Cali Kid Corals

Budget frag tank setup?

sfsuphysics said:
So someone asked me a question, and when answering this popped up.


Basically same style of tank I'm using for my lagoon, but much smaller, long flat sides that you can drill to put in a bulkhead if you need. 52" x 31" x 12" would make a pretty nice frag grow out tank, and take it from me due to those rounded ends real easy to get a gyre flow going around the whole thing without much of a pump needed.
Click to expand...
save some money here...hah! https://www.homedepot.com/p/HDX-55-Gal-Tough-Storage-Bin-in-Black-HDX55GONLINE-4/205597365
 
NanoCrazed said:
save some money here...hah! https://www.homedepot.com/p/HDX-55-Gal-Tough-Storage-Bin-in-Black-HDX55GONLINE-4/205597365
Click to expand...
Yeah but one container, hint... not this one, is actually designed to hold water, the other one, hint2... this one, is not, now take that for what it's worth and not going to try and convince one way or another. That said, while similar volumes, the total usable area of the one I posted is probably considerably more than this, as these bins have "wasted" height that really isn't needed if you're wanting to grow frags.
 
Also, anyone have any recommendations for decently cheap lighting? I'm trying to save money on the build so I'm assuming blackbox LEDs should be fine, but any specific recs would be appreciated.
 
Depending on the size of the setup, I might go with T5s. Just doing a retrofit kit with reflectors and end caps and a ballast is fairly inexpensive, and if all you're doing is trying to grow corals you don't need fancy stuff like dimming. Of course if you're looking to get insane color morphs in SPS corals you'll want to blast it with royal blue and "UV" LEDs.

If you do go the Chinese black box route just realize that they all literally lie about the power output in the description, a "300W LED" could be anywhere from 150-200W, and if you're only going to do bluer spectrum halve that again. I'd also keep an eye out on used fixtures too, saw at ReefCentral a guy selling G3 xr30 radions for $300 each, which yeah is still much more expensive than the black boxes, but I don't know how well I'd trust the black boxes from an electrical stand point :D
 
I use some 470 nm led bars to supplement my xr30. For a basic grow out you could probably get by with just the bars. They’re $50 for a 24” and Telegraham on YouTube did a tear down on them and they’re built solid. You can find the link in the description for his livestream boxes and booze 6 I believe.
 
Maybe wait until you know the tank dimensions before going to deep down the lighting rabbit hole. The dims of the tank will help determine what you need to get
 
Kremis said:
idk if its for sure a low boy or not but it has the same footprint. came w the rim and brace

@IOnceWasLegend I picked up some urchins today for CUC, had a tang before but I bandsawed too many zoa colonies at once and caused a mini tank crash w the palytoxin, killed the tang and some of my rhodactus. Thats the one other down side to running no filtration is that unless you run carbon aggressively stuff like that can affect the tank a lot more vs a tank that has a sump, filter socks, reactors, skimmer, chaeto etc
Click to expand...

What kind of tang was it?
 
NanoCrazed said:
I got a 48" MH/T5 setup for free :)

Picked it up from @Vincerama2 but my plans for squashed. So paying it forward...
Click to expand...

PM'd, and thank you for the offer!

EBJ said:
You can ask a store to order a low boy frag tank from Zoo Med if they don't have it. That's what I did.
Click to expand...

Do you mind me asking how much you paid? I'll likely end up going this route if it works for our garage's dimensions, since it's hard to say 'no' to that much surface area for coral growth...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top