Where can I find info on large scale coral farming?

[Steven Pro]

Yeah, that is them, although your hyperlink is messed up. They have a newer item that is not on their online catalog. It measures 48" wide by 96" long by 30" tall, approximately 600 gallons. I ordered 12 of those, but have not received them yet.

For those shallow tubs, have you considered building an air-driven closed loop? It was an idea my friend Adam Cesnales had when we were discussing options. You have to build stands for those shallow tubs. You could easily drill holes in both ends. Connect them with PVC pipe, but run the PVC pipe down to the ground to add height/lift.

 

[raaden]

That size would work out nicely depending on the price.

On the underloop idea; I hadn't considered it but I know that is similar to the concept they use for air driven well pumps. It should get you very similar flow the only issue I would think is that you will need more pressure on your air supply since , I assume, the air entry will be lower than the tank. If that is the case a blower may not work as well as an LPP.

 

[Steven Pro]

If you pump air to the bottom of a 30" tank or to the bottom of a 30" closed loop, I don't see how it would make a difference. My only concern for the shallow tubs was overheating. Shallow pools with less water volume concerned me.

 

[Steven Pro]

The tubs I bought and those shallow ones from Aquatic Ecosystems both work out to $1/gallon. But, with the shallow ones, I would have to build stands/racks. The 30" ones I ordered are going to sit on a sheet of styrofoam on the ground.

 

[hamburglar]

That bending over might get old. Might want to build a small padded bench for the knees

I like the idea of the air lift closed loop, but I agree you would need a high pressure pump to really get things rocking.

 

[ctenophore]

When thinking about temperature control, remember that most of your heat comes from solar gain. So whether your tanks are 12" or 30" deep doesn't matter; it's a function of surface area. You will still gain the same amount of heat, so you will need roughly the same BTU cooling power. There is a little bit of gain/loss due to convection but this is very little comparatively. Of course, a 30" tank will change slower due to the larger volume of water, which is a good thing, but it also increases your other operating expenses.

Lastly, are those tubs blue like the 12" 8x2's? You will want them white. Otherwise, you will get much more solar gain. This may be good up north in the winter but might hurt in the summer. You might think about a white 2-part epoxy paint. You'll also get better light diffusion this way.

I went with custom fiberglass 16x4x18", white. I think they offer the best compromise for water volume to surface area ratio. They were somewhat more expensive than the aquatic eco options, but they have a plywood core and 2" R15 insulation on 5 sides. You can park a car on top of one of them even when full.

 

[raaden]

Steven, agreed I was picturing the underloop to be a couple of feet below the tank. One other thing to remember. I can't find the resource I got it from but in my notes I have listings for optimal depth of the airline as 18-24" depending on the temp of the water. It seemed that the air reached a top speed at that point sort of like an inverse terminal velocity for a skydiver. You can certainly use them deeper for lifting the water from ground to tank level or for just water movement, but according to this, the air injection point doesn't need to be any deeper than 18-24".

Ham has a great point that I have not seen brought up yet about keeping the working level of the tanks comfortable. For my setup I want to use stands so that the top of the tanks come to just below my ribs so I can lean over them and that level will put the eggcrate stands in the tanks at just over waist level. This was something I got from standard greenhouse books about optimal layout of the benching systems they use, and adapted it to the storage level inside the tanks.

Ctenophore, agreed on your points about heat gain through the surface of the water, but I was actually looking for tanks that would be a light blue (sort of like a pool liner blue) in an attempt to recreate the natural ambient light of the reef. Do you or others think there would be any benefit to this. I am not sure that the heat gain by IR reflection would be that different between light blue and white as all of the high energy wavelengths(UV-Indigo) will get absorbed and IR reflected by either color.

In addition it seems that most of the corals in the existing setups are getting far too much light anyway( I say this because they are so pale in some cases and browning in others) so if you can lower the total ambient light by reflection, and create the blue atmosphere, maybe this will help the corals keep some extra zoox for color and later adaptation to limited light in displays. I don't have a par meter but it would seem to me that a light blue vs. white might cut ambient reflected light by 15%.

They must be some heavy tanks Cten,

 

[ALTI]

bending over all day will make the day seem twice as long and everything twice as heavy. i have a few 300 gallon rubbermaids that are on the ground and workling in them sucks. anything set on the ground is going to be trouble IMO. theres also no way to siphon gunk off the bottom unlless u use some sort of powerhead.

my 12" prop tanks are all on top of tables used for cutting material in factories. they can be bought in widths of 60" and 84" and come in 4 foot sections . They have adjustable feet, so they can be raised or lowered 6".

 

[hamburglar]

Thats the only thing holding me back from using a 12 foot overground swimming pool with a greenhouse dropped on top of it. Yes....I have actually thought that plan out.

 

[RedSonja]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7840324#post7840324 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by hamburglar
Thats the only thing holding me back from using a 12 foot overground swimming pool with a greenhouse dropped on top of it. Yes....I have actually thought that plan out.

You too, eh?

-Sonja

 

[hamburglar]

Yep, it is nearly perfect except for the bending over to work part.

 

[rick rottet]

me too. i keep telling my wife that after the kids are grown and gone, i'm going to turn our pool into a giant spawning arena with a greenhouse over it. ours is 24' X 4'

 

[Brock Fluharty]

I am doing that in my basement, but not a 12 foot pool, lol. More like a kiddie pool, made of plastic. I am going to have MH's on a trolley system, like shown on that guys huge tank in Large Tank forum, where the lights can slide to the side, so you can work in the tank. ater movement won't be hard, several high flow powerheads all pointed sideways to create a whirlpool action, but for the skimmer...that's another story! Lol.

 

[Steven Pro]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7834105#post7834105 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Steven Pro
Yeah, that is them, although your hyperlink is messed up. They have a newer item that is not on their online catalog. It measures 48" wide by 96" long by 30" tall, approximately 600 gallons. I ordered 12 of those, but have not received them yet.

Well, my tubs came in today. Unfortunately, the shipping company has made life difficult. They were supposed to be on two pallets, six stacked high, nested. The shipping people wanted to jam more freight in their truck, so they stacked them 11 high on one pallet with one throw on top of a bunch of other boxes. All the tubs seem to be fine, except that I can't get the bottom 5 unstuck from one another. Have you ever gotten a couple of buckets stuck together? Imagine trying to yank 200 pounds tubs apart. Otherwise, they are nice and sturdy and exactly what I was looking for.

By the way, I forgot to mention that the shipping company put them in a freezer truck with about a million frozen chocolate chip cookies. So, not only were they weighted down and jammed together, they were also frozen solid.

 

[GreshamH]

Did they kick you any cookies Steve?

Guess the tubs are a bit to large to do the hot water trick :lol: Nestable, yup, perfect fit :lol:

 

[rick rottet]

maybe use an orbital sander (without the sandpaper) to vibrate them while you are pulliing them apart?

 

[hamburglar]

Air Compressor? I work for a yacht builder and the guys in lamination seperate 100 foot hulls from the molds by injecting air.

Or submerge them in something like a swimming pool (eliminate the weight) and inject a water stream between them.

 

[H20ENG]

Ditto.
Thats probably how the fiberglass guy got them off of his mold

Dont do too much at once and run the risk of cracking it. Fill it a bit and tap around the base with a rubber mallet.

 

[raaden]

Steven,

It may also be that since they were in a freezer truck there was some thermal contraction going on as well. You might try taking the top one and filling it with ice or the bottom and soaking in hot water to see if it will contract just a bit and free up.

Alti,
You are in a greenhouse right, what do you see as far as temp swings on hot and cold days with the shallower tanks. They seem like they would be much easier to work in, but I am afraid of the water volume not being sufficient to keep stable temps.

 

[ALTI]

im not in a greenhouse. the property taxes alone would put me out of business here in northern jersey. only way i can afford to grow under lights is because i have really low overhead and am in the middle of a really expensive market. being in a basement, i have almost no temp problems. the temp stays from 65-75 without any heating or cooling. i use more electricity in winter to raise the temp than in the summer. Ive had to use heaters until the last month or so.