Where can I find info on large scale coral farming?

[jake levi]

Raaden you watch UFC too huh ? He is an awesome fighter.

Re: the wood for vats, marine is the only way to go, it will last a long time, I dont know how old Dick Perin's are but more then a dozen years old anyhow. That is basically his design in the Tony Calfo article on Bob Fenners site. Fiberglass tanks the size of Dicks' would be prohibitive in cost.

Stoney check out Ctenophore's builder, you're right in the neighborhood.

[jake levi]

Something I should have thought of long ago for this thread,

for those of you in the Gulf Coast , Fla and Txs areas,

years ago, for my thesis project I did intensive culture of Tilapia in a recirculating system, I had 3 replications, all donated above ground swimming pools, 5000-6000 gal sizes. Filtration was sand filters in 55 gal barrels and one bio wheel per pool. This was BEFORE Organic Gardening/Rodale started advertising their version. I always thought they got the idea from my project. Anyhow, no reason why it wouldnt work in the south for corals.

Sorry didnt think of it sooner. You could grow the corals on tables or just not fill the pool as deep. But in the south a 4' depth may well be just what is needed. Put the frags in some kind of plastic basket. 5,000 gallons of water should grow a lot of corals. Fish too.

Stoneys mention of sinking a pool jogged the memory.

Anyone wants to use the idea you can pm me for where to send the royalties.

[Stoney Mahony]

There is a place around here where you can buy used AG pools. I have a friend that bought 12 earlier this year for spawning his koi. I believe he paid $200-$300 ea and got a price break for buying 12. I never really thought of only filling them up half way.....You could walk in between rows of eggcrate. You could also adjust the water level depending on the conditions for more or less light. I think I would make layered shelves within the pool so the SPS/high light corals would be on top and zoos/softies could be underneath. You could make pull out shelves within the pool which would make harvesting easy. Even if you did something like Anthelia on the bottom, it would be like a bumper crop for whenever your running short on your main corals. Awesome idea, and definately a good price looking at $/gal. It just might be a little tricky to work in.

[Whaledriver]

Just to toss out another idea... for a 1000 gallon system skimmer

The top an collection cup
A simple cone of clear plastic with a 3 to 4 inch hole at the top. The cone would have a clear plastic ring about 10 inches high placed over it about half way from the center that would be glued over the cone thus acting as the collection cup.
"sorry I dont have a drawing"
The water foam input area
Basicly copy a Bubble king central riser tube witha turbulance plate.

Output water
Again copya bubble king design and have the return water collect under the central riser.

Main tube for skimmer
32 Gallon Rubbermaid Brute garbage can.
The collection cup would simply sit on the ring on the inside of the garbage can. Just lift it off for maintanence.

It would be simple to make this a recirculating design with a 2 minute contact time and a flow through rate of 16 GPM. As far as the foam goes you could use one of the Sequance pumps with a pin wheel. Another option is to use a blower and about 20 limewood airstones, much cheaper to operate.

I am seriously thinking of this becouse of the cost of some of these big skimmers is prohibitive.

On the issue of big central skimmer on multi tank systems, has anyone dedicated the skimmer output to just one tank? I was thinking of doing this and haveing SPS in that tank while a mixed reef in all the other tanks. Would the water quality in that dedicated skimmer output tank be that much better?

Thanks

[redox]

i run an rk2 on one vat and yes the water is clean .no other means of filtration other than that . I had that idea also about using a rubbermaid 40 gal trash can,just mount a collection throat to the lid. that is how i cycled the last shipment of live rock

[ctenophore]

I made fiberglass bodies for my skimmers to save money; they're better suited for GH applications since they're white (less heatgain) and more durable than even a brute trashcan. Here's a photo of one I made for a friend in town to test the Dart needlewheel:
http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...hreadid=942792

"Sputnik" performs on par with a Deltec AP1004, I know this because I have the Deltec and this skimmer right next to each other on the same system. Sputnik pulls out maybe a bit more than the Deltec. I haven't put the bubbleplate in yet; John has one in his. I wanted to compare efficiency between the two, so far there doesn't seem to be much difference. They both draw about 180 watts between the Dart and the Alita.

As for the single skimmer and multiple tanks; our main systems are (4) 16x4 tanks plumbed together. The 7' version of this fiberglass skimmer dumps into one. I don't think it makes a difference because it's fed from all 4 tanks' surface water equally. One tank might have a bit more of the "cleaner" water, but it's relative since the water is pretty clean to begin with.

[Whaledriver]

Nice skimmer, when I get that far I will keep it in mind, thanks.

[RedSonja]

Lots of good info lately y'all, thanks for all the links and stuff. I have been reading along but not posting because I am up to my eyeballs in figuring out the not-fun business stuff like break-even and cash-flow analysis and marketing and pricing and profit margins, gah! I know it's going to help me in the long run but it's so very tedious. I'm taking a "REAL Entrepreneurship" class through a local community college, the focus is to get you through ten weeks of once a week 3 hour sessions with a good start on all aspects of a business plan. If anyone else is in the business plan writing stage I highly recommend the class if it's offered in your area. And now back to number crunching...

-Sonja

[vest0830]

Back from the dead, I was finally able to go take pics of the faculity which I talked about in this thread. I thought it would be useful to throw a link in here

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...readid=1021036

[ReefBuddha]

thanks!

[BallaBooyeaH]

WOW - What a great read for 4 hours getting through this all. Glad I am getting paid to be at work doing all of this research.

Head is still spinning - I must say reading all of this has given me more concerns on starting my own PT - main problem is the outlet from Ireland where I am based to get to the main wholeseller in the UK as the Irish market is small.
Can I ask if anyone knows of any PT setup in Eurpoe? I want to know what competition there is if any. I know most of the large Wholeseller.

Thanks for the read.

Andrew

[Whaledriver]

There is a great thread following a aquaculture startup

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...readid=1065896