55 Gallon Frag Tank

Okay so when I went to the doctor yesterday I was asked if I was still starting my frag business. Naturally my answer was "Yea but I just moved and im trying to get my tanks back up before I can put any money into that". Then today on the way to the butcher my mom asks me "Hey how much do you need to set that 55 up as a frag tank when I do my taxes". Well after a little bit of a back and forth between me and her it looks like im getting the frag business together. Its going to take awhile because the next $300 I get is already spent on something I had to pawn and a shotgun I got a down payment on. After that il start buying powerheads lights skimmer etc. Im thinking I want to go with a calcium reactor and put a vented divider in the tank to allow flow and still maintain a fuge/equipment area. I still have my 200 Watt heater for the 55 so I dont have to get a new heater. I havent sat down and looked at equipment yet I was just going ahead and letting everyone know whats going on. I just walked in the door from the butcher so im going to go eat breakfast and il look at equipment and add more details later.

Current Shopping List (Will be updated as changed)

6 Koralia Evolution 1050's. (more directional control.) $280.14
2 150w MH Lights. $509.98
1 Coralife Pure-Flo II 24 GPD R/O unit. $132.99
2 150w MH 20,000k Bulbs. $139.98
1 ViaAqua Acro-Cal Reactor AC-30. $111.99
1 Portable Refractometer. $47.99
1 Calibration Solution. $8.99
1 DR Instruments Deluxe Fragging Kit. $55.99

Wow the shopping list has changed a lot. Just got back from todays run. Picked up 60# of sand for the tank. Making my frag racks now. Im still deciding on the height of the racks. I think im going to do 1'3" for the high 10" for the middle and 5" for the short.

No pictures tonight I dont think. Nothing really to show. Got the first of 3 frag racks done and I have 2 more to do. Also got to pick up a little base rock and find a stand for the tank so I can start adding stuff.

Sounds interesting. Good luck.

Thanks PF. Best of luck whatever it is your sneaky lil butt is doing. Just got the okay on a $1,022.52 order with foster and smith for equipment. Its going to be a couple months though with christmas and everything. Probably going to make the order around tax time. Aprrox. Late Jan early Feb. Il be getting an RO unit, 2 150W 10.000k MH's, calcium reactor, Skimmer, Overflow, and Return pump. After that it will mostly be odd and end things I need to pick up but when it starts il have it all set up fairly quick. Hopefully il have a snowcasso pair in it by mid to late april and sps in it by late july early august.

I would also like to quote myself here. I dont fell like finding the exact post but for those that have been around awhile: You remember this: Someone asked me about my frag business about...2 years ago now? around that I think? and I said...and I quote..."I dont care what it takes I WILL make it happen one way or another."....I would just like to remind everyone that im a man of my word

Got the frag racks finished last night. Got some crazy $!!! goin down and im down in charleston SC for at least tonight. Hopefully I can talk my way into the SC aquarium tomorrow why my mom and my cousin take care of some things down here. Wish you all the best I know we all need it right now. Il get back at yall as soon as I have any new info. Got paid was going to get 10 pounds of base rock for the frag tank to put under the tall rack so I can get some platinums or some snowcassos breeding in the tank also. Like I said though im down here in a hotel and we're trying to update a 5,000+ member family with whats going on down here. Anyway im rambling im out lol

Picked up 8 pounds of SUPER nice rock down here at a LFS why we was making our runs today. Il be home tomorrow and hopefully we'll be coming back with my cousins 7 month old baby daughter...long story but basically kidnapping with a note that she wouldnt get him for kid napping but he aint bring her back etc etc...Anyway All the frag racks made. I dont remember if I said that already or not but its been a hectic week. I do have us a new connection down here for imports directly from the dock to the LFS store to ship when the livestock is ready. The guy said he had no problem shipping livestock to me for me to re route it all to anyone who wants it or whatever we want to do. He also said anytime I needed anything to call him and he would see if he could get it for me at cost. He even sold me this rock for $20. Thats only 4 off the price but he let me get rock that he should have been charging 5-7/lbs for easy. Sadly enough you can tell the economy has done the guys shop in though you can see that hes barely holding on so if anybody has any special orders let me know I would love to throw some business torwards a real LFS. Im tired of mega stores over charging and ignoring people...Okay I need to go im sorry for the blog post lol kinda zoned out typing. Anyway yea let me know we really need to try and hook this guy up if we can

Okay been home MAYBE 30 minutes and I already had to check the oil in the car chase off a coyote and fix the toilet...God I was only gone like 48 hours...Anyway just put egg crate under the big frag rack to put rock on and distribute the weight. My moms taking my cousin home and running errands but I told her to get me a bag of quickcrete and some egg crate so hopefully il at least be able to get some decent rocks started curing soon. Upon closer examination of the 2 pieces I got in charleston one is 8 or 9 pieces of rubble arogacreted together to make a piece (Very poorly I might add) and the other I believe is man made. Im going to chip off a tiny piece on the back to get past the all the colors on it. On the outside it looks recently dead (and therefore very dark from being re covered in algae and re killed) and where its been nicked its white and looks more like concrete so im going to chip it and find out. Anyway rambling again...Got a lot on my head with this tank that I need to go ahead and get done. Hopefully tomorrow morning il tape it up and go ahead and paint it and the sump (The old 20L) Trying to keep myself fairly busy so I dont get lazy with the tank. Still no pictures yet sorry I got a lot of little odd and end things I need to get done.

Well im currently doing some minorly useful breaking of rocks but the unknown rock is definitely concrete. If it has ANY aragonite in it its a very low amount unless it wasnt mixed well which would explain why some areas are white when barely scratched and my spot was grey 1/4 - 1/2 of an inch in. However breaking the other new rock apart into the individual rubble pieces its comprised of I have actually learned a new technique for making rocks I believe will be worth a trial. I also concluded that unless I just REALLY missed the seam one of the pieces actually grew into or by some other means of attachment fused itself to the attached piece that I thought was entirely seperate. A little super glue and a jigsaw puzzle piece of a break later you can never tell it happened though. Un fortunitly I am out of super glue so next time around Il have to try my skills at applying smoothing and surfacing silicone with rock without a gun. Using a tube made for a gun though will make it fun lol. Anyway I hope this isnt too much text I just think we could really use all the information we can offer to members about aquariums and reefs in general. Expsecially any that could save money and time and wasted resources of a bag of concrete youll never use or 50 pounds of reef rubble you never had a place for.

Just got back from the last run of the day. Picked up 94#s of portland cement and 50# of all purpose sand. I figure since I got 60# of aragonite sand already I can just use it and get more (My excuse for a deeper sand bed ) Painting the tanks and starting on rocks tomorrow morning if the wheather holds out long enough. If not il just be making rocks when they get back with my bag of rock salt.

Just started painting the 55. Ran out of paint though the backs already took a hole can. Il have to go pick my paint out this time because my mom picked me up satin instead of flat and all it does is run EVERYWHERE -.- Not sure if il get them done today...

Still waiting on my rock salt and more paint...Wheres the ally commercial? ba, ba ba, ba, ba ba.

Still waiting on the chance to get back to work on the tanks. Got my paint and 40 more pounds of salt but the weather has been so bad theres no chance to work outside so im waiting on everybody to go off for awhile so I can at least paint.

Just got back from lowes (and doing my dip on my zoa of course) picked up more eggcrate some super glue and some other goodies. Hopefully il be able to get started on the scape for under the frag rack within the next few days. Leaving in just a minute for the rest of the day or id work on it now.

"dip"?

freshwater dip.

What is is supposed to do? Just take of the hitchhikers?

yea pretty much. finally got the skeleton of my scape done btw. I think im gunna just leave it as bare foam with a concrete base to hold it down and try to stay away from putting crabs in the tank.

Just siliconed in the eggcrate for the macro area in the sump. Also built in a chaeto holder and siliconed it as well. Basically the way its set up right now is as follows: 12"x7" area for return flow from tank/skimmer and eventually (due to cost) a calcium reactor. Then water goes through the macro area which is another 12"x7" area then the 12"x14 or 15" area is for rock and mean hitch hikers return pump etc. Still making little tweaks to the shopping list here and there so I think itll be better to wait to give everyone the list until I make the order sometime around late january early feb. Once I finally order the pump and know what im working with il probably build a chamber for the return pump as well.

Anyway thats pretty much all the progress for now. Still working on the fake rock for the display area under the tall rack. Not really happy with it but itll probably still come out good.

Finally found something I like in terms of rock. Still ended up going with real rock lol. Attaching it to some eggcrate so I can transport it and set it easier. Its a bit touchy so it has to be on egg crate otherwise its perfect. It would look amazing in a shallow tank like a 40 breeder though.

Okay if you're also keeping track of my 10 gallon thread you know its picture time. All I took tonight was pictures of the sump and a picture of the aquascape. Not a good picture because its lit by 2 regular old incadesent bulbs sitting on my bathroom floor drieing (Silicone reinforcement) You can see its on the plastic from my experiment with a concrete/eggcrate/foam scape. That turned out nice btw but I was getting tired of working with it. Anyway youll kind of have to figure out whats what because of the terrible quality.

I plan on starting on the stand sometime within the next month. Either if the money is available this week after bills or at the end of the month when taxes are done. Stand will be custom built at 3 foot tall for a good viewing height sitting on the couch and the recliner. It will have 3 sides (sides and front door) with an open back for plumbing/air exchange.

Im going to go with a shallow bed in the display/frag tank and a dsb in the fuge. DSB will be of varying depths for diffirent areas of things from the return area which may even go bare bottom to where ever I decide to plant my mangroves which may go as much as 6-9 inches deep so that the tips are still out of the water. I plan on starting it at around 5-7 inches general depth so that compression will bring it down to approx 3 inches at 2 years of age.

Im still debating with myself where I want the rock to go seeing as most of the biological filtration will be the rock/dsb in the fuge. Im wondering if theres much of a benefit in giving a rock a large foot print to be in or if its fine just all thrown together in the middle chamber. I hope it wont matter so that I can give my macros room to spread out and grow. That will also of course give me room for more macros as well as a place to banish evil hitch hikers.

I also want to build a egg crate frame around my return pump and cover it with netting of a as of yet undetermined size so that I can also use the fuge to catch most of the hitch hiker before I put corals in the main frag area. Lighting will of course be fairly low over the fuge however so it will be more of a 1 day to a week quarintine. I wish I had the means to dedicate more to it at the moment but I dont.

Hitch hikers as a whole however arent really a major concern and im not really worried about them getting into the frag area. I just want to know whats there and have the chance to prevent any problems first.

I will also be culturing phyto for coral feeding and may even plumb in a pico sized tank for a brine shrimp area. Not neccesarily high salinity for them or whatever (been awhile since the brine tank idea) but It would allow me to maintain a low amount of water exchange so that it could be maintained as a high phtyo area for the brine shrimp to feed and thrive. It would probably also allow me to add more rock to the system provided I need it.

I could probably sit here for an hour getting you all up to date and writing out all my ideas however I have my mom yelling every 30 second as I type this to come eat dinner and if I end up swapping rubble for rock as I was discussing in my 10 thread the lights go off in an hour and 48 minutes and I would like to get everything moved out of the tank before they go out so on to pictures.

Well im starting to question if anyone is even reading what im posting anymore, Or for that matter, If I should even post anymore however. I think iv made my choice for lighting. Il be going with 2 250W 14000k metal halides from fishneedit.com

Guess its time for some more pictures. I need to reassemble my scape. The silicone didnt exactly hold up well for transporting so I think im going to just concrete it.