Grow out Tank setup for settling planktonic creatures.

[SimonB]

Hi All,

I live just on the edge of the sea in Indonesia, and I also do a lot of diving / photography at night observing the post larval stages of fish/crustaceans etc. So much so I recently wrote a book about it. To this point when trying to identify many of these animals we ran into trouble when attampting to identify them, as such I can see a need/purpose in growing out some of these little critters to see exactly what species they turn into.

I have a ready supply of seawater that I can pump up into holding tanks, which I am thinking I can then either allow gravity to let this flow down and back to the sea via the aquariums that I set up and fill it up every few days, or I can do a sump style system with say 10 tanks for each animal, let that cycle though and then do water changes every week or so.

Key to me is minimalising the amount of time I have to pump from the sea, I'd rather have 10 tons of holding tanks and pump less often if that makes sense.

Tank wise I am thinking to use cheap 12 gallon plexiglass tanks plumbed with overflows (possible with some extra glass in there to make kreisel tanks), with one or two additional high quality tanks for photography of the subjects to monitor how they develop.

For feeding them, I can start up some cultures, but as the animals get larger I can also just go out at night and catch a netful of plankton from a torch light.

I'm coming from Aquaponic background (30,000 l setup), and studied Marine Biology but never kept marine aquarium fish due to personal choices.

My questions for you:

Would I still need a protein skimmer on the holding tanks or the sump?

How long do you think I could run the water through the ~300gallon (1000l) sump before I would need to change it out?

As I mentioned before, holding tanks are not a problem as I can hide them up on the hill in our property, but we don't want to pump new water up very often.

Thank you for any advice. Attached is an example of one of the many larval forms we encounter out at night.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

You’d need to keep flow in the tanks or the organics rot.
You may also run into issues with the same organics in the pipe as well.
Some are gonna be alive. And not that small.

How often you change the water , in your case , will depend on what’s coming in as far as nutrients.

A skimmer in the sump would probably be a good idea still , just for oxygenation.


Def look at the Scripps institute in San Diego and the Birch aquarium.
They pump water up the hill to the institute and the aquarium. They regularly back flush the system and all the water goes through a sand filter.

 

[tripdad]

Sounds very interesting! I would ask/ encourage you to continue sharing if you can. I am sure many of us would love to see these animals in a way that we never get the chance to see them. Best of luck!