DIY Frag Tank

TheReefGeek · Sep 19, 2013

I'm in the process of building my own frag tank from scratch. I've already bought the glass for the tank, but have yet to assemble it. It's going to be 48"L x 36"W x 10"H for a total volume of 74.81 gallons. I am planning to have only 8 inches of water in the system however. The glass is 1/4 inch thick, which according to my math is double the requirements for such a shallow and tank. I'd love to hear ideas and feedback.

I'm considering plumbing this into my 90 gallon display system, would it be better to have the frag tank as a stand alone system?

frankdontsurf · Sep 19, 2013

If your water is good and consistent why not plumb it all together? I would imagine an increase in volume would mean even more stability as long as your skimmer, and dosing is on par for such an increase in volume.

I guess everyone sells corals nowadays.

Joker79 · Sep 19, 2013

There are cons to plumbing DT and FT together. If you have an issue with your DT and it crashes your tank, then your Frag tank goes as well. Plus you have to worry about more chemical levels when connected. For propagation corals i believe the best bet would be to have a seperate tank and conduct the appropriate water changes to maintain chem levels. I would also not feed the prop tank and let the lighting, flow and nutrients do their thing. Just my 2 cents taht may be worth .000001

kschweer · Sep 19, 2013

Joker79 said:
There are cons to plumbing DT and FT together. If you have an issue with your DT and it crashes your tank, then your Frag tank goes as well. Plus you have to worry about more chemical levels when connected. For propagation corals i believe the best bet would be to have a seperate tank and conduct the appropriate water changes to maintain chem levels. I would also not feed the prop tank and let the lighting, flow and nutrients do their thing. Just my 2 cents taht may be worth .000001

+1. This is why I have my frag tank as a separate system. I also use it to keep frags of just about everything in my display incase of any issues. I also use it as a "grow out" tank, meaning growing frags to a decent size before putting in the display so I do not have frag plugs all over. Frag tanks can be used for things like this not just selling coral. I also like to trade a lot and having the frag tank I can have healed frags instead of trading fresh cuts.