Stacked Frag Tank Build (picture heavy)

hey, interesting build !
currently looking to do some plumbing in my sump mainly for my reactors. What adapter did you use to go from the PVC plumbing to tubing?
 
hey, interesting build !
currently looking to do some plumbing in my sump mainly for my reactors. What adapter did you use to go from the PVC plumbing to tubing?

I'm not sure exactly what the piece is called. I'll take a picture later tonight. All the parts are from home depot except the loc line.
 
Stacked tanks are through their initial cycling phase, nitrates are slightly raised but zoa, palys, and torches seem to be doing fine. Phosphate levels are being held low but the tanks still have diatoms and algae growth. Going to load up some eggcrate in the top tanks and see if they leach any phosphate. Gfo reactor had to be turned off for a day due to extremely low phosphates.

We have a new Danner pump coming in the mail tomorrow. The "quiet one" does not have enough power. We can currently only open 2 of the nozzles on each stacked tank to get flow. We really wanted to do an external pump but many of them wouldn't work with our current plumbing diameter. It was just easier to get the Danner submersible than fiddle more with plumbing. Not to mention the external pumps for our system are $$$$

Also on the list, WE NEED NEW BULBS! lol. China stock bulbs have horrible color and we definitely need a better spectrum. Researching bulbs atm to figure out what ATI and Geismann bulbs we'll be using. From what I've read, with bulbs you get what you pay for. Right now were just hoping the fixtures hold strong although they only cost $143 with the bulbs.

In our other tank we're filled to the brim and waiting until the stacked tanks are more stable to move more over. Eventually we will be moving the skimmer over to the stacked tank system and replacing it with a smaller proper sized skimmer.

Also coming tomorrow are 3 hanna checkers which we hope will make testing easier. If anyone's wondering about dosing, we use b-ionic 2 part, magnesium, strontium, and coral accel. We use a special unit for dosing called; our hands :P Water changes occur every 2 weeks or as needed. The largest water change is no more than 45 gallons. We've been using reef crystals for the past year but recently moved to instant ocean.

Wondering where are fish are? In the FOWLR. We're done with fish nipping coral. Our older clowns and mandarin are the only ones allowed

















 
The Glass frag tank

The Glass frag tank

Get to know our 3'x6' glass tank. Please note, this is not a sale forum...nothing is for sale.

We keep it simple. Tank, sock, carbon/chemi pure bag, skimmer, return pump, and powerheads. We recently ripped the sea swirls out after they both eventually failed. Now its just the Tunze doing the wavemaking. We keep a wide variety of corals in this tank, everything from walking denros, florida rics, chalices, to sps.







Cage the animals!

Oversized skimmer

20k 400w MH with VHO
 
Awesome frag setup! Nice when you've got the space to do it right! Are you going to be adding any fish for bacteria control or just hardware?
 
Awesome frag setup! Nice when you've got the space to do it right! Are you going to be adding any fish for bacteria control or just hardware?

We have considered adding stacked fish tanks attached to the frag tanks. We might add a pair of clowns to each separate tank as long as they don't bite hands or irritate hosted coral. We will not be putting any sps in the stacked frag system and I don't suspect we'll have any problems with softies or LPS.
 
Yesterday we got Hanna meters alk, calcium, and phosphate. Thought testing would be simplified and easier... not the case. At least it gives us a number and hopefully a more accurate reading.

Also got jugs of b-ionic in the large concentrated size along with a huge bottle of magnesium. We also got a bottle of potassium iodide. We're both not sure why we ordered it but I guess we'll be giving it a try.

Also yesterday, I added 2 bags of pink sand to the 2x4 glass frag tank. I also bought 4 sheets of white egg crate from Lowes and threw them in the top tank to leach out. I've heard Lowes brand leaches less phosphate so I'll be testing daily and cranking the reactor.

This morning the new pump came. She's a beast! Today we're trying to figure out how we'll go from 2" pump output down to 1.25" in a short distance. Also hoping she'll be quieter than the Quiet one. Maybe put a mouse pad under this time around, just nervous about it being reef safe
 
Get ready for the algae outbreak from hell... Think twice about the egg crate I beg you... Acrylic is the way to go

we already have the algae outbreak from hell lol. We gave the bottom tank a major scrub down and it went from green to white in 15min. If phosphates continue to raise ill pull some of the sheets out. Overnight it went down to .07 so I'm pretty confident the reactor is doing its job. Our white plastic tanks also leach phosphates (from what I've read). I guess were going to deal with phosphates rather than avoid them.

In other news our piece of red cap which was the first coral in the stacked tanks is still alive and well with slight bleaching. I will continue to test occasionally for ammonia and nitrates but it appears the initial cycling is over. Waiting for new bulbs and the skimmer up and running before moving anything else over.

Going to do the first water change right now
 
Sweet setup. Looks like the hard work is paying off!

Thank you


When i came down to the fish room this morning i noticed there was barely any algae growth and the algae in the top tank was dying. I ran the phosphate test and it was at 0.00. This is the 2nd time the tanks have gone to 0 so I pulled out half of the phosphate reactor material and plugged it back in.
 
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