MRC's Frag Tank Build

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
Well in your case! I'm in a 4 room house, the guest house right down from my parents place. Taking care of the property is tiring, and limits how much room I have to work. I could lead a coup or march on their basement for more territory...but then I'd have to spend more time with them...LOL.
 
It was actually really simple just a lot of work lol. While picking up the stuff to do this I was browsing there storage containers and what not and came across a Rubbermaid roughneck 50 gallon which seems to be pretty solid with a pretty smooth interior to work with. Does anyone have any experience with this brand of Rubbermaid bins and have an opinion on them? I'll post up a link in a sec.
 
No opinions? Got the three inside panes to finish up and both tanks will be ready for paint! Yay! :)
 
So my taxes came in today, off to a few stores for some more equipment in a little bit :)
 
Well didn't grab much, honestly I was amazed at some of the prices at the store I normally go to as it seems they have raised everything about 5-10% : / ... Got 20x 1" frag discs, 15x 1.5" frag discs, 20x 1" frag plugs, 6.5 lbs of flat lace rock which I break down for natural frag plugs, and a full dose of chemi-pure elite, oh ya and can't forget the dog treats for my pup haha. I'm bout to run down to Lowe's and pick up most of the plumbing I need and order most of the other stuff I was looking at during the upcoming group buy. As for the 50 gallon totes I read on some hydroponics sites that they have an issue with the bottom seam leaking due to the fact that its molded with 4 small legs causing the bottom to bow out. Gotta find another sump then :(...tractor supply has some "tuff" tubs that look promising though so may swing by there with my tape measurer later today haha.
 
Ok guys found a red sea Wavemaker pro just posted a little while ago on CL for $50 so I hit him up and all is good. Now before I pick it up I'd just like to hear any opinions some of you may have on this product.
 
Here's what I got, still need the hose but I don't kno pump placement yet so ill hold off on getting that and I still need to order return nozzles so I don't have the return extended yet just the barb,90,T,and ball valves in. Also got my pump hooked up to a union and check valve with a barb so that's good to go. Oh ya and my Wavemaker for $50 haha. One frag tank is almost operational :)
 

Attachments

  • ForumRunner_20130210_232751.jpg
    ForumRunner_20130210_232751.jpg
    58.9 KB · Views: 116
Here's what I got, still need the hose but I don't kno pump placement yet so ill hold off on getting that and I still need to order return nozzles so I don't have the return extended yet just the barb,90,T,and ball valves in. Also got my pump hooked up to a union and check valve with a barb so that's good to go. Oh ya and my Wavemaker for $50 haha. One frag tank is almost operational :)

I'm excited for you! Now I'm going to page one to read the whole thread.
 
Not much excitement yet but here in the next few weeks all these pieces will start to come together and then we'll be talkin haha
 
Not much excitement yet but here in the next few weeks all these pieces will start to come together and then we'll be talkin haha

Did you go by the tractor supply store? I think this is a great build! It's hard for me to visualize the finished product because I really have never seen anything I can use as a reference. I'm excited to see this come together! Hopefully I'll be able to buy some Keds Redds and blue clove polyps from you soon. :)
 
I haven't went personally but I've browsed their site. The best I've found is there oval bin but its 25" and the stand is 24".. I guess I could just add another piece of wider plywood for the half inch over hang on either side though. It is gonna be a pretty unique setup though lol. Three display tanks all plumbed through a sump/fuge with three different containers as compartments.
 
I haven't went personally but I've browsed their site. The best I've found is there oval bin but its 25" and the stand is 24".. I guess I could just add another piece of wider plywood for the half inch over hang on either side though. It is gonna be a pretty unique setup though lol. Three display tanks all plumbed through a sump/fuge with three different containers as compartments.

What about something like this?

http://www.usplastic.com/mobile/item.aspx?itemid=22797&categoryid=574
 
Not quite large enough. Plus they are only 9" deep max. I've found 30 gallon containers I can use but I would really like to take full advantage of the space and get atleast 50 gallons on each side of the stand and then my currect sump will be replaced with a new 20 long that will have a overflow section with bubble trap and then about 80% of the rest will be the central return chamber which I have an ATO sitting in my BRS cart waiting for the group buy to start along with many other items :)
 
Not quite large enough. Plus they are only 9" deep max. I've found 30 gallon containers I can use but I would really like to take full advantage of the space and get atleast 50 gallons on each side of the stand and then my currect sump will be replaced with a new 20 long that will have a overflow section with bubble trap and then about 80% of the rest will be the central return chamber which I have an ATO sitting in my BRS cart waiting for the group buy to start along with many other items :)

The problem with the 50 gal Rubbermaid bins you talked about earlier was that the sides bowed out from lack of support, right? Is it possible and do you have room to build a support for them to sit in? Maybe something out of plywood? I'm just brainstorming. If my ideas are bad just tell me. Lol!
 
No not bad at all lol my original solution was building a 2x1 skeleton for them or just double them up since you can buy the 6 for $90 but the issue which I think I skimmed over quickly on here earlier was when molded they have small corner legs causing the bottom to bow making the seams give especially if I had rock in it. This is just what a few hydroponics growers have found but the idea is very similar so I'm not even wasting my time. I think I will just have to settle with the 30 gallon tubs or drill two 55g aquariums which I was trying to avoid. Plus side is even with the 30 gallon tubs they are 1 more gallon in water volume then my frag tanks since they are only 29 if I remember correctly.
 
I've setup several frag and general coral tanks for a reef shop about 10 years ago that were basically banks of 4 40 longs. The bottom 40 was the sump with a refugium and the three 40s above all shared the same sump. They worked out surprisingly well. A shared sump system sounds complicated but in practice it's the simplest system I've tried. It let's you get away with having to deal with only one large skimmer, one mechanical filter sock, one set of chemical filtration, one volume of tank water to test and dose, etc... You get to spend a lot more time handling corals and less time on everything else. I'm so glad you decided to go this rout.

I will say that quarantining new fish becomes non optional if you want to avoid illness. Most illnesses will spread to all the systems with just one infected fish. That may not matter if you aren't planning to add fish to the other tanks. If you don't add fish you won't believe the amount of pods you'll see in the frag tanks! It gets pretty crazy.
 
Ya I'm not adding any more fish. Maybe just like some type of grazer like a couple more rainfords gobies, one for each tank :)
 
Back
Top Bottom