Breeding clowns outsuide?

[sumpinhabitant]

Hello all

Do to my recent move to key west into a much smaller home, if I want to continue my hope to breed clownfish it will have to be outside. Actually it woud be on an outside deck that is covered on the top and sides. Here's what I have for equipment

2 30g breeders
1 20 gallon sump
1 DIY stand for the tanks with hinged tops built in

My main concern is temp changes in the tanks, any recomendations on what type of controller heater chiller combo to maintain stable temps year round?

Also any other suggestions on making this a success would be greatly appreciated

Many thanks....

 

[sumpinhabitant]

Anybody?

 

[skhle]

look at "www.digitalaquatics.com" or some temp. control

 

[ediaz]

Man I envy you!!

The hatchery I used to work was in Puerto Rico, very similar. You would actually be more sucessful, will have natural sunlight, moon cycles, cloudy days things that stimulate breeding.

Do not worry about temperature fluctuactions, we had all the time is never gonna go from 80 to 75 or less in a short period, changes will be slow. If you can keep it avobe 80 you will be fine , a couple of days under that will not harm the fish.

Do you have a spare room? I got 'bout 50 tanks.

Ed

 

[BlackOnyx]

can you put them in the shade? temp it off room temp?

 

[stykthyn]

go for the gusto, let us know how it works out

 

[sumpinhabitant]

thanks to all those who replied. I'm moving forward setting things up and hope to have my pairs in thier tanks by mid april. I just picked up a chiller from a guy here in town , hopefully we have a forgiving hurricane season here this time around.

 

[stykthyn]

invest in a generator.

 

[David M]

I would make the total water volume of the system as large as possible, use the tanks you have but plumb them to the biggest storage you can fit. Use 44 gallon Brute trash cans or whatever, The idea being that the larger the total water volume is, the slower the temp changes will be in response to swings in air temp. In St Thomas I never heated or cooled, water temp was always 80F with no variation whatsoever. Also I'd run a fw line to the sump/ storage because your biggest problem is probably gonna be evap and the easier you make it to top off the more often you will do it.

 

[sumpinhabitant]

I have a generator that i'm having converted over to propane and wired directly into the homes fuse panel. As long as we dont get 5'
plus storm surge I should be ok. I had water over the top of my sumps during wilma last year and pretty much had to start from scratch with all my tanks I like David M 's suggestion of keeping the water volune high to stabilize temps in the system, thanks for the great info!

 

[David M]

You might get a kick out of this... Hurricane Marylin ('95) tore up St Thomas pretty bad. We lost the whole roof and two exterior walls of the main house, plus the entire bedroom & bath. Where the living room "used to be" stood my little 29 gallon tank, untouched except for the loss of the hood & light. The fish were swimming around looking up at me like they were saying "what the f was that ? "

Also we had glass cabinet doors in the kitchen, during prep my wife insisted I screw them closed. I thought it was rediculous (they were glass) but she was adament. The roof and walls went but the cabinets were fine, not a dish or glass was lost.