seperate frag tank?

bump

 

Yes. Will there be buffering that occurs? Yes, especially at the beginning. However, once the bed matures and bacterial biofilms are coating the surfaces of the aragonite, that blocks a good portion of the chemical reactions that would otherwise take place.

If the dissolving of aragonite occurred at the rate described by some Guru's to the Reef Hobbyists, you wouldn't have live rock in your tank. It would have dissolved and buffered the ocean. There wouldn't be dead reefs that are nothing but Skeletons of SPS corals (also aragonite)....they would have dissolved and buffered the ocean. We wouldn't have aragonite sand still, it would have dissolved, yada, yada, yada. You can kind of see where I'm going here.

 

My current frag tank was hooked to my DT.
However before that one I had 2 others that were independant systems and have friends who own stores that do it the same way have done.
We all put as much live rock in the sump as you could fit. The DT is always full of racks and if you had enough corals in there you'd have to suppliment anyway. If you are having a heavy load, you'd want a sand bed also, it wouldn't hurt. You basically would have a complete set-up but reversed and you'll want to have a big pump with a couple outlets so you can valve down jets from a couple angles. The rock will speed up your cure time and cycling.
Also if you wanted to (or could fit it) look into a 5 gallon bucket with a flapper for purges.
If you have any questions PM me.