Deep vs shallow frag tanks
 

Hi Everyone,

I am interested in everyone's thoughts on deep verses shallow frag tanks. I know the type of coral should dictate design and placement but for instance I have noticed for SPS some using shallow and some deep tanks. Some coral propagation companies I have seen with deep water (i.e. > 20") tanks to raise SPS where intuitively I would have thought shallow more efficient.

Deeper means the need for greater light penetration or light intensity but also more water in the system as a "problem buffer."

Has anyone here had experience with both? Any thoughts on which is a better model for coral growth? What is your rationale?

thanks

I've always seen shallow frag tanks, I honestly have never seen a really successful deep frag tank. I have no experience with frag tanks myself so I really can't comment on the pros and cons.

frag tanks
 

i have a 12" 50 gal frag tank for sps and a 26" 50 gal frag tank for softies both with their own sumps and multi layered racks

Deeper generally just means more wasted space for the same volume. To compensate for the depth of my 50gal I grew frags for a little while in suspension. It was sort of a fun and unique thing to do for a while but it meant more maintenance because the fishing line would get quite slimy. It was also quite difficult to do anything in the tank with my hands as I kept bumping the hanging rods.

I now use a slightly shallower 140gal stock trough which cost about the same as a new 50gal glass tank but doesn't require nearly the same amount of cleaning and obviously provides a much larger square footage.

http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...icture1386.jpg

I am guessing the pic above was your deeper tank. I have seen pics of that tank in the past.

Perhaps this subject is a no brainer (shallower is better) but I was interested in it after I saw a you tube video of "tidal gardens" greenhouse and how they raise their corals.

I would imagine in aquaculture some of the rationale for set up would also be risk mitigation. A shallow tank seems obvious to me for light penetration. The thing I was wondering about was if you have a variety of coral with different requirements can too little depth become a risk with lighting as either bulbs age and you replenish them or even if you switch between different types of lighting?