Eight
Guest
It's now been a month and a half since I have had my "one-way waterchange quarantine/frag tank setup" in place. There was some discussion a couple of pages ago on the pros/cons of setting up the system this way and I said that I would let the system run for several weeks and then comment back on how it's going. Here are my thoughts so far.
The frag tank is filled mostly with LPS and some SPS. I haven't lost anything and most pieces seem to be growing well, although I don't have anything really delicate in there. Some corals, such as the golden eye watermelon and Miami Hurricane frags are growing exceptionally well.
Other than the waterchanging system, a heater, powerheads and lights, there isn't any hardware on the tank. No reactor, no topoff, no skimmer, no carbon, no GFO, etc.
I currently change about 4 gallons a day out of my display tank into the frag tank. This is equivalent to about a 10% waterchange every day on the frag tank.
Salinity does tend to drift up over time since I do not have a freshwater topoff system on the tank. I estimate that it goes up 0.001 each week. (So it goes from 1.025 to 1.026 each week if I don't do anything to it.) To combat this, I simply pour straight RODI water into the tank a couple of times a week to dilute it back down to 1.025. This isn't ideal, but it's pretty easy and doesn't seem to cause too much stress. Other parameters (KH, etc.) experience slight fluctuation (probably similar to/due to the salinity drift).
The best thing about this setup is that it does work as designed... it is a full time quarantine system separate from my main display. I purchased a metallic green pavona coral from Dolphin a few weeks ago that was covered in flatworms... I dipped it hard and didn't hesitate about putting it into the QT system which was very comforting. Other than the water topoff, it's been maintenance free and hasn't caused me any problems.
That said, I have debated about going to a more traditionally plumbed frag tank. The primary reasons I have reconsidered are:
1) There's no surface skimmer on this setup, so I get that nasty oily slick on the surface. Yuck!
2) Despite the fact that things have done well, I do worry that sometimes this frag tank is not as stable/consistent as my display. This may be more of a psychological neurosis rather than a material problem, but it still bugs me.
3) I tend to be aggressive on the waterchange percent (10% of the frag tank volume/day which is equivalent to about 2% of my main display volume/day) because I don't want the frag tank water quality to suffer. Remains to be seen if I can drop this waterchange percent down lower without any waste buildup. Aggressive waterchanging costs money in salt and RO water.
I will keep this setup running like this for a few more months. Overtime I may gain more confidence in the system which will tip the pros decisively over the cons... right now though, I'm kinda 50/50 about whether or not as a whole this is better than a standard frag tank setup.
The frag tank is filled mostly with LPS and some SPS. I haven't lost anything and most pieces seem to be growing well, although I don't have anything really delicate in there. Some corals, such as the golden eye watermelon and Miami Hurricane frags are growing exceptionally well.
Other than the waterchanging system, a heater, powerheads and lights, there isn't any hardware on the tank. No reactor, no topoff, no skimmer, no carbon, no GFO, etc.
I currently change about 4 gallons a day out of my display tank into the frag tank. This is equivalent to about a 10% waterchange every day on the frag tank.
Salinity does tend to drift up over time since I do not have a freshwater topoff system on the tank. I estimate that it goes up 0.001 each week. (So it goes from 1.025 to 1.026 each week if I don't do anything to it.) To combat this, I simply pour straight RODI water into the tank a couple of times a week to dilute it back down to 1.025. This isn't ideal, but it's pretty easy and doesn't seem to cause too much stress. Other parameters (KH, etc.) experience slight fluctuation (probably similar to/due to the salinity drift).
The best thing about this setup is that it does work as designed... it is a full time quarantine system separate from my main display. I purchased a metallic green pavona coral from Dolphin a few weeks ago that was covered in flatworms... I dipped it hard and didn't hesitate about putting it into the QT system which was very comforting. Other than the water topoff, it's been maintenance free and hasn't caused me any problems.
That said, I have debated about going to a more traditionally plumbed frag tank. The primary reasons I have reconsidered are:
1) There's no surface skimmer on this setup, so I get that nasty oily slick on the surface. Yuck!
2) Despite the fact that things have done well, I do worry that sometimes this frag tank is not as stable/consistent as my display. This may be more of a psychological neurosis rather than a material problem, but it still bugs me.
3) I tend to be aggressive on the waterchange percent (10% of the frag tank volume/day which is equivalent to about 2% of my main display volume/day) because I don't want the frag tank water quality to suffer. Remains to be seen if I can drop this waterchange percent down lower without any waste buildup. Aggressive waterchanging costs money in salt and RO water.
I will keep this setup running like this for a few more months. Overtime I may gain more confidence in the system which will tip the pros decisively over the cons... right now though, I'm kinda 50/50 about whether or not as a whole this is better than a standard frag tank setup.
