monkiboy's frag tank setup!

A 180 is a nice sized tank...If someone gave me a 180 I would be jumping for joy and selling my car so I could get it up and running..but I am a bit crazy...:grumble:

i'm a reef nut too but dont want to go through all the work to only say "man, i wish i had gone for the 240g instead." i have plenty of time to think about it i guess.


Use it as a sump.
haha! clever. man, that'd be a heck of a sump.
 
i've always wanted a mated pair of clowns and the frag tank needs some inhabitants so here are it's newest residents! should arrive friday!

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don't know if an anemone makes sense in a frag tank. does anyone have one in theirs or have advice? i figure even if it comes mounted on a rock, it's likely to move to find it's favorite place and in the process sting a lot of frags and corals and perhaps one is not a good idea for my setup?

i was also thinking of changing up the setup with the elevated platforms. it looks too artificial to me and i know it's just a frag tank but was thinking of making a small LR aquascape like a triangle and then leaving everything in front of the glass bare bottom with just eggcrate for support of the holding of the frag plugs. then this way MAYBE an anemone would be less likely to cause harm but also things in general look a BIT more natural.

thoughts/discuss por favor?
 
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thanks kelz! yeah i have a few of those heads in there already so nothing extra any maybe that's the way to go. i'll wait out some more opinions.

in the mean time, i picked up a tamron 90mm f/2.8 1:1 macro lens for my sony dslr so i FINALLY can take some proper pictures of the corals! hopefully it gets here soon, excited to post up nice photos on the site when selling the frags on my website.

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Sweet lens, are you going to just remake the racks? I have stairs in mine, no PVC, just egg crate and zipties.
 
thanks. i think it'll do the job. i noticed that dennis uses the same lens for his shot yesterday which has inspired even more confidence that with enough practice, i should be able to get kind of close to his awesome shots although i do have a crappier dslr body, haha.

i think i am going to go away from racks. a lot of the frags are growing pretty fast and encrusting over the plugs already. i want to give them a chance to grow on something other than the eggcrate.

so was thinking of getting some rock in the frag tank up against the back wall like a triangle and then leave the entire middle and front of tank bare with eggcrate on the bottom for plug holding and maybe a center small rack in the center back elevated about eight inches for SPS light heavy stuff.

i have a PAR meter arriving today at the house so i'll be posting those results too but some of the SPS i thought needed to be up high ended up getting bleached unfortunately because i think the light was just too much at the height i had it.
 
You can always buy a bunch of rock and drill holes in it and insert plugs, letting them grow out onto individual bigger pieces of rock. Then just break the rock when you want to frag.
 
Check out the video on Bulk reef supply how they frag an anemone. Maybe you would want to tie in a seperate tank to do that and let your clowns loose in there. As far as the hammer idea if the clowns are too rough on it, it could damage the coral. You got options . : )
 
You can always buy a bunch of rock and drill holes in it and insert plugs, letting them grow out onto individual bigger pieces of rock. Then just break the rock when you want to frag.

i think that is a swell idea, thank you. i'll move the fast growers there and place them on the rock work according to their light needs and then the bottom will be plugs on crate buried under sand for frag healing and selling.


Check out the video on Bulk reef supply how they frag an anemone. Maybe you would want to tie in a seperate tank to do that and let your clowns loose in there. As far as the hammer idea if the clowns are too rough on it, it could damage the coral. You got options . : )
yeah, i have seen that one. i really don't need another tank in the house especially not with the big build in the distant future. but who knows maybe you're right. maybe a small rimless cube would be nice somewhere just for anemones, a pair of clowns, and some LPS.
 
my avast marine goodies showed up today!!

got my pressure-switch ATO with their specialty pump, two "davey jones'" skimmate lockers with carbon chambers (one for the frag tank and one for the DT), a swabbie (skimmer wiper/cleaner lid retrofit), and my dual canisters for 2-part!

super excited to get it all setup and in use, especially the skimmate locker and swabbie. should be able to go about two - three months with no skimmer maintenance at a time now!

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Also... On their site it does not say the diameter of the skimmer cup drain tubing. Is it all that standard tubing (a bit bigger than airline)?
 
got my new LED lights today. these are the evergrow D120s "chinese lights" ordered from alibaba

everything was really well packaged nice and tight!

they got my custom LED spectrum and layout design perfect, too!

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even with all my blues, with both @ 100% this still isn't a 20k look. more like a 14k look, crazy how just a few whites can overtake the look. by dimming them down, and keeping the blues at 100% i'm able to achieve the look i was hoping for.

with both @ 100% and the lights six inches above the water line, at 18" depth i'm getting ~330 PAR on the edges of my 40 breeder tank. pretty ridiculous especially considering that the true PAR is probably higher due to these being LEDs and the apogee sensor not picking up the actinics correctly.

good stuff so far!

this is the custom layout i put together that i sent them in case someone wants a solid place to start from.

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hey amba, thanks! i'm stoked that the LEDs are putting out more PAR and i can run them at less intensity and they cover better than my last nano box reef unit. i am going to put the nano box reef over the DT.

in regards to the tubing, i would think this depends on the skimmer you have and the fitting on it.

i have a SWC 120 and 160 cone and both had the same size fitting on them. i used 1/2" x 3/8" OD x ID hose. use some hot water and dipped the end that was going on the avast skimmer lockers and slid it on with some muscle and it slipped on.

there are a lot of reviews on the other forums and the stuff is remarkable, affordable, and well-supported. the awesome thing is that "captain" lives fifteen minutes from me, so it's cheaper, faster, and easier to get the "booty" and ask whatever questions, haha.
 
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