Frag Tank and common sump

[NWDiver]

Howdy all,
I would like to hear your thoughts on plumbing a frag tank into my DT sump.
I have a 40 breeder and a 6 bulb 54w T-5 just sitting around and I was thinking that it might be nice to set it up in my fishroom as a frag tank.
My DT is a 120 and my sump\refuge is ~40gal. I have a light bio-load.
It seems to me that it should work fine, what am I missing? Is there a reason to run a seperate system other than preventing a disease outbreak from hitting all coral?

-Todd

 

[thatguy559]

nope i would plumb it in.. water stability with the added water volume will help out alot.

 

[NWDiver]

Thanks 559.
The only concern that I have is that if something bad happens in my DT it will probably effect the frags as well. I can't help feeling that I am missing some other risk...

 

[jrgilles]

sounds like a good plan to me.

 

[NWDiver]

Okie doke, thanks for the input. Looks like I have a project for Saturday

 

[Bored4ever86]

The only thing that could possibly go wrong is if your dipping/QTing of stuff becomes lax. I'm guilty of this too but have been lucky so far, but if you introduce ich or AEFW or some other pest/disease into your frag tank/display you don't have the frag/display tank as a refuge from it. It may not be needed if you have another QT tank that could be set up to house corals/fish temporarily while treating the bad stuff. Those are the only things (barring mechanical failure) I'd be worried about but then again I'm a worrier...

 

[NWDiver]

Thanks Bored, I have been really good about doing the dip and QT thing, but you never know You hit my concern exactly.
I was worried that there were other reasons that this might not be the best idea, but it looks like it should be okay. I guess I will have to give frags to friends to insure redundancy

 

[tat2z_21]

I would personally plumb it right into the system. With the right procedures in place to prevent any unwanted catastrophic flat worms of death, or even their equally disasterous cousins the zoanthid devouring nudibranch's formally known as the bringers of death. Then it should be fine and like Justin said the added volume will increase you stability.

 

[NWDiver]

That's the plan then
I'm looking forward to see how things go under T-5's.

-Todd

 

[nwinverts]

The only other thing I can think of is make sure there is enough room in you sump to handle any back flow during a power outage.

 

[NWDiver]

Ya know that is so obvious that I think I would have missed it!!
Thanks nwinverts, the DT sump and the "frag tank" are in different rooms, so I probably would not have tested power off in both at the same time.
Probably saved me a wet floor!!

-Todd

 

[lvsuckerfish]

I personally would run on seprate systems yes it is double everything but if the system ever crashes you have something to fall back on. I am running a frag tank on its own system one will be on a reactor and the other manually dose but if my tank ever crashes I have back up corals in there one of the 2.

pest and equipment malfuntions can happen when ever and kill a system in a few hours. I was apart of a big thread on r2r about this.

 

[NWDiver]

I hear ya, but I'm not keeping really high end stuff yet, and I kinda want to know how things grow under the T-5s vs my halides given the exact same water, so I will probably risk it, at least for a while. I do have enough stuff to run a seperate sump, so perhaps I will have it all together and ready to flop over if I see a problem. Prolly be too late at that point though...
I guess I will have to be agressive on the pay it forward thing so I can call and get some frags if things go terribly wrong

 

[lvsuckerfish]

or qt everything you add to the tank and just be caeful of equipment failures. i crashed my tank once already due to being equipment failure ca reator drop the ph in my system to low. boom crashed lost alot of money that week. good thing I had good friends locally (las vegas) my 100 will be set up seprate from my 240 i wish it was vis versa with the 240 in the house and the 100 in the garage but I will deal with it lol 100 will be complete seprate system it's own sump and all but manually doseing instead of a reactor this time and it will be mainly a grwo out tank I plan of trying a diy LED's t5 and halide over it to see which one is better to grow under. I still have my doubts on LED's but a cheap set up for 115 for 12 leds and 80degree optics lens I can deal with. i want to test all the same hieght for growth and color and also health of the coral. long term.

 

[NWDiver]

Sounds like a nice deal! Two sweet tanks!
I am putting (probably too much) trust in the Apex to let me know if things get out of wack.
I always dip coral, and so far I have QT every (all 4 of 'em) fish.
It kills me to wait, but from all of the horror stories I've read, it seems worth it.
I'm thinking really hard about stopping the coldwater tank and getting a 2x2x8 for even more reef love
I'm hanging back on the LED thing until the price drops and all the bugs are worked out, they sure are tempting though. I figure now is the time to pickup some more nice used halides!

 

[lvsuckerfish]

yeah I love my halides IMO it is the only way to go. for sps yeah the wait game is a PITA i hate that part also but it is worth it in the long run I will take my dog to get heart works meds she will need it now that we live in mesquito area lol vegas never had them too hot lol but everything I have will be qt. I have a batch of corals in my 29 that are all being qt'd then before I add them they will go through 2 doses of interceptor and fluke tabs then I will have them sit for another 2 weeks then add them to the big tank. I used to qt all corals in a 10 gallon with a 2 bulb t5 fixture lol worked great browned alot of corals but colored back up once under the 250s. yeah and LEDS are way much for the fixtures I will do a diy and call it a day I will make them dimmable also. so many threads show step by step and I can polish up on my soldering skills (which I have none) lol..... if you need some 1.5 inch bulk heads I have some sch 80 for cheap I bought the wrong size lol.