Thinking about starting a coral farm

[reeferdude]

I have been thinking a lot lately about starting a coral farm. I am either going to build a greenhouse or build a building and just use those big agricultural bins with MH pendants hanging over them. If I do the greenhouse I am going to do 2 long bins made out of landscape timbers with the pond liners in the lincon log method. Either way for filtration I am going to have a bin/indoor pond 1.5-2x the size of all of the holding tanks that is going to be nothing but macro algae and live rock. The reason for the overkill filtration is that with this much water (lets say 8000 gallons) a 10% weekly water change (800 gallons a week) means that in 1 year I would have to throw out and mix up 41600 gallons of new salt water. My question to you guys is has anyone ever tried something like this?

 

[reefer44]

yes people have tried this...not me personally but i know/heard of a some that have pretty large scale propagations farms....
what seems to work best is to have the tubes shollow...about 8-12 inches and this allows more light because it doesn't have to penetrate that deep
also if you try and do the greenhouse thing i would make sure it is in the full sun for at least 10 hours....I assume your in texas like ur profile says? that should be pretty good lighting sense your nearer to the equator.....
Good Luck...if you have any more ?'s i might be able to help cause i am also thinking of doing this after i get out of college...and also are you planning on growing sps or soft or lps???????????????
Brad

 

[golfish]

I know a few people who have coral farms, big and small. I don't know any who have a setup like the one your planning.
If you would like some info about it contact Rocky at this e-mail address. admin@tents.net

 

[zanemoseley]

I don't see that you'll be needing all that macro algae especially for not having any fish. Corals don't produce much waste and you would be fine with just aggressive skimming. Doing water changes would be more for replacing trace elements than for reducing nitrates or other organic reasons. You'll probably just have to manually measure and dose trace elements.

 

[beth]

Now that would be a dream come true. Especially if you can make a living with it. Do you have a large extra room somewhere? How must do you expect to pay in start up?

 

[reeferdude]

Well I just moved into a new house, it is me and my 10 week old yellow lab in 2100 sq feet of house. I think I am going to build a greenhouse in the back for the corals. It is really not a for profit thing, more of a for the love of the game thing. In the end I expect to drop about 2-3 grand.

 

[robchuck]

If you haven't read it already, take a look at Anthony Calfo's book, "Book of Coral Propagation, Vol. 1". This book does a good job of discussing large-scale propagation setups and even greenhouses.

 

[reeferdude]

Lol thats what gave me the idea

 

[robchuck]

I just picked the book up over the weekend, and I already have lots of thoughts running through my head. The book has me totally pumped up to start a coral farm, but reality tells me it's a better idea to start one sometime down the road. If you go through with your idea, I look forward to reading about your progress.

 

[cayman isl]

Take a look at Walt Smith's web site..... (That is where a majority of the fiji live rock comes from).... If you click on the Fiji station link you can see pictures of how they have their prop tanks lined up. As someone mentioned, very shallow tanks and what looks like a lot of water movement!
Good Luck

 

[krishj39]

This would be very cool to setup. Definitely taking the hobby to a level beyond the majority of us. I would be highly surprised if you could set it all up for 2-3 grand though. I was thinking 10 grand was reasonable, but I admit I haven't done any research.