Frag tank questions

[Matt_HiHat]

Hi guys!
See a lot of people who grow wonderful homegrown corals here! ;)

Well. I'll be starting up a coral prop. (prob. business) soon and got some questions.
I think I'll start with a 70g tank, 77x19x10" (live in Europe you know, no foot). Over this I'll have 6x80w T5: 2x6,5k, 2x14000k and 2x20k. Connected to a sump with probably a Deltec 601 APF skimmer, 30kg of LR and some other useful stuff i may find. Will this work fine?

Thinking about dosing amino acids and TM Liquid Calcium ABC with a Grotech III NG. Should I do this or add a calcium reactor and just dose trace elements instead? Want it to be fully automated with no "laying under the tank adjusting Co2-valves"-stuff.

So, how many frags do you think I can put in a 77x19x10"? About 200?

I'm mainly gonna do SPS, what growth rate do you think I'll have (difficult question, I know) with stable water param. I'm gonna start with frags and grow them into mothercolonies.
I'm expecting to harvest around 3-4 frags/6 months from each colony. Do you think this is possible?

And finally, does anyone know of any cheap and good coral exporters or retailers? Really hard to find, but found one that seems quite good in Indonesia though.

Lots of questions, but I would truly love any answers! I'll be praying to the coral-god! ;)

Keep it simple mates!

Best Regards
Matt

[OceanDweller]

Wow sounds really great. I think if you keep your params up, feed them well, keep calcium high, you frag tank should kick. You should be able to hook up a ton of frags, just depends on the size and allocation of the frags. I think the colonies could handle a couple of small cuttings of 1/2" or so every six months. Good luck with the business

[Matt_HiHat]

Thanks OceanDweller!
Yeah, I like the idea of being able to have a lot of frags in a quite small tank volume, 70g. Still wondering how many frags I will be able to have though, haven't really figured it out exactly but probably around 300 or something.

The problem right now is to get the money for the whole thing ;). The other thing is how I will get some frags, I live in the wrong side of the country to get hold of frags.

[Hingeback]

Hi matt.

Where are you in Europe. I am from the Uk. Are you wanting to buy frags to grow on and then frag them. I have done that and it is very time consuming. It may take six months for the frag to grow to a reasonable size to be able to frag. Then a further 2-3 months or more for that frag to be sellable or more if you want to frag it again.
I sourced some aquacultured corals which I let be for a month to make sure they were ok. I have fragged these corals and grown the frags on. I am now at the stage of fragging the parent colony again and the frags.
I am pretty fortunate that I have a decent LFS. An acropora is an acropora. It may be brown or be sky bluepink with yellow dots but they all have one price. The price is also very good for the size.

Best wishes

[Matt_HiHat]

Yes, I'm going to get some frags, grow them into bigger mothercolonies and then frag on them and sell. I live in Sweden and buying from exporters seems like a good option except that it's expensive unless you buy a huge amount of frags. I'll probably have to go out on a roadtrip and find corals from regular reefers'. It would be grat if i could find frags for about 10 euros/piece or less.

[OceanDweller]

I have no clue as to what things are like there, although if it were here in the states you could likely find a local reefer that would be doing a tear down, perfect time to get a couple of large sps colonies for some $ at a good cost and a great way to hook up a ton of frags for a good $

[Matt_HiHat]

Back again! :)
Yeah that would be real nice OD, but since it's Sweden I'm probably gonna have to buy some bigger colonies at some LFS, frag them into smaller pieces and then grow them into size. I'll also hassle my hobbeyistfriends on buying frags from them. I think it'll work out somehow, would be real great though if I could get my hands on a lot of dif. species in small size rather than bigger pieces and fewer species of coral (as with LFS option). But as said, It'll work out :).

Well, i've changed the plans a bit. I think I'll go with a 58x19x15" tank as a combined frag tank/sump. I'll fill it up with 10" of water and then have the rest of volume as a "safety belt" for water draining from other tanks (future plans) in case of a power failure. I'll connect this to my current 30g display tank using an external overflow box. Disp. tank is in the next room so I'll have to do some discrete plumbing around a wall (GF Acceptance Factor critical though). Any suggestions/drawbacks or something folks? Rec. on overflow boxes?

I'll mount the sump/frag tank inside a stand which also will be able to handle a similar tank on top of it in the future.
I'll still use balling, amino acids and perhaps some vodka with 4 or 6 54w tubes. Would be nice with 6 tubes. 2 6.5k, 2 14k and 2 20k. Think I'll also go with a Deltec MCE500 or the 600 if available used.