Experimental Frag System

[o2manyfish]

I finished my frag system this past week. And I am now comfortable and confident enough to share it.

The system is setup in my yard and is entirely lit by sun.

It's plumbed into the display tank in the house. At the moment, the system holds about 850g of water.

It has only had frags in it for 3 weeks. But the colors and the speed at which corals color up in the sunlight is amazing.

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/18153Z-Post-3.jpg

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/18153Z-Post-2.jpg

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/18153Z-Post-1.jpg

Just wanted to share.

Dave

[dendronepthya]

Very cool. Thanks for sharing. What are those larger tubs below the frag tanks? Are you using those as sumps or just something to hold the frag tanks up?

[TIGER SHARK]

Again, I am very jealous of your setup and those frags look nicely colored. With the long summer hours coming up, you should get some nice growth.

[o2manyfish]

Dendro,

The Grey tubs are sumps. They are plumbed together. The grey tubs, line up height wise with the 100g sump on my patio.

Each tub is about 260g and I am running them with about 225 gal of sump water in each.

They also make great tank stands.

Dave

[sharkdude]

Dave,
Where did you procure you plastic tubs from?
and how much?

Chris

PS nice setup by the way!
problems with temp, evap, ants, outdoor polluntants, etc?

[o2manyfish]

Chris,

The tubs are called tomato tubs. And surprisingly both were given to me.

These are the same tubs that the wholesales use as sumps underneath all their rows of display tanks.

So far they have only cost me a couple of frags.

Temperature at the moment, is okay, using 6 300w heaters to maintain temp. Waiting to see what happens as summer comes along.

Evaporation is not as issue, I have a 75gpd auto top off system I built that runs through my 9gal DIY Nilsen Kalkwasser Reactor.

Ants.... If the ants want to play with the frags no worry. On the other side of the yard is a 600g koi pond. So the ants have freshwater close by which I am sure they will prefer.

The pollutants outside: They shouldn't be that much different than what's in my house. As for the rain situation, I figure that if we got 2" of rain in a single shower -- Something which seldom happens in So Cal, it would add 12g of water to an 850g system. So anything that should get into the system should be well diluted until it can be filtered out.

Dave

[TIGER SHARK]

How big are the tanks sitting on top of the sumps with all the frags in them?

[o2manyfish]

The Prop tanks are under 100 gal each. I calculate I have about 78g in each prop tank.

Dave

[pacificaquatics2000]

hey how your tanks holdin up in all this rain im in south orange county and its raining cats and dogs hows your salinity??
cam b

[o2manyfish]

Hey There,

Salinity is not much of an issue - At least in theory. Last week to raise the salinity from 1.022 to 1.024 I had to dump an entire 50g salt mix into the system.

I calculated the exposed surface area. If we got 2" of rain that would add 12g of water to an 850g system. Which is pretty inconsequential.

And that will evaporate off quickly until the auto-top off system takes over and starts adding Kalk to the tank.

Dave B

[cal3v]

Cool set-up. I was wondering, and this is a question for you and all those that are propping in full sunlight, will the colors fade in our tanks when they are put in there after being in the natural sun?

[pacificaquatics2000]

good question
humm they just might because the intesidy is soo diffrent hummm maby maby not??

[o2manyfish]

This is probably a question that we won't be able to answer for a few months.

But I will post when the answer is known.

Dave B

[pacificaquatics2000]

looks sweet i will hopfully have a green house up some time mid summer he he he he he
cam b

[bookfish]

Just be careful about changing light intensities too fast.I think when you were by the house I showed you what used to be pink zoos till I moved them to the window tank and they bleached.-Jim

[cal3v]

Thanks Jim I've got mine shaded for now and will have it like that for a while and slowly up the intensity of sunlight they get.

[o2manyfish]

That's interesting about your Zoo's bleaching.

Cause I am having an opposite reaction so far with 90% of what's in my prop system.

Everything is holding color really well and coloring up quickly. Last week it was overcast here most of the week, and two or three types lost color. But the Blues, Purples and the yellow Mille kept their colors.

So far the only things to have lost color is a rust colored birdsnest, and a Green Thick Based Acro.

And I had several coral bases that were in my display tank, from previous fragged colonies. They went from being brown, to two purples and a Baby Blue in a matter of days.

I had a colony in the top of my display tank, that looked great, but had showed very little growth, and bad color since January.

I put it outside, and even with the overcast, in two days it started turning a light lavendar.

Dave B

[cal3v]

Cool info dave. No fair, your system is like 85x bigger than mine lol:D . I started a tiny 10 gallon tank outside for zoos and sps and other things, I'll try to put my now brown purple digitata in there and see what happens. How's growth outside? Anything noticeable yet?

[o2manyfish]

I will say that the softies are not happy outside. I have a Colt, Yellow Leather and some mushrooms and they are extremely unhappy in the sun.

I have some Zoo's outside for a couple of days before they went in the display tank. The orange zoo's were happy, but the pinks were not.

Growth is hard to say. So far the system is only about a month old. And the frags less than that. As of this weekend I have over 200 frags. And my frags are large. The average size frag is 2 branches each 2 to 3" .

I think I see growth, but it's kind of hard to tell at the moment.

But I have phenomenal polyp extension and incredible colors. I have a group of Blue Frags, that actually glow blue once the sun goes down.... And no actinic lighting is used (no lights at all).

Dave

[TIGER SHARK]

You definately need to get us a picture of the blue glowing frags :eek1:

[bookfish]

It is strange that of all the species (6-8 sps's, 8-10 lps's, 6 or 7 zoo morphs-both sociatus and palythoas, shrooms and softies aplenty) the pink zoos are ONLY THING that bleached.
Everything else is showing great growth, extension, etc.
Go figure.-Jim

[o2manyfish]

Here are some pics taken today. We just got a ton of rain last night, and it's overcast when I took these photos. So the colors are not bright. But you can get an idea how things are doing well.

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/18153Lower-South-End-2.jpg

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/18153Lower-Tank-2.jpg


http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/18153Upper-Tank-North-End.jpg

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/18153Upper-Tank-South-End-2.jpg

This photo shows the encrusting growth on this one month old frag around the base.

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/18153Acro-Gemma-Purp-Growth.jpg

People that have been visiting recently have said that the corals all look larger. I can't tell since I see them so regularly.

There are additional photos in my photo gallery.


Dave

[pacificaquatics2000]

hey whare u located in in orange county maby we could hook up and swap FRAGS
cam b

[sberman]

from the looks of the pics i would say some of the frags have grown .

[crystalball]

you guys are going to have me traeing up my house again to plump it to the back....set-up looks nice, its been a mild spring here, hope the heat dosnt do any damage to you this summer, it seems some frags do better in high light, (JIM) the club frag of green zoos attached right under the 1000w bulb, didnt bleach...will be working on a outdoor grow out this summer, but for now indoors with vho will have to work