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Old 04-16-2011, 09:08 PM
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Palmer Palmer is offline
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Default Frag/isolation tank

Well my latest project is slowly progressing. I wanted to turn a 30 G all glass aquarium I have had forever into a frag tank. I also thought it might be nice to be able to use it as an isolation tank if needed. The big quandry I had is whether to plumb it into my existing system (making isolation of course impossible) or whether to run it completly on its own (more $ + less extra H(OH) for stability..)

A really simplistic idea came to mind and I decided I would just buy a bunch of ball valves for the herbie and return and make it so I can either send the water back to my display sump or to a tank below the new frag tank just by directing the flow with the valves. Just a few bucks more and you get two potential solutions...

I had an overflow made for me and i cut it to my size with a table saw. Then I cut three holes into the tank and added bulkheads. And that is pretty much where I am so far...

I am going to put an Aqua remora pro on this that I am getting used. It is way overkill for this size tank but I figure if my sicce pump on my SWC EXT 200 gives me problems I have a back up. And despite my skepticism of the value (or over value) of skimmers I still dont believe you can overskim a tank Far from rocket science but nice to have options rather than an either or situation...

Here's the tank. I dont have the plumbing set up yet but I will likely put a small simple sump underneath it that I can have the herbie drain into if I want to run it seperate..



These are the new bulkheads and holes in my wall leading to the main display sump (This is my basement so no worries on the home front!)


Other side of the wall to display



This is the return which I will have a T fitting with ball valves to allow for plumbing to the display and a return from underneath this tank

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