micro food and such. found that the egg crates work good but could possible be a algae magnet. george converted his to straight sand bottom and is working better. he has also added to blenny's to help possible algea build up and to keep him company. like i said just my thoughts. what works best for you
 
I heard lighting just has to be powerful not colorful. In a frag tank u want growth not looks. I know people running luminarcs with 12k bulbs on a frag tank. I really dont see any reason spending alot of money on fancy lighting on a frag tank...JMO
If you plumb it to your main system u definately want a powerful skimmer to handle more than what u have. JMO
 
Ok, its probably going to be a 55g tank. I know not very shallow, but its a decent deal, so it will have to work. It's going to be a completely separate tank, hiding it in the spare bedroom.

Ok, any specific recommendations for lighting?
 
If you want growth you want your lighting to be in the 6500\10k type spectrum so it has similar properties to the sun that inspires growth.

Don't forget that the 55, if it is a standard, can be a little skinny so some planning ahead would be needed.

I need to say first I have no clue about frag tanks, and maybe someday will have enough grow out and time and money to tinker with them but if I had a 55 to work with..

I'd probably go bare bottom, put a bunch of LR on the bottom (maybe set egg crate on the bottom with a powerhead so there aren't any intense pressure points and good flow

then put another eggcrate down inside maybe halfway up, or just on top of the rock so you can pop frag plugs down inside and effectively raise the bottom of the tank up so your frags will still be "shallow" and you'll havet he benefit of LR filtration.

thats just my idea but like i said i dont really know much about how these things work. Russel had a cool one going at his house from the february meeting but it was my first one and so overwhelming i don't remember much about it except that it looked cool :)
 
lol. So True. The problem with no rock, is everything I want to buy is attached to rock. lol.

Going to stick to mostly softies to begin with.
 
All of the frag tanks that i have seen have litte or no rock. The only reason thgey people had rock in their tanks were to aid the filtration. In a 55, you would have lots of room, if you had say a couple big chunks here and ehtere, and did the whole egg crate thing, that would work. And, yeah, you would want a skimmer and filters and powerheads on there, in a frag-tank, since you will only be focussing on corals, and the can add up to make an expensive bunch of things in a tank, you want the more healtheir water...so, just getting a skimmer could work wonders. If you have some LR and skimmer, and two powerheads, that should be all you need, you swont be hacving fish in there to pump up the nitrates, so, not alot of waste. Frag tanks are awesome and cant wait to see you set that thing up. I love the eggcrate thign, when i had a bunch of zoas to sell, i made a small stand out of eggcrate to put in my nano and it was awesome.
 
You wont have a lot of bioload for fish, but you do need to consider what corals you will be keeping.. If you add a lot of nutrients to the tank in the form of amino acids and what not - phyto, coral vibrance, zoe marine? whatever you decide to feed them because that can generally boost their growth, you want to make sure you can feed them but also keep the water clean
 
the reason i was saying to run the frags under 10k's then under 20k's is because you want the growth but you can fetch much higher prices for the frags if they are not brown. ask the people who run 20k's and how they morph colors. several company's out there run 20k's for frag setup's and the colors are unreal. brandon if you are going to do a 55 than for softies you won't have to bother but when you decide to go to lps and sps then get a 48" fixture and divide the tank and run 10k and one side and 20k on the other and you should do good.
 
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