Clean breeding system?

[deangelr]

Walt-

I wouldn't plumb fry and broodstock in the same system either..

Fry tanks produce a lot of waste... Plus you never know when a few might die and then start a subsequent water fowling..

With your rare fish.. I would not risk plumbing them into the same system..

 

[NirvanaFan]

I plumbed mine all together. It is extremely easy for me to take one tank offline though. I wait until day 20 or so to put the tank on the system.

Regarding tank size... Ocellaris will spawn in 10 gallon tanks. My current pair of clakii's started spawning in a 10 gallon tank before I could move them to a 20. I'd split the 30 gallon tanks in half if I were you though.

I've got a feeling the fish will pick the tile or pot, then follow it around the tank when you move it.

 

[WDLV]

Thanks for the thoughts guys.
I definately plan to use a method that promotes easy removal of any given tank from the system.
Thinking I will go the route with the fry tanks that give me the most options. ie: plumb them in but not have to keep them online.
...and will divide a 30B in half for a 18" x 18" x12" living space. That should be plenty for each pair.

 

[tommyb]

I would rethink connecting the grow out tanks with the broodstock tanks. I am in the process of setting up my grow out system and will have 6-29 gallon and 6- 20 gallon tanks. I am going to split these into two systems just to be safe.

For my breeding pairs I use a 34 gallon tank divided in half and it seems to be enough room. I have seen many people using 10 gallon tanks though.

 

[madean]

Walt have you thought about using an ats? I have come across a few people who have set up breeding stations with ats, and they seem to be really happy with their performance. I think the trick is to set a few up to be rotated as far as the maintenance goes. If a few are installed and the cleanings or harvesti ng s are spread out through the week, maximum algea growth can occur which in turn means maximum nutrient uptake can occur for what ever system you design. If your interested their is a huge thread in another forum dedicated to this idea but its not specifically for breeding systems.

 

[WDLV]

Tommy - I just may have the room to set up a second sump. I have a second shelf to the stand one half is solid. The other is open and a sump could be placed on the floor.

madean - ATS??? Is this like a scrubber?

 

[NirvanaFan]

Algae turf scrubber

 

[WDLV]

Thanks... I figured that out after my last post.

 

[madean]

Yep supply a specific amount of light and flow over a roughed up piece of sheet canvas and watch the algea grow, let it clean or scrub your water and uptake all the crap, excess nutrients and all you do is harvest the algea weekly. I believe the key is to harvest the algea weekly. I would think that an ats would be a great application for a breeding station. The ats would need to be pretty big though to handle the enormous potential bio load that a breeding station can have. I cant remember the gentlemans name right now, but he was breeding black clowns and was raising the fry in 15 gallon tanks. There are pictures of his tanks, and if my memory serves me right it was something like 7 or 8 tanks with 200-400 fish per tank. The numbers could be off a little but you get the idea of the potential here. In his system we are talking about close to 2000 fish. So with that in mind you either design a sytem to handle that or do a lot of water changes. I believe most do an insane amount of water changes. Who knows maybe an ats will help considerably and maybe it will hurt the fish in the long run due to pulling out too many nutrients from the water. Either way, the idea of getting pristine water in a fish breeding environment with all of our small spaces we try to do it in, is an uphill battle. Good luck with your endevour and I hope you are successfull in breeding your extremely rare fish. If you are successful shoot me a pm, I would love to try and raise and then breed some of your babies. Would be kind of cool to see the babies making babies.

 

[WDLV]

IF (...and that's a pretty big "IF") I'm successful in breeding them, the F1's will not likely be available for sale unless I'm successful beyond my wildest dreams.. Instead, I will likely pair the best of those together and try starting a captive breeding program for hobbyist distribution starting with the F2s.

I'd like if you could find a link to those pictures for me. I think Inland Aquatics uses both biofiltration and ATS on their systems in addition to having caulerpa in the broodstock tanks... and no skimmer. I'm not entirely sold on scrubbers. I tend to think that if they were really that effective they would be more prevalent in the hobby and/or with public aquariums. I have had really crappy results with natural filtration (bacterial, chaeto, calerpa and other macro-algaes.) If they crash they crash hard and I don't think I'd be inclined to rely on them as a sole source of filtration. IME, a combination of technological, bacterial filtration coupled with and water changes has yielded the best results to date. That said, I'm always interested in seeing other's successes with less conventional means.