Frag Tank Setup Questions

[rhudgins]

Hey Everybody

I am in the process of turning a 34 gallon solana into a frag tank and have a few questions about the setup. I know this is not the ideal tank for a frag setup but I am going to go ahead and do it anyways. I plan on having chalices, sps, and zoas in the tank. Here a few facts about the setup and questions that I have.

- I have live sand, is that enough for biological filtration or should I put some live rock in the back compartment as well?

-I have a 150 watt coralife pendant. Should I use a 10k or 14k bulb? It is my understanding that I will recieve better growth with a 10k bulb, but is there really a big difference between the growth rate of the two? Additionally, what brand of bulb would you recommend me purchasing?

- Would you recommend a black or white egg crate? How would you recommend arranging the egg crate; one flat piece or arrange it in a step like structure? The tank is 20" high so I would think a step like structure is better so that I can put the sps pieces higher up and closer to the light.

- I was thinking about adding one fish to the setup to help with algae control, possibly a tang. What do you think about adding a fish?



Thanks in advance for all of you input!

 

[seldin]

I kind of had the same thought on my Solana. For me, I used 1 inch of black and white sand and a nice amount of live rock. However, I did not like the look of a plain frag tank, so I use the tank as both a frag tank and display tank, as this tank is just too pretty for just frags.

What I do, is to drill 1/4 inch holes all throughout my live rock and then I am able to mount plugs of frags with airline tubing at any location. I also left room on bottom of tank, for lower lighting frags.

I ended up putting in a Tunze 9002 skimmer and MH lighting, so I have no limitations with able to keep SP and LPS.

While my tastes did change to SPS, I now keep a variety of LPS in tank as I enjoy them, too.

I did end up putting 3 small non aggressive fish in tank, as it keeps tank more interesting than a frag tank alone...

I liked using live rock to hold my frags instead of egg-crate as it looks nicer to me. However, you hold less frags this way.

Good luck,

 

[rhudgins]

Thanks for the input. It is such a nice tank but i am going to go ahead and just put a egg crate in it. What kind of bulb are you using on your set up?


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[seldin]

I like to use 150mh with 14k, so that I can grow all kinds of corals. However, you can go with T5s and use less heat, which is better in the summer.

Nowadays, some people are going with LEDs. These are usually more expensive. I personally, did not go that route, because during research, I found that most people think that LED prices will be dropping dramatically over the next several years.

 

[rhudgins]

What manufacturers make the best mh bulbs? Can anyone else help answer any of my original questions?


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