Budget Aquaculture

[Sweet Reefer]

Hi Anthony,

I am an aspiring coral farmer enjoying studying your book. I was wondering if you had any input regarding economic shortcuts in systems setup for aquaculture. I can not afford large amounts of aragonite sand and live rock, and I was wondering if there may be alternative serviceable if not ideal methodologies.

I have a couple ideas for how to accomplish this:

1) Natural - large refugium volume with thin sand bed and modest amount of live rock for ammonia conversion and diversity. Nutrient export via macroalgae. Thinking this method takes advantage of the relative economy of water volume versus rock and sand.

2) Artificial - small trickle filter for ammonia conversion well maintained with mechanical filter media ahead of biomedia so it isn't just a nitrate factory. Then skimming and chemical media for nutrient export. Or maybe algae turf scrubber in place of media keeping economics in mind.

3) Any combination of the above. I would really like to hear how you would approach growing an aquaculture business from a basement rigged up system and limited funds if you would indulge in a sort of reverse fantasy(nightmare?).

Side Note: This theoretical system would be for hardy soft corals. I have a legitimate sand and rock filled system for Scleractinians, but I don't want to contaminate it with toxic softies.

Thank you for being such an awesome resource; I believe you are one of the single biggest forces in helping to reduce our hobby's impact on the environment!

 

[HookedOnReefing]

Depending on the volume of your softy system, you could get away with employing a properly sized protein skimmer and frequent water changes for a smaller system.

If the water volume of your system prohibits you from doing frequent water changes, cost prohibitive and time consuming, you could employ a sand filter for bio filtration (buy a larger one from the local pool store or DIY), or a filter tower filled with lots of bio-balls (easy to DIY) AND employ a properly sized Nitrate filter (also DIY) as the aforementioned bio filtration methods are not very good at converting nitrates into nitrogen gas. Off-course still use a properly sized foam fractionator.

 

[Sweet Reefer]

Thanks for the suggestions, that makes a lot of sense.

Anybody have an idea of how much square footage a 250 watt halide pendant would cover over a 12" deep saltwater pond for medium and low light demanding softies? Thinking maybe 3' x 3' with the light 18" above the water?

 

[plack]

It depends on the type of reflector and the height above the tank.
I have 3 of those on a 24" deep 180 tank for sps/lps lights are less than 12" above the water. covering the bottom wich is 2X6

 

[Sweet Reefer]

I thought I would add to this thread my current plan. I realized that I could kill two birds and use the change water from my SPS system to change water in a hardy softie system since it would only be lacking in calcium and alk mostly and would be a great recycling method and work fine for a toxic soup tank full of leathers and star polyps.

Filtration wise, I think a half inch of sand could probably process as much ammonia as a tank full of live rock then macro to absorb the nitrate and bam - ghetto reefer corals inc. is born.

How much waste do corals give off by themselves really, does anyone have a tank full of corals that isn't at least moderately stocked with fish? I wonder how much of the necessary processing is due to corals as opposed to fish bioload. I do realize it is significant with each one peeing in the pool, but it has to be quite a bit less than the typical reef tank with a couple big fish, a bunch of little ones and a moray eel here and there.

 

[Gordonious]

I'm doing things very small scale at this point, but I recycle water a good bit. Especially from my established tanks into my qt or hospital tanks. Going from the SPS system to the softy system would probably work well.

Jon

 

[russellaqua]

Biofiltration in a softies tank isn't a big problem. The corals themselves add little bioload. I've had tanks completely filled with nothing but soft corals. Your main concern will be chemical warfare (allelopathy). Agressive skimming, carbon filtration, water changes, and a large system volume in comparison to the amount of coral will all help alleviate the problem. Allelopathy can result in poor growth rates, and even death of some corals in extreme cases. Heavily stocked tanks will also benefit from the addition of trace elements, and microscopic food for filter feeders. Most softies are largely photosynthetic, but thrive best when they have both food sources available. As for lighting, a 250W MH 12" about the surface could probably cover 2.5-3 feet since the corals don't need huge amounts of light. Typically the rule is 1 light for every 2 feet. Make sure you have a square reflector if you want to cover 3x3 feet, because rectangular reflectors are designed to spread light out in only 1 direction.

 

[Gordonious]

I realized something wrong with what you said earlier, "it would only be lacking in calcium and alk" If this system is to produce corals for sale or trade and not as display it should never be lacking in either. Yes the presence of SPS will effect these two water parameters, but if your only meathod of fixing this is water changes and it goes threw sharp swings it will be very detrimental to the animals. You should be adding calcium and currecting the alk constantly if possible through carefull drips or some sort of reactor.

If your doing the water changes to currect these water parameters it is an expensive and time consuming way to do so.

 

[greenmonkey51]

I don't think he meant only controlling calc and alk through water changes. I thinks its just worded funny. A good way to save some money is going barebottom and using rubble live rock. Filling a sump with a good amount of rubble would be enoughf filtration. Also using T-5's on softies and overall shallow tanks. Even with these couple shortcuts, I don't think budget and aquaculture go together. It takes a pretty good sized operation to break even, unless you hit a little niche somewhere. I think a nice prop tank would be a lot easier.

 

[russellaqua]

Budget and aquaculture is hard to do. I agree finding niche markets is one way to go. If you're doing softies neon green Nephthea is great. It grows like mad and often sells for around $75/inch. Blue Cepistularia would be good too. Unusual morphs of zoos and cloves can fetch hefty prices. You just have to find the market to sell them effectively so that you can recoup your investment. Unfortunately, you usually have to spend a ton on livestock to get the morphs you really want. With unusual zoos, like Darth Mauls, you can be looking at $100 for a couple polyps. Red halos often sell for $25/polyp.

 

[Sweet Reefer]

Haven't checked this thread for a few days; great responses, thanks guys!

Budget is definitely a relative thing. I was just wondering about it after reading Anthony's book advocating DSB's in grow out tanks and knowing how much aragonite sand costs... I just thought, you know, ammonia conversion through live rock rubble/thin sand bed then macroalgae for nutrient export would be a lot cheaper and should work. I just want to shoestring it along and hope it will pay for a proper greenhouse setup eventually.

I do supplement calc/alc in the stony system; sloppy thinking/writing. I was just theorizing what might be missing from the change water. Actually, since those two things are the only supp. it's probably more likely that it would need a little love in the micronute/iodine areas.

Mr. Russell especially, thank you for your input; concentrating on colorful fast growers sounds like an excellent idea. I find it to be a refreshing aspect of this hobby/industry that individuals involved in the business end of things are still willing to share information with prospective aquaculturists. Though I am a thousand miles away, I could be right next door for all available info. Anyway, very selfless of you, and I thank you.

 

[Gordonious]

Aragonitic sand may be expensive(especially if you buy it from a name brand in the hobby), but what about silica sand? To some people this may be a bad word, but I think more and more people are starting to use other sands because of the cost of aragonite.

As you read in Calfo's book(I believe he mentions this) aragonitic sand only buffers the water when the parameters are so far off just about everything you wanted to be alive in the system is already dead. That being said if you are just looking for a low flow, low oxygen area for denitrifying, I believe it doesn't matter if it is made of aragonite as long as it isn't a material that leaches anything bad into the water.

Just a thought, but never go with one man’s opinion as no one has all the answers.

Good luck

 

[Sweet Reefer]

True, thanks for the input. You can buy silica sand cheap in the concrete area of the home improvement stores and I have heard that the composition doesn't matter for DSB.

 

[tallguy64]

I Dont know if you are still looking at silica sand as an option but i personaly would say go for it. just make sure to really rinse it before you put it into your tank. I have sillica sand in my tanke that is about 2months old now... purchased a silica test kit just so i could make sure i wasnt leaching any thing. and i have seen nothing. the only reason i would ever change would be because of its light weight with higher flows in tends to move but i got my flows aimed just right and i dont have a single problem with it. though i would seed it with some live sand to speed the process of bactieria spread, and also think of let it run dirty for a week or two or three so that the bacteria are in haven.

Worked for me, didnt fillter for the first two weeks and right now i have very little problem with any alge growth, and once i get some macro alge of any sort i should nt have any at all.

just my two cents