Frag tank
 

Over the next few months I am thinking about setting up a frag tank. I was planning on piping it in sync with my main tank (primarily to save on duplicate costs and leverage the investment of the main system.) The tank is a 30 Gallon (36x12x16") old ALL GLASS Aquarium and currently naked (not drilled, no plumbing etc etc)

I would like to have a coral growing machine (capable of anything i.e. SPS)and also to try a few things I havent done with my main display. Does the following sound good?

Sunlight 36 " T5 6 bulb... The tank is 12 inches wide. The fixture is 15.75 " wide. I am thinking this shouldnt be a problem? I will likely use a bracket to set it on the tank.

Thinking of having one bulkhead around 1 1/2" for the return from the sump. And a Herbie overflow installed on the inside of the tank (likely just on one side) going back to main sump

Thinking of a Vortech MP10 for all flow

Other than adding another heater to my system to handle the increased water volume I wasnt thinking of doing much more? My display is 120 G with a sump that has 30 Gallons give or take so this will then put me at around 180 Gallons total. Oh yeah I was thinking of doing something with carbon directly in the frag tank since I plan on keeping lots of different creatures in there.

Thoughts??

Palmer

Okay then... no serious issues? Nothing to worry about, pretty simple?

Sounds like it will be a spiffy little coral machine!!

So other than more bulb/color variety will there be much advantage to a 6 bulb fixture over 4 bulb?

More Par becuase of the extra two bulbs, although there will be a great amount of light spill over the tank from the last two bulbs.

I have been doing some reading on RC and I am leaning more towards the ATI sumpower 4 x 39 W. Even though this is only 4 bulbs I should be able to get decent growth with this footprint and the right bulbs correct?

Since it's connected to the main tank I don't think you need a dedicated carbon. It's all the same water I'd guess.

MP10 would be pretty fancy for a frag tank. All the bigtime fraggers I've been to actually keep their frag systems very simple and their wares are incredible. Save a few bucks and have a couple smaller powerheads on opposite ends and have them blow to make a whirlpool. One on right hand front, other on left hand rear?

get the sunpower (i just ordered a 8x39 unit after selling my tek) They have good resale value too :)

last light is right;

save you money and get two koriala evo 750gph units. that 1500gphs = to vortech - yeah its not the same flow pattern but frag tanks are open with little to no rock so water movement will be pretty high with those two powerheads.

have the sump of my main tank do all the water polishing/filtering - no need to duplicate efforts in the frag tank. just keep good flow so "crap" makes its way into the overflow eventually and into the sump

Thanks I will take that advise and spend it on lighting instead of the MP10.

I think my carbon is a little low for my size system (only have one small bag.) I am thinking of running a reactor on the frag tank simply because I have no more room in my sump under the main display but point well taken. What do you think about the choice in light Brett?

Thanks Phi so you like the ATI fixture. Think 4 bulbs is sufficient for growth on this small tank?