New Frag Tank Pics

Here are a few pictures of my new frag tank that I've been building.   I just need to clean it up a bit and build a new stand for it then it will be good to go.
I learned a lot of lessons on what does NOT make a good frag tank in my first one, so I tried to avoid most of those pitfalls in this design.
This tank is a 40 breeder with no braces on the top to interfere with lighting or access to the tank.

I found that the PVC rack in my current tank took up way too much space and was always in the way.  This time I used strips of acrylic siliconed to the sides of the tank.   This maximizes the amount of space available for frags and minimizes the places where frags can get knocked over and fall to the bottom of the tank.

I added a couple of slideable racks on the bottom for growing lower light corals and caulerpa for the tangs.

The tank was drilled at the bottom of one of the sides when I got it.   I used this hole for a DIY overflow that I built out of a large specimin container.   I used a dremel to cut slots (not as fancy as Rick's acrylic work for sure) and some basic PVC parts for a standpipe.
Troy drilled a hole for my 3/4" return.

It was impossible to get stuff that fell to the bottom of my current frag tank and it was also hard to place stuff on the second rack.   To account for this in the new tank, the rack is divided into 3 sections.   I added a couple additional strips of acrylic in the middle so that I can temporarily place one of the racks above the others (with 3 1/2" clearance).   This allows easy access to the entire bottom of the tank.

The egg crate was a little too flexible over the entire span, so I attached smaller strips of egg crate to the bottom of each rack using weld-on.   This has the advantage of giving a lot of structural integrity while at the same time not getting in the way of frag plugs (like a pvc rack would).
I used the same method on the bottom racks to raise them slightly off the bottom of the tank.

That's about all...   Hopefully I will have it cleaned up, filled and full of frags by the end of the weekend!

 

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I'm glad you all like my design. I haven't made much progress with the tank today... Yard work and Fall Fest planning have been taking the priority, but hopefully I'll get started on the stand shortly.

Robyn: Yes, the tank will be plumbed into my main system (they share a common sump)

-JB

 

Got the stand built yesterday and everything moved into the new tank today.
So far so good!   Lots of space available for frags now.   Time to raid the display tank.

 

Thanks Robyn!

Hopefully I'll be able to get over to the BNARC event and bring home some new frags to help fill it!

-JB

 

Robyn,
We don't mind at all.   If you go on our home page, you will see a "Got News?" link.   If you click on that, you can submit information about your Event to our home page.  Let me know when you've posted your info and I'll approve the article.
You may want to post about it in our general forum as well.
-JB