New frag tank project

[ameno]

Well it looks like I'll be starting a new project, setting up a frag tank. Been wanting to do this for awhile and ran across a deal today on a tank. The tank is 24x48X18" tall I think around 90 gal.with a built in overflow that has three 1.5" blukheads I have a 30 gal. sump/skimmer/fuge already that I plan to use and a 24" coralife light with one 150watt mh and (2) 65 wat VHO I plan to use this light along with another light (not sure what kind yet) to make up the lighting, Not sure how it will all set up yet. but will post progrees as it comes together. I'll be posting pics soon.

 

[wattsupdoc]

Cool

This will be fun!

 

[ameno]

Yea it's gona be fun, here it is 3am and I finaly got things squared away for the night. I got a really good deal that I couldn't turn down on a lot of live rock, with all kinds of mushrooms and some type of green slimer that was attached to a huge rock. But trying to get it all home with the outside temp around 35 was a challenge, I don't think the slimmer is gona make it, it's already starting to bleach, the temp change was to much for it, and a few mushrooms melted, but I got a lot over into my tank and they are doing good, and now I have a bathtub full of live rock, not sure what i'm going to do with all of it, probably keep some good pieces for my tank and sell the rest.
As far as the tank, I'm thinking about not using a sand bed in it, just a dp bed in the fuge. I want to keep sps, lps and softies, so I'll need areas with high and low light and flow, hopefully I'll get some good ideas from here as I work on it.

 

[wattsupdoc]

Up all night with a bathtub full of rock!

Definetly that sounds like a junkie to me! I've had some of my uncles get busted that way you know..

Glad to see you scored. Clown 101 was over last night.My 135 was setting on foam, it had started to lean VERY badly to the back. Over a perid of time. I have been sweating it latlety trying to figure out how to remove the foam, without doing a complete tear down. I was really sweating it last night as it seemed to be leaning further than ever. He mentioned either we can do it tomorow early, or tonight(it was 10:00 Allready) ....dumb@55!

I bet he never does that again.

He left about 2:30 and didnt even get the water he came after!

 

[ameno]

lol sound like you pulled an all nighter too. I can remember the days when I would be up all night on the weekends partying, now it's up all night playing in saltwater, boy how times have changed. Hope you got everything fixed up ok. I'm done for the night and it's not even midnight yet, I'm starting to get things squared away. Got most of the rock stuck in a brute trash can, were I can run a heater and a few power heads until I figure out what I'm going do do with it all. I've probably pulled 100 different color mushrooms off the rock and thru them in the fuge for the time being, Looks pretty cool, I'll have to try and get a pic.

 

[ameno]

here is a couple pics of the new tank, I will take it out and cut the carpet away from it and finish out the stand, so it's just up temp. for now.
the tank is from glass cages, and seem to be built very well with a lot of reinforcing, but the glass thickness seems a bit thin to me.

 

[ameno]

here is a pic of a lot of the mushrooms that came with the live rock, looks really good with all the color. most I left down in my fuge until I get them attached.
the second pic is Betty, she came with the tank and rock also. The guy said he named her Betty after his sister because she was big and mean.
And this fish is big and mean. She bit me every time I got close to the tank.
Not sure what to do with her yet, I have two clowns in my main tank now that are different type then her so I can't put her there. I may let her stay in the frag tank if she calms down and quits biting the heck out of me. If not she will get a new home with one of the club members.

 

[ameno]

this is the 200+ pounds of live rock I spent the whole weekend cleaning and setting up in this tub. hopefully it's ok. I picked up a (suppose to be) really good digital heater from the same guy,it was staying 10 degrees off all weekend, so when it read 88 deg. it was really 78 deg. but for some reason yesterday it decided to go back to normal and jumped the temp to 88 deg. plus. I'm hoping no damage was done. since I'm gone out of town till thurs. luckly the wife saw the problem last night and adjusted it.

 

[ameno]

here is the rock

 

[rs1831]

Sweet, I'm looking forward to this thread.

 

[ameno]

I'll try and do a better job of taking pic then I did on my last build, I get busy building things and forget about pictures

 

[ameno]

looking for some opinions here. I'm up in the air on wether to put in a sand bed or not. I will have a DP sand bed in the fuge, but I'm thinking for a frag tank to not put sand. sand or no sand and why? Opinions please

 

[ameno]

check out this turbo snail that came with the rock. biggest I've ever seen, you can kinda get an idea how big he is by the 1" fex pvc right behind him

 

[wattsupdoc]

Myself Ameno, I'd forget the sand and rock in the frag tank, stock up a bunch in the fuge. Put the rest in your display if you have the room. For the frag tank, I'd do egg crate and pvc racks in it, no sand, no rock. Your not going to have any real bioload in the FT.

Betty's a mean ole bag 'eh?

 

[coachklm]

I'd agree with no LS or Rock , Id put it all in a tub in the bottom, throw a skimmer down there, have nice flow in the DT (no detrius settlement) and youll be set.

 

[ameno]

Ok no sand in the tank. I was thinking about putting rock in about half the tank on one side. So you think that could be a problem? Reason being my main tank is full of rock and I will sell some of this rock I got this weekend but want to keep about half of it. I guess I could put in a bigger fuge underneath and set it up in there, or just leave it in the trash can until I get ready to set up my really big tank

 

[ameno]

Thinks for the advice, I see what your saying, keep the tank clean, put everything in the fuge, makes sense. I just need to start thinking frag tank here and not DT. Looks like I'm gona need a bigger fuge.