Frag Tank Advice

I'm considering making a 20-25 gallon frag tank for myself for christmas. I have a few questions.
1) What kind of filtration do you need on a frag tank? If there are no fish, or maybe just 1 small one, could you get away with HOB, or would I need a canister or something?
2) If it is a shallow tank, can SPS grow under 2 t5 bulbs, or would I need more intense lighting?
3) What do frag tank setups generally look like? Should I use live rock, or go with egg crate shelves? Maybe both?
4) Sand bed, bare bottom?
5) Any other ideas or tips?

Thank you in advance.

 

6) Do you need to skim aggressively, or would an HOB skimmer work for a small tank?

 

Anyone?

 

Would like to know myself. I do know that the lights need to be 6500k and 10000k for the faster growth.

 

I would have a shallow tank. You can have some fish, but I would have a skimmer if you get a fish if you're doing sps frags. If only lps or soft corals, I wouldn't worry about it. You really only need filtration to perhaps run carbon, so HOB would probably be fine. I would do bare bottom, no substrate, mush easier to clean. As for racks, if you have fish, I would use some rock, or use a sump to put some rock in. If no fish, just eggcrate, nothing fancy.

 

Agree with above!!!

 

Agree with Guitar Man on all counts... still wondering myself about the short tank with SPS frags and only 2XT5 for lights as I've thought about setting up my upcoming frag tanks the same way. Something like 12inch tall tanks with 2X T5's one 10 000K and one 420/460 actinic. Anyone with SPS experience want to chime in here on the light idea?

GreyBeard

 

It would be great if anyone could chime in on the SPS frags. Would something like a 40 gallon breeder work?

 

I've seen frag tanks that are 40 breeders, they work, but IMO, are unnecessarily large for this purpose unless you're planning on a ton of frags. I would ideally go with a custom tank, something 12" tall, maybe 2' long and 12-15" wide. If not, then a 20 gal long would be ideal IMO. As for lighting, I think more than 2 T5 tubes will be needed to sps frags. I would get a nice little 24" 4 bulb Tek fixture or something along those lines. Don't do a hood and if you can, hang the light with an adjustable cable suspension system so that you can easily move it out of your way when you need to get into the tank, which would probably be very often.

 

I'm currently between planning and starting to build a frag set up at the store with all 10 gallon tanks piped together with U tubes and fed to thier own sump via a diy 1.25 inch overflow. It will be five 10's in a row side by side so that you're viewing from the end of each with aquatic life 4X48inch T5 lighting and a sump/fuge with live rock, copepods, mangroves and sea grass/turtle grass. I think I can do SPS and certainly soft corals in this along with young clams. That's the plan as it is today... maybe I should have started a thread? LOL

GreyBeard the terrible