Setting up a frag tank
- Thread starter kac0143
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There are a ton of answers for this lol.
Skimmer: If you plan to do water changes often and are doing mostly softies/shrooms/zoas/palys. I say no. I have 2 frag tanks setup and one has a skimmer, one doesn't. My zoa grow out tank gets a, maybe, 10% water change a month if it is lucky. I do feed the tank, have a fuge in the sump, but with those 2 factored in, it sits at 5-7 nitrates and .03 for phosphates. With that said, I know others who run a skimmer in their zoa growouts. It really all depends on how the specific tank does, nutrient wise. On a side note, I do have a chamber in my sump for a skimmer in the zoa grow out tank, if one was ever needed. Now my SPS growout, that is a different story. That frag tank has a skimmer, a fuge, and is dosed. I really do not do water changes on it either as besides the big 3 needing to be replenished, it sits at 2-5 nitrates and .01 to .03 phosphates. But like I said, all tanks are different.
Feeding Corals: That all depends on how the tank is going to be run, what is in the tank, and how fast they process the "food". For example, I dose my SPS tank to match consumption. I also use coral foods a few times a week. My zoa tank gets coral food every day, they grow like weeds, which is what I want. You basically need to pick where you want nutrients for the types of corals of plan to grow out and then figure out what keeps it at that mark. For best growth, that mark needs to be held stable. Stability is key here.
Fish: I have fish in all my frag tanks. It does need to be looked at for size of tank vs the fish. My zoa grow out is 36"x24"x8". For algae control and some bioload, I have a starry blenny, richardsons goby, 6 line wrasse, and some perc. clowns. It works out nice. My SPS growout is 48"x36"x12". In that tank I have a yellow eye kole tang, pair of storm clown, starry blenny, tailspot blenny, 6 line wrasse, and a clown goby. I would love to have a bristletooth tang of some sort in the zoa tank, but that is not fair for it to have almost no swimming room. Also in both tank, I have a pair of cleaner shrimp. In short, there is no issue having fish in a frag tank, as long as they match the size of the tank. If you were using racks for frags and all that, that needs to be looked into as well for the actual swim room available to the fish.
And again, you will get a ton of answers, as everyone that has frag tanks has something different. Best thing to do is to figure out exactly what you want in there and work towards that with whatever method you feel is best for you and your tank.
