First frag Prop tank, all downhill from here!

[afilter]

Set up a 10g prop tank tonight to get some more frags going for trade and placement back in the main. If I was not before I am definately hooked now. 8)

Basically used a 10g with a shelf half way up. Place cured rubble on the shelf and the coral frags I want to propogate (star polyps, kenya tree, green zoos, yellow polys, button polyps) on top of the rubble.

Using a 550 pH with sponge and a whisper 20 with carbon for filtration and water movement. For lighting I have 2 coral life 18 w fixtures over the center.

Plan to do weekly 2 gallon PWC. Would like to upgrade to 20g, but had the 10g sitting around saying use me and did not want to buy anymore lighting for now.

Any thoughts,

 

[FishFrik]

18W? Is that enuf for coral progogation?

Everything else looks great. Good luck. If it works out well for u, i'll try it too

 

[EELectric]

Tell us about your results because I've been wondering about doing that with my 10 gal. lying around at home. Thanks!

 

[afilter]

FishFrik,

Actually it is 36w total there are 2 18w fixtures side by side. The frags are only about 6" down.

 

[FishFrik]

Ook i misread it then. Keep us posted of how ur frag tank is doing. Im interested in doing this too

 

[afilter]

Ooops the Mrs. discovered the prop tank...you know you are going to have a discussion when you hear your full (first middle and last) name.

Anyway, explained how much money it was going to save by growing out corals and trading. She bought it for now.

Well on my way back to MTS. 8)

 

[Marc118]

How about you tell her how much money you will MAKE selling to the LFS

 

[FishFrik]

LOL!!!!!! Not many ppls can understand y we love this hobby so much.... even our spouses

 

[seaham358]

the star polyps may be the only coral you have a issue with.. My GSP do not like low light at all so having it up mid way in the tank should be ok. Kenyas grow under all lighting, I had mine doing well under 80 watt NO lighting on the bottom of my 55. I have made some good money selling the Kenyas to the LFS. Its almost time to tank another batch over to the LFS.

post a pic...

 

[afilter]

seaham358,

I will get a pic up this weekend, we just found the camera...it had been missing for several weeks.

Anyone have thoughts on livestock in a prop tank? I noticed that some LFS will have a single fish in a frag tank when it is not on the system. I was wondering if this is to keep the nitrogen cycle going since corals do not really produce a bio load.

Right now it is just the corals and LR rubble in there.

BTW, GSP opened right up. I am hoping they will spread like they do in the main. Down the road I have some nice coral skeletons I would like to get coated with them.

TIA,

 

[Marc118]

Do you have any frags as of now? I have 7 torch frags 3 carnation's propagating and 3 purple mushroom's Trade time w00t.

 

[FishFrik]

At a LFS i went to, in every coral tank, they have a blue devil damsel. I don't know if saying that helps anything but HTH lol

 

[abnmojo]

You should be fine. I run a basically a frag tank out of a 2 1/2 gallon with the exact same light, only just one of them, and even smaller filter, and all that really does is move the water arround. I have metalic green star polyp heaven going on in there, they must love it. If the rocks were smaller size I would have soldl/traded them by now, but as it is, I am waiting for them to grow in a bit more before I ask for the big $ for them - a bunch of four to six inch chunks of metalic green stars on purple mat. I have seen chunks like this retail for $40-50.

The star frags were placed up high in the tank BTW, so are only about 5 inches under the 18w fixture. That is why they grew down and over all my LR chunks.

Kenya does ok in there, as well. Not great, but not dead after 2 years either. It grows, just not fast.

Xenia same thing - small frag, 2 years later, is the exact same size. But it has been 2 years, so that must be saying something to keep this stuff.

My frogspawn frag isn't dead, but 2 years later is about the same size, and never really 'opens' up. I would avoid SPS corals under these lights, as LPS don't really do all that well.

All kinds of polyps and zoos do great however.

Good Idea about putting the rubble in there - that will make removing encrusing type corals a lot easier, mine liked to encrust over the LR that was decoration instead.


Good luck and keep us posted on what works, I am looking forward to the day when I can sell off these star polyp colonies and try something else.

David

 

[ellisz]

I started with a 10 gal separate frag tank. Growth results were not as great as the display. I decided to add the frag tank to the display system and all is good

I now run a 20L with 2x55 PC lights and a 10 gal with a NO light and a 10 watt CF bulb for some softies that I don't want in the 20L. I am looking at a 33L so that will be nice.

More water volume the better.