Where can I find info on large scale coral farming?

[raaden]

Great pic

Jake what book are you referring to.
And did you say $.78/KwH... that is insane, I would definitely look into a 'farming' or any other discount you can get.

A couple of points needing clarification:

Are the mangroves the only filtration being used on that tank and how has the stability of the tank been. If I can get good filtration by 10-15 sf of macros I would agree this is probably a good choice, given all of the benefits discussed earlier

As far as substrate goes, Jake do you have any fears of the DSB crashing, and what sort of substrate are you thinking of using. I looked into it and found the cost of getting Ca sand to be outrageous as it would have to be shipped from Pa to Nc and for about 10 cu. yd. it was going to be over $1800 just to get to my facility. Between the risk and the costs I decided to go BB.

What do you all think about putting chaeto and Red Grac in the tanks but on the bottom under an eggrate retainer. The airlifts should circulate the water well enough that there won't be stagnant pockets and I believe there will be enough light to penetrate down there for them. What I envision is one vat having the chaeto and the other having the Red Grac, then a raceway flow around the two vats. My only concern with this is that it will be hard to tumble the chaeto and there will be no surface contact for it. This should be fine for the Red Grac (not so good for Green Grac FWIK), but I am not sure if chaeto handles being constantly submerged.


Some thoughts.
As far as the flooding vs immersion the difference would be terrestrial roots. If the plant is terrestrial in nature and going to be rooted the roots need a chance to dry out and develop a skin. If they are constantly immersed there will be many difficulties including root rot, bacteria, and the roots will not take hold enough for growth. There are some exception such as soy and rice that can handle constant immersion but most terrestrial plants have to be relatively dry for short periods. I don't think this would apply to mangroves though. As I understand their root systems, they are designed to be wet for long periods of time, and can also dry out parts of them as long as they can still reach water as well.

As far as conventional pumping goes I am just thinking in scale. It is easy to see that a pump for a tank is not much power or equipment cost, but when you scale that up to 18-24 tanks it becomes more noticeable on the bottom line. I still think that it is more than worth it if you are getting a benefit from it; just something to think about. Another reason I am trying to stay away from blade type pumps is I want to try and develop some spawning information on corals when I get settled in and I feel this is only possible in bladeless/skimmerless systems. Then again at $.78KwH I would save any electricity I can. Even at my paltry rate of .08-.12 I am still trying to cut out any extra usage I can.

 

[jake levi]

Spotte has two ecellent books on filtration for captive systems, his are two of the earliest works and most valid still. Check with some of the aquatic book sellers for his books, I've seen them on several used book seller lists, you might google 'Stephen Spotte & saltwater filtration'. That'll probably turn up a couple used book sellers, I think both are out of print.

For substrate in a vat I'd use either aragonite or crushed coral, whichever I could get the best buy on, talk to a local distributor and get their price on a pallet drop shipped. That should be way better in price all around. Same thing with your salt. I dont see any problems with it crashing, not the volume needed.

I doubt you'd get enough light low down for macros to do any good, putting them above the vat seems to be the best working idea to me, you wont lose any vat area, and you can grow more macros.

the mangroves by no means are the only filtration on that vat, like all his vats it has a deep substrate over a ugf/plenum, more of an ugf, the little bit of denitrifying those mangroves do is minimal, denitryfing efficiency can be associated with growth, and amount of plant removed or grown on, they do denitrify but its on a low level. A lot of people sold a lot of them as the ultimate filter feeder but it was hype. They are picturesque and thats it. The bacteria in their substrate actually in all probability have more to do with the denitrifying. Many of their roots in the outdoors are constantly submerged, some get tidal drying but most are just submerged 24/7.

That electric rate is the 2nd charge, the first though is in the .50s. I am considering refinancing in the spring, and adding a solar array into the package. Most months I'd be putting into the grid instead of paying for it. My plans would only have two vats max so pumping is doable.

 

[jake levi]

Ref large quantity purchases, what has worked best for me is contacting distributos and getting either their delivery prices or drop shipping prices for things like salt, substrate etc, I have gotten very good prices that way.

Distributors DONT want to be bothered with what would be a shops sale, but pallet or other large orders are their business. You may need a tax number to work with them, but you'll need one anyhow if you are going to be doing a large operation.

Ref the solar arrays, I'd suggest looking into it if you are going to be operating many pumps, lights etc, the systems work to draw from the grid when its not enough, and put into the grid all excess, they will usually pay for their costs in 4-6 years. For our kind of electric useage its well worth checking out.

Just do a google on "home solar arrays".

 

[raaden]

Jake,

Thanx for the info, I will look for them. I still have a few spaces on my SW bookshelf.

As far as the substrate and salt I have been looking at doing something very similar. AquaticEco has some pretty good pricing on their pallets with Drop shipping. I have been talking to the manufacturers themselves on best distributors, but there doesn't seem to be enough of a difference to warrant skipping the distro's, plus it is always good to start a relationship with them if possible.

When planning out the macros one reason I chose the Red Grac was that it is such a low light macro it could do okay with scattered light it would get underneath main trays. I have had it grow best when grown in pretty decent shade. I am contemplating put the Chaeto on the North side of the tanks in a "window box" sort of thing like at ATS, and keeping the Red Grac under the frag trays in the vats.

It didn't seem like there would be enough growth from the Mangroves alone to fliter the tanks. Mangroves are very nice if you have room for them but the grow a bit slow from what I have heard.

I have not looked into the Solar arrays although I did put them on my list of things to consider. It is just such a huge investment and with all the trees around it would be tough to locate well. If I decide to move to a commercial facility I am going to seriuosly consider both the solar arrays and a geothermal setup.

 

[jake levi]

Ref to the macros,

keep in mind that growth rates correlate positively with nutrient removal. best analogy I can give is look at fields of corn, poorly fertilized fields make light or poor growth, heavily fertilized fields make those uniform 7' cornfields. Thats a very basic ag rule, works with grass/hay, and also works with macroalgaes.

Low growth macros equate to minimal nutrient removal, heavy growth = heavy nutrient removal.

Mangroves give minimal filtration, they are interesting, make a nice eco exhibit and good conversation pieces but not a whole lot of filtration going on, unless you got a couple hundred acres of them. Then a little adds up.

I'm looking at different solar companys, if I find something really workable I'll post a link, if it works on a house it'll work on a fishhouse.

 

[Whaledriver]

It looks like Zoanthids and mushrooms are the easiest and most profitable products for a small scale farm in a basement of about 1000 gallons. I am always amazed at the number of brown ugly stuff stores stock. There is hardly any nicely colored products on the local pet store circuit. If I toss in pulsing zenia I should be able to keep a farm running

 

[jake levi]

I agree.

Other low light good sellers are the sarcophytons and sinularia, and the brighter colored mushrooms and ricordea along with green stars. At my present kilowat rates I cant afford halides. So SPS isnt apt to happen.

The local stores stock the ugly stuff as its cheap.

I closely looked at the bargain frags etc that Tropicorium has, always something nice within them, as it happened a week later I was in two closer retailers, both had the drabber, cheaper stuff, at inflated prices. It works, one's got a 50,000 car out in the parking lot. Of course he also stocks Flame Scallops and whatever will sell regardless of its liveability.

 

[Whaledriver]

I think one of the keys to making a farm work is the brood stock. You need fast growing colorful stock to start with. This should keep things in demand.

Is doubling your frag count by growth every 4 months a reasonable time frame for shrooms and zoes? For example would it be reasonable to have a 5 button zoe double to 10 buttons in 4 months.

Another problem is the time it takes to get enough frags grown before you can start selling. My quick guess to sell 120 frags a month on a regular basis would take 16 months if I started with about 120 frags at the beginning. That means no sales for 16 months! Is this too pessimistic?

 

[jake levi]

I think that its pessimistic as to time to have frags to sell, maybe optimistic as to quantity.

Some zoes will 'double in 4 mos, most later. Other species as mushrooms , green stars, anthelia etc can do it in 4 mos, depending on frag sizes,

the time to keep in mind is the time to grow a frag into a colony, frags from well established colonys do better then frags from small recent frag colonys.

I think in 16 mos you can realistically expect to have a 100 good frags a mos, and the 120 easily by 24 mos, not micro frags but good started young colonys. There is a glut on the market of mini frags, and they are priced accordingly. You should be expecting saleable frags by 9 mos, the income can be used to buy more expensive showier colonys to start reproducing. By two years you should be in good shape starting with 120 good frags.

 

[Whaledriver]

Thanks for the input. I think that for the first 8 months I would concentrate on creating 5 polyp frags so that they can later develope into 20+ colonies for sale. This will enable the production chain of colonies in the later months.

 

[raaden]

Ref the growth rates: I can't find the notes I have on it and my mind is sort of chaotic right now but if the stuff in my head is right here are a couple of comments. Grow out the brood stock and trim to sell rather than trim and grow out the trimmings.

First If you are looking for the most volume per unit of time a larger colony will grow better than a bunch of smaller ones, to a point where size limits expansion. In a vat or tank zo's could get to more than 8" around before I would even worry about it. For leathers, xenia, anthelia colony size shouldn't be a problem at all. Shrooms would be the exception, overgrowth and attachment issues will be what to watch for here. You will probably need to split at about 2-4"

Another thing to think about is that when you keep splitting a colony there is healing time. Any time the colony spends healing it is not growing, and the more you split it the more time it must spend healing.

As far as growth times. Your numbers for the smaller colony size are pretty good depending on what sort of lighting you are going to use. If you were to use larger sets of broodstock (80-150 buttons) you could trim them every 3 months (growth to 200-300) and easily get the harvest you are looking for. The benefit here is that you are only going to have parts of the colony healing and parts still growing. Shortening regrowth time, and still maintaing total size. Then you trim 12-15 buttons and leave them a couple of weeks to stabilize and the same four months you have a your 20+ colonies for sale and will have expanded your broodstock as well. This will also leave your mother colony sustainable.

For my plan I am looking to gather a large amount of broodstock and become sustainable from that rather than starting with a small amount and growing out. Depending on your operating costs it might be more cost effective to consider buying your initial stock. It is also a bit easier to grow out and gives time for experimenting so that is good too. Either way I think your numbers are a good 'conservative' estimate and as you get tweak your production I think you can overachieve them as well

Hope this helps

 

[jake levi]

Thanks Raaden, you said better what I was wanting to, that 16mos guide line wasnot realistic IF starting with 120 frags, the growout is slower then if starting with several good colonys, myself, I am cycling tanks so frags+ are a good way to go, but fairly soon its going to be time to invest in some good sized colonys, probably of some higher priced ricordea, but the next purchase is going to be more of the hardy frags, probably from Tropicorium as I can cherry pick them, plus I need more of their' starter gravel' to cycle a couple more tanks. I may well get one of their package trays of frags plus the gravel in it. If I was to push for growout/sale capability a year from now could do 120 + frags a month but dont want to do anywhere near that, plus I'll still be stocking tanks as I put more online. I can add 12 more 29s in the fishroom, plus a couple 75s in my dining rm. All will have soft corals and macros. I also have 3 20Ls that will have soft corals plus pseudchromis/gobys etc.

 

[Whaledriver]

Has anyone tried growing zoe's on 1 inch tiles?
What I am thinking of is laying out 1 inch tiles on the bottom of a tank and letting the zoe's naturally grow and spread over the tiles. To get your frag just simply remove/cut out one tile and replace it with a new blank one. Then just glue the frag tile to a rock to sell after it heals and grows making the underlying tile invisible.

It seems to me that a checkerboard grid of samples would heal faster since they would regrow onto the new tile from 4 sides.

raaden?
Do you think the minimum size for zoe mother colonies is about 80 buttons?

 

[hamburglar]

Whaledriver,

I think this is a good idea. I've been thinking of doing that in a raceway tank to promote easier feeding. The current might also encourage the zoo's to grow in one direction across the new tiles.

 

[jake levi]

I havent tried tiles but have used a piece of glass, green stars, anthelia and xenia grow on it extremely well and its easy to slip off a section to frag. A one inch square tile is smaller then I want to make a frag. The larger frags grow much better. What I REALLY dislike is the ice cube sized mounts as they are very difficult to mate up with other rocks without special making them with holes for the cubes. The other thing is if I walk into a store with some nice one inch frags that six other guys have already been there, ofering them as low as $5 ea. If I walk in with 3-5" frags on nice rocks its something he isnt being offered.

 

[crazzy]

Jake:
If you get "free" and well head priced gas, consider installing a micro turbine. It will give you less than .02 cents per kilowatt all in cost. Sell any surplus to your local utility! Cause for rethinking your setup maybe.

 

[jake levi]

Hey Crazzy
I actually had that deal long ago when the world was young, a farm in upstate NY that had several capped oil wells that were used for gas storage, I had free gas. Then Vietnam came and I got called up. That place still has free gas, I dont except after eating frijolles.

I am seriously shopping the alternative power mags/net for solar array systems. That will pull my electric costs down substantially. Present paybacks on the different systems vary from 5-8 years, the latter being a large system. It would be putting kilowatts into the grid most of the year. The smaller ones will have me needing to pull some dec through late feb or march.

After enclosing my garage I want two 8' by 4' by 30" vats, but I want the solar system in first. The marine stuff is going to get about 2/3rds the new rm space.

 

[raaden]

WhaleDriver,

I would say that 80 is the absolute minimum for a zo Mother colony. If possible try to get closer to the 120-150 number or slightly bigger even. This way you can get decent sized chunks (5 x 10-15) from the mother without causing massive growth stalling from healing and that sized frag has a good headstart on its own growing.

GSP, zo's, anthelia do well very well on tiles. I usually take them off the tiles and put them on some homemade biscuits to sell them though. Jake has a great point about LFS and giving good colonies. I have never sold ones quite as big as what he is talking about but always tried to bring in something bigger than what they normally displayed, and always on a rock of some sort (biscuit or rubble at the very least).

Jake,
When you list the 5-8 year recovery for Solar are you including the depreciation writeoff for business use or are you just figuring on recouping through savings and "feeding" the grid.

I am seriously considering a solar array instead of a geothermal loop for when I get ready to expand. My issues is that with such cheap electrical prices it would take me more than 12 yrs without depreciation, and I can't find info on how to depreciate a solar array.

 

[jake levi]

Raaden I always try to go into a store and eyeball what they are selling before I approach them on buying from me. If you offer better then what they have its hard to resist your offer. Looking at their retails its not hard to get a range of what they are paying. I usually offer a sample or two but if they dont buy after that they are dead in the water with me.

I am just ball parking figures on saving and feeding the grid, no biz expenses as I dont need it. I am just paying on my hobby and saving on living expenses, if I do that I am happy. Of course it would be a good valid deduction if I was figuring my costs for a set of books, but no biz expenses are kept. I seriously advise anyone with any amount of gallonage whether GH or other to check into solar, fuel costs are going to climb no matter what. Alternative energy is real and doable. Its only going to get better.

 

[hamburglar]

Does anyone know whee to buy solar panele (or those cool solar shingles) at a decent price? I've always been scared off by the up-front cost.