My new hatchery (56k beware)

[CaptiveMarine]

OK, everyone's posting photos of their new breeding setups, and I thought I'd share what I have done so far on mine. After loosing my reef tanks to the hurricane I decided to focus more on the fish breeding end of the hobby, and less on the reef tank, and I started planning. I've had a lot of suggestions from Edgar and Frank on another forum. The hatchery is not finished yet, but I should have water in it by the weekend.

Before the pictures I thought I'd share a little info about the setup. This section consists of 33 tanks and will be the broodstock and larvae tanks. Once I get these up and running I will start on the grow out tanks. I know Edgar, I will split the larvae tanks to a seperate system when I get the time.

The tanks:

• 12 fifteen gallon tanks
• 4 twenty-nine gallon tanks
• 3 thirty gallon long tanks
• 2 twhety gallon long tanks

And now, for a few pictures of the setup. Please excuse the mess, I'm still in the building process.

[CaptiveMarine]

Here is a shot of the hatchery. I still have to add the rest of the tanks and the plywood shelves to the racks in this shot.



Here is the rack of 30 longs:



The 20 highs:



The 15 gallon tanks:



And the 29 gallon and 20 long rack:

[CaptiveMarine]

Time to start on the plumbing. Here's some shots before I got started.





And lots of uni-seals:



My sump and a start to the tank drains:



And a close up of the 4" drain lines:

[CaptiveMarine]

Now I've started working on the lines to connect the tanks to the drains.

Spa-flex and uni-seals are your friends:





Closeup



View behind the tanks:




And the first tank is connected:

[CaptiveMarine]

The first batch of supplies got here today.



My new Sequence pump (7000 gph):



And my new skimmer, an ASM G-6. I really want to try this thing out.



That's all the pictures I have right now. I got a lot more work done on it today, and I'll have to remember to take pictured of it tomorrow.

[Muligan]

wow gonna be a sweet setup.

[Kathy55g]

How do those uniseals work? How big a hole do you drill, and for what size pipe? Where do you get a drill bit big enough to accomodate them?

[CaptiveMarine]

Originally posted by Kathy55g
How do those uniseals work? How big a hole do you drill, and for what size pipe? Where do you get a drill bit big enough to accomodate them?

The uni-seals I'm using here are 1" uniseals and the use the same size hole as most 1" bulkheads, 1 3/4". I used a glass hole saw to drill the tanks, and a 1 3/4" wood hole saw for the pvc.

The uni-seals are great. Just drill the hole in the tank, insert the uni-seal, and push a piece of pipe through it.

[brandonberry]

Do you use any silicone or anything with the uni-seal? No leaking at all? Have you thought about what you are going to breed? What kind of paint did you use on the back of the tanks?

[CaptiveMarine]

Originally posted by brandonberry
Do you use any silicone or anything with the uni-seal? No leaking at all? Have you thought about what you are going to breed? What kind of paint did you use on the back of the tanks?

Nope, no silicone. It's a compression fitting. When you try to insert your first pipe through a uni-seal you'll see what I mean.

The paint is just a regular semi-gloss acrylic house paint.

What am I going to breed? I'm still narrowing the list down, but at first I'm going to try working with a couple of the more hard to find clownfish and a couple of different wrasses (I love the 4-line wrasse). Once I finish this section I'll be adding another seperate setup for seahorses.

[clownfish75]

Looks great, plenty to play with and certainly heaps of space to keep you busy for a while.

I havent read all the thread, but 2 bits of advice.

GEt a UV steralizer that is large for the added security to your best breeding pair that is the first to get osme freaky disease.

And i like your main drain wood supports from the floor, but can y ou bolt the pipes to something, either the wall or the back of the stand, make it much less risky for spills etc, less chance of it falling over.

Good luck, looks great, want to come do mine now.

Christian

[CaptiveMarine]

GEt a UV steralizer that is large for the added security to your best breeding pair that is the first to get osme freaky disease.

Already got that covered. I've got two 40 watt units ready to go now.

And i like your main drain wood supports from the floor, but can y ou bolt the pipes to something, either the wall or the back of the stand, make it much less risky for spills etc, less chance of it falling over.

It's actually very stable. One end goes through the side of the sump, and the other end make a 90 degree turn. I've got pipe straps that will secure it to the wood supports once I'm sure I don't need to move anything.

[BlackOnyx]

how does the water get out and back in? I only see the one opening on all the tanks?

[clownfish75]

Cool sound slike you have a good handle on it all, good luck, keep us posted

Christian

[Peter Schmiedel]

Jim,

I have never heard of the uniseal in Europe, can you pleae give me more details or any link which gives more produkt details? What is the rough cost per piece?

Thanks in advance.

[CaptiveMarine]

Peter,

The only place I've ever seen them is at Aquatic Ecosystems. Here is a link to them. I bought 72 of them and paid $2.28 each for them. Much cheeper than bulkheads.

BlackOnyx,

I haven't got the returns plumbed yet. I'll start on that today. It's going to be a big closed loop with 3/4" pipes comming off to feed each tank.

[BlackOnyx]

So your drilling them all again?

[jaybro]

I've got the same pump driving a header tank for one of my systems. I love it, but it came wired for 230v. That was easily fixed! It's still an electric hog though. ={

I've also had pretty good luck with uniseals, though I've had some 20gallon square acrylics crack (just one actually) while inserting the pipe through the seal. That was a bummer. I've never had a problem with using them on glass tanks of atleast 1/4" thickness though.

Post pics when your done! Are you using a header tank, or are you going to keep all the feeds presurized?

[Kathy55g]

Originally posted by BlackOnyx
So your drilling them all again?

No. Return pipes go over the top. Why would you drill?

[CaptiveMarine]

Originally posted by Kathy55g
No. Return pipes go over the top. Why would you drill?

Exactyl. It's going to be one big closed loop with a 3/4" line comming off for each tank.

I didn't get much done on this system today, so no new pictures, but I did get my coral prop system set up and running, two 6' 75 gallon tubs with a 100 gallon sump. Now I just need the lights which will be here Friday.

jaybro,

I did crack two of the 15 gallon tanks when I put the pipe through the uni-seal. I hate it when I do that. I'm going to glue some patchs on those two tanks and use them for rotifers.

[Julio]

nice hachetry!!

[BlackOnyx]

are you using any mech and chem filtration? Any LR?

[CaptiveMarine]

Originally posted by BlackOnyx
are you using any mech and chem filtration? Any LR?

There are two 100 micron filter socks in the the sump for the mechanical filtration. In these I can put some carbon when needed. There is no live rock or sand in the system.

[skinpuppi]

I am very new to the concept of a hatchery, but is 2 filter bags going to hold enough bacteria for filtration of a system that large?

How often and how large are the water changes that you plan on making?

[BlackOnyx]

Yeah how are you going to hold any bacteria then in bare bottom tanks?