Easy frag tank from AWC output?

[hart24601]

I have realized that I am going to need a frag tank sooner than later but have been holding off. I was thinking today - I have a neptune DOS AWC system for my display and the old water goes down the drain in the back room. What if I just had the old water go into a small frag tank? Something small like a 24x24x8 (20g) that I can light with my extra reefbreeders value fixture. I was thinking that I could just have a hole in the top of the frag tank with a tube that runs down the drain. So my display automatic water change is 2g/day, this "old" water, which is still perfectly fine straight from display, goes into the 20g frag tank and every day the tank overflows 2g or 10% right down the drain. I think this could be a low cost way to have a frag tank and not have to worry about a top off system even. Just put a powerhead in there and it should be good to go or am I missing something?

 

[143MPCo]

Look for a thread that's doing exactly what you just described... one sec.

 

[hart24601]

Well that would sure be handy! And here I was thinking I was clever, lol.

 

[143MPCo]

haha... found it, linky-->https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/300dd-sps-reef.185723/

 

[143MPCo]

He calls it coral QT, but it's basically his frag tank fed of DT water... thing its post #84

 

[hart24601]

Nice! Thanks for linking, pretty much exactly what I had in mind. Looks like it's working well for him so I will have to try it out.

 

[gobble]

Did you ever try this? I was thinking about doing the same thing. Maybe just run the return pump and heater in the all-in-one frag tank then exchange maybe half it's water volume per day with the main tank where all the dosing, skimming, etc. is done. Any reason why this wouldn't work?

 

[hart24601]

I never did it, but still interesting idea. Depending on the amount I would watch salinity just to make sure it's stable and doesn't vary over time.

 

[gobble]

I think salinity could be adjusted with small changes to the dosing settings. It works fine with AWC using the DOS in my main tank.

 

[hart24601]

Just something to watch for since how I envisioned it there wouldn't be an ato since the overflow would be to the drain. If you get a couple gallons a day evap which wouldn't be noticed because you are introducing water from the DT I could see how salinity would rise over time if the "new" old water from the DT isn't enough.

 

[gobble]

I would think you need to meter out the same amount of water that goes in and rely on an ato for evaporators.

 

[hart24601]

For the display that isn't a problem but on the frag tank would just require more equipment which when I was thinking of the idea I wanted to avoid. It would be tricky I think to try and remove the exact same amount from the frag tank. If the awc ran once a day instead of many times you could just program apex easy enough to delay the ato with the awc was on, but never got that far.