My Coral Farm

[viper357]

Hello all

I am starting up a small coral fragging farm. The outside building has been erected and we are busy installing the insulation and wiring, hope to be done with this in the next 2 days, if it stops raining.

Waiting to go in I have the following:

2 x 3ft tanks
4 x 4ft tanks
1 x 8ft tank

75 kilo's live rock which is busy curing in a 200 litre drum.

On with the pics....

The bare building


Starting with the roof insulation


Roofing finished, now insulating the walls with polystyrene, fibreglass and thermal insulation foil.




I will update this thread with pics as I go along.

[mnd123]

England ohhhhh England, dont rain on my ass

Nice going there Viper, considering the summer you have had!

[riyadhessa]

Viper good luck with the weather, lekker project...

[robvdv]

Cool! Tagging along...

[seank]

Wow, you a man of more than one talent

[dallasg]

Looks good, all the best
Posted via Mobile Device

[lIghty]

Nice Dean, Why all the insulation, get cold there?

[Mekaeel]

Damn, that is awesome. Who is doing it for you?

[lIghty]

Originally Posted by Mekaeel

Damn, that is awesome. Who is doing it for you?

He must have a "handy Man" too!

[sunburst]

Cool beans Viper. I like..I wish..o well maybe...Sorry back to you....Us South Africans know all about your green fingers and your farming exploits...We wish you the same bountiful success.
But seriously. Seems like a huge floor space...Please tease us with some planned layouts and equipment

[Prodigy]

Sweet sounds great good luck

[Adee]

Good stuff, specs of hardware setup, etc.

[scubaninja]

Originally Posted by viper357

has been erected

haha thats probably the only thing that has for ages
looks like a fun project viper!! hopefully it can pull you away from your ''other'' farm good luck viper

[viper357]

Thanks for all the nice comments guys. I will document as much as I can and take as many pics as I can, it is going to be as simple a setup as possible, I don't want to unnecessarily complicate anything.

Originally Posted by mnd123

England ohhhhh England, dont rain on my ass

Nice going there Viper, considering the summer you have had!

The summer has actually been pretty enjoyable, not looking forward to winter though, thus all the insulation.

Originally Posted by robvdv

Cool! Tagging along...

When I grow up I want to have one just like yours

Originally Posted by sean_koekemoer

Wow, you a man of more than one talent

That's what all my girlfriends say

As for Mekaeel and lIghty - shut up the pair of you.

Originally Posted by sunburst

Cool beans Viper. I like..I wish..o well maybe...Sorry back to you....Us South Africans know all about your green fingers and your farming exploits...We wish you the same bountiful success.
But seriously. Seems like a huge floor space...Please tease us with some planned layouts and equipment

Thanks, I think

I'm not 100% sure on the layout as yet, I'm still contemplating on whether or not I should run the whole lot as one system or if I should run 2 separate systems, one for LPS and softies, the other for SPS.....I think to make things easier I will probably run it all together.

The 2 x 3ft tanks will be used for LPS and softies, 2 x 4ft's for SPS, 1 x 4ft as a sump, 1 x 4ft as a DSB/Refugium and then the 8ft....not too sure what I'm going to do with that yet.

Equipment list.

Skimmers will probably be a Deltec APF600 and a v2 800, plenty of 2nd hand ones available here for cheap.

Pumps - perhaps a mixture of sunsun 3000lph and 5000lph.

Return Pumps will be Eheim and Ocean Runner.

Heaters - 4 x 150w Jager

Lighting - 150w 10k MH's and Narva true actinic T5's for the SPS tanks and then just normal T5 lighting for the rest of the tanks.

Room heating will be thermostatically controlled by the following at about 24 degrees:

LCD control panel


3 or 4 waterproof tubular heaters mounted near the bottom of the walls, probably one on each wall I think.


Plumbing will mostly be 50mm between all the tanks, all tanks will be barebottom, I plan to have a couple of fish in the system too, in the 8ft I will have 3 x yellow tangs, 1 x powder blue, 1 x blonde naso tang and then one or two other smaller fish.

I believe the rain will have stopped by tomorrow so hopefully I can get the rest of the cutting done, insulation finished, lay down the carpet and finish all the wiring. Then it will be time for the tanks to go in.

[Drk]

Would like to see the wendy finish will your investment give money bsck or is the electricity going to take all the profit for heating up that room in the winter

[crispin]

nice going viper great project nice to see u are keeping busy

i see the walls and roof of the hut are all up and done.....ummm why is the rain stopping u????

[leslie hempel]

cool tagging

[lanzo]

damn this is cool...im tagging allong!

:hoff:

[Broder]

Nice going Viper. Did you consider useing, daylight like robvdv, or is electricity still reasonably priced there?

[viper357]

Originally Posted by Drk

will your investment give money bsck or is the electricity going to take all the profit for heating up that room in the winter

Time will tell I guess, but I'm hoping to make a little bit of money. The tubular heaters are low wattage and very cost effective to run. With all the insulation in there it should hopefully maintain the warmth quite a bit.

Originally Posted by crispin

i see the walls and roof of the hut are all up and done.....ummm why is the rain stopping u????

That's why you're a farmer and not a builder.