My new DIY frag tank

yerboy

yerboy

Member
Few weeks ago i decided that i needed to build a frag tank.
I think i mentioned it to Brandon at the nashville meeting.
anyways,
I was browsing around on ebay and found sheets of 1/4" x 5' x 7" acrylic and thought to myself a 7" deep frag tank would be awesome, shallow enough for great light penetration and easy to work with and i wont have to get my elbows wet. So i bought it and went to work.

I decided on a 30"x36"x7" only because thats the largest square sheet i could find locally and would allow for a pretty big footprint. I think the totally water volume of the tank is roughly 32-33 gallons but of course i don't run it to the rim so its more around 28 gallons. Lighting is 2x150w 14k and a 175w 15k Iwasaki "i only mention the brand of that bulb because it will out par many 250w bulbs on the market"

Filtration is a DIY sterolite wetdry trickle or something to that affect with 4 12"x12" trays of pond filter. Kinda overkill but i like the fact i can use those trays for other media if so i choose to in the future, and lets face it half the fun is building it.

Im gonna let this system cycle out for about another month before i add anything then I will be adding my AquaC EV-180 skimmer .

You can see in the pics that all my frag plugs are empty so if anyone has anything overgrowing there tank and needs to get rid of it i will give it a good home. I also have a few frags and tanks and other items i could trade but i haven't hit my 50 post mark so i can get to that at a later date.

Anyways enjoy the pics and comments questions, suggestions, and flames welcome.

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WOW! excellent job, looks very professional, looks like you are ready to go into the coral propagation farming industry:) Well Done Yerboy

Norman
 
What did you use to cut the acrylic? Every job I've ever done with the stuff I'm had problems with it melting, which makes it hard to get good seams on the corners.

Would probably help if I wasn't using hand saws (mostly for sump baffles so leaks aren't a huge problem) but melting is a problem any time I work with that stuff. Honestly, the best thing I've found to us is a rip saw with really big teeth, since it chunks the plastic out a lot for each pull --keeping it from getting too hot. Of course, that's not neat enough for tank building, but works just fine for bubble traps, baffles, mounting brackets for fans, etc.
 
i just scored it real good with a razor blade put the score on the edge of a table and then just hit it and broke it off. I was scared it wouldn't work at first but it turned out pretty nice. I just had to use a little extra silicon to fill in and small gaps.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12944828#post12944828 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by NeveSSL
Very nice, man! :thumbsup:

Your plugs look pretty, too. :lol:

Brandon
Click to expand...

'Designer' plugs. :lol:
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12944605#post12944605 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by yerboy
i just scored it real good with a razor blade put the score on the edge of a table and then just hit it and broke it off. I was scared it wouldn't work at first but it turned out pretty nice. I just had to use a little extra silicon to fill in and small gaps.
Click to expand...

That's how they told me to do it at Lowe's, but I've broken more acrylic that way than I care to recall.

Also, silicone? I was under the impression that silicone did not adhere well to acrylic (at least that has been my experience). Did you mean weld-on? Or did you just use silicone as an added safety measure?
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12946992#post12946992 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by DMBillies
That's how they told me to do it at Lowe's, but I've broken more acrylic that way than I care to recall.

Also, silicone? I was under the impression that silicone did not adhere well to acrylic (at least that has been my experience). Did you mean weld-on? Or did you just use silicone as an added safety measure?
Click to expand...

i used weld on 4 to bond everything then i ran a thin layer of silicon around all the seems for a just in case measure :D
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12949416#post12949416 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by is_that_a_fish
looks good. but its not much of a frag tank if there are no frags!!!

stop spending time here and go fill her up!!! Good luck with it all.
Click to expand...

your right about that... but i need to let this tank get established before i start adding much. Currently i have a small piece of GSP i fraged yesterday in the tank and about 10 heads of watermelon zoas i fraged.

Also im selling my ski boat on ebay to to buy some more frags uh i mean pay off some bills...ROFL


and as for the frag disk those are for my new Tommy Hilfiger signature series frags... BS cough cough BS
 
Had me worried there with the silicone. Don't see it could be any harm adding some extra in there, but I wouldn't want to rely on it to hold the thing together. You might find it peels away over time... which is fine as long as you got the seams pretty good with the 4.

In the future you could use 4 and then get some 14 or 16 to fill in the bigger gaps (god knows it is hard to cut things perfectly square if you don't have exactly the right tools).
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12950202#post12950202 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by DMBillies
Had me worried there with the silicone. Don't see it could be any harm adding some extra in there, but I wouldn't want to rely on it to hold the thing together. You might find it peels away over time... which is fine as long as you got the seams pretty good with the 4.

In the future you could use 4 and then get some 14 or 16 to fill in the bigger gaps (god knows it is hard to cut things perfectly square if you don't have exactly the right tools).
Click to expand...
good idea i may drain the tank remove the silicone and replace with the weldon 14 or 16.
 
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