Best material for frag rack

[Andrew D]

Hi everyone. I've typically used eggcrate for the rack in my frag tank but I'm having a lot of algae issues lately. I'm not looking for feedback on how to diagnose and correct this as I know it's a combination of light, nutrients, flow and lack of natural "predators", but rather I was hoping for feedback from anyone who has used something else instead of eggcrate. I was thinking using 1/4 inch acrylic and drilling holes large enough for the frag plug bases. Will this work or will the acrylic grow as much algae as the egg crate? Can I even drill this many holes in a single sheet of acrylic or do I risk shattering it? Would appreciate some feedback from those who have tried this before. If not acrylic, is there something else I can use?

 

[landlubber]

it doesn't matter what the material is if your nutrients are high and your cuc can't/won't clean it off.

 

[trido]

I switch to acrylic from egg crate and love it. Snails will climb on the acrylic more than egg crate, and if they dont its easier to clean after an acid soak. YOu can drill holes one inch on center with the proper acrylic drill bit without problems. The amount of holes you drill adds up fast so give yourself plenty of time. Even with a drill press it takes a while.

 

[Andrew D]

cool, that's exactly the type of feedback I was hoping for. thanks.

 

[Ron Reefman]

I had the same issues with white egg crate. I've heard/read that black egg crate has far fewer issues with algae. Since black egg crate was hard to find locally in small sizes and is a bit pricey, I decided to just get a can of Krylon plastic epoxy spray paint and paint it black. That did the trick. I've been using these frag racks for years and no algae issues. Coraline algae, some tubeworms and frags over growing their plugs and growing onto the painted egg create, yes, but no algae! I even cut off a few inches off the end of the egg crate frag rack that was overgrown with meteor shower encrusting coral and sold it!

My first ones used the magnets from the old maxi-jet powerheads which I wasn't using anymore. More recently I used the magnet mount from a not so old Jebao Crossflow which died. It's a super strong magnet and I had a 24" x 10" piece of egg crate bonded to the magnet using 3M 5200 Marine adhesive. It held tight even when completely full of frags. Since I downsized a few months ago and sold off my big frag tank where this frag rack was used, I cut it down to 24" x 4" so it fits on the side of my 2'x2'x20" 50g cube DT.

It's a crummy pic, but you can see the rack in my new 50g cube on the right side glass.

I also use a painted egg crate rack on occasion in my sump.

And just a week ago I added a painted egg crate rack under all my rocks in the display tank. I had done something similar to this in a couple of previous tanks with great success. Goo water flow around all the rocks, no dead spots at the rock/sand interface, lots of open sand for sand dwellers, protected cave for critters that want to hide. This new one is particularly high (even for me) but the idea is to maximize the square footage for coral placement. And I've never had any algae issues on the egg crate... on rocks, yes, a couple of times. But never on the egg crate.

20180906_091605 by Ron Lindensmith, on Flickr

 

[landlubber]

cool, that's exactly the type of feedback I was hoping for. thanks.

Hey man, I look back and realize I answered your question like a 3 year old. You didn't deserve it and I apologize.

 

[Andrew D]

Landlubber... thanks but no need to apologize, I didn't take offence.

Ron Reefman, thanks for the suggestion. I might try that first, as its a little less work than the acrylic option.