New broodstock- and maturity system

[LuckyFish]

Hi guys, thought for all the picture junkies, I post some of my new broodstock- and maturity system. There where the pepsi bottle is standing, I´m planning a shrimp broodstock system for four different species. At this stage I set up one tank on top, one in the middle and the filter underneath. The sump is right next to the filter.

This is the second skimmer I built and I use the 3000 bubbleblaster pump. Still have to finish the pre-(milk-) filter.

That is the filter in German-style, no DSB wanted! I filled it today, but still need to fetch another 400 litre to run the system.

How it works is explained below. Take note, the German thinks twice and does it once. No need to cross pipes at all!

This picture explains the weird looking plumbing from the last two pictures above. I´m running the system with a 5000 litre waterblaster pump with 60 watts power consumption. So to get enough current into the tanks, but saving some electricity, I decided to pump the water only in the top tanks. From there, their overflow leads as a return into the tanks below. Note, the tanks are drilled in the middle of the back. The overflow pipe inside of each tank can be moved horizontal. Which allows me to drain 50% of the system, while the system can still run. So I can add every day 50 or 100 litre fresh NSW without changing parameters to quick.

 

[LuckyFish]

Filter and sump are joined with 50mm fittings.

That is probably the safest way to join sumps. Straight from one into the other will cause problems, but the S-type plumbing will take out the tension from the glass.
I filled up 5cm of the filter, then 5 cm of the sump, then 5cm more of the filter and so on. To make sure that both tanks are settle equally onto the styrofoam.

The left top and middle tanks are 1200mm divided in four tanks (300x450x450). The coming tanks on the right will be divided by three (400x450x450) .

 

[Johan van Aardt]

very intresting show and tell marcell. still have no idee whats going on there.....

 

[LuckyFish]

very intresting show and tell marcell. still have no idee whats going on there.....

Why? To many pipes for you? I cut one part out for you. Better now?

The tap is for the top tank and the overflow on the right feeds the tank below. The overflow from the tank below ends up in the pipe that leads to the skimmer.
All this times 4 at the moment and later times 7 in total. That simple, isn´t it?

 

[Achilles]

wow Marcel very neat work well done!!!Wish i had the patience/will to do such neat work

 

[MistaOrange]

Nice setup Marcel looking awesome & lol like the plumbing

 

[FransSny]

Very nice setup Marcel, well done as usual

 

[Steve Warren]

Hi Marcel, which four species of shrimp do you intend to breed.

 

[Slummies]

very nice work there!

 

[magman]

Great work there, and I wish you all the best in your efforts, if you want a pair of boxing, you got a pair in richards bay!!!! Infact I think you should come get them your self........

 

[LuckyFish]

Hi Marcel, which four species of shrimp do you intend to breed.

Steve, I am planning to do the sexy shrimp, peppermint, harlequin and the fire shrimp.
Sexy shrimp shouldn't be a problem, peppermint as well. To raise the harlequin shouldn't be problem too, but weaning them off seastars might be impossible. But I believe there must be a way to get them off seastars. The fire shrimp is probably the most difficult one. Not in terms of settlement, more in terms of their cannibalistic habits.

 

[LuckyFish]

Thanks for the compliments, guys.
@magman, thanks for the offer. I would love to come up to Richards Bay, but I cant even go up Table mountain as I have to feed my babies every 4-5 hours.

 

[clinton stanford]

awesome work Marcel best of luck with this project.

 

[viper357]

Very impressive Mr Marcel.

Why not swop the Harlequin for something simpler and more sell-able like the Cleaner shrimp?

 

[LuckyFish]

Very impressive Mr Marcel.

Why not swop the Harlequin for something simpler and more sell-able like the Cleaner shrimp?

Dean, you are wrong. The cleaner shrimp is the most popular shrimp in the trade and it goes for 150 to 195 Rand. Until settlement it takes around 120 days. For sure I could produce huge quantities, but because of the time involved, there is no money to make.
Harlequins would become the most popular shrimp if they would take frozen or dry food.
The larvae is much harder than any other marine shrimp larvae. Imagine I could produce weaned harlequins. I would be the only one world wide. Now we are talking big bucks as the harlequin goes here already for 250 each.
So I want to find a way to wean them as I dont believe that they live on seastars only. The shrimp larvae does not eat seastars and I doubt that a settled tiny harlequin would eat seastars.
Full time breeding means, you have to make money and forget about the species you really love. The more money a full time breeder can make, the more money can be used for R+D.

 

[Anemone]

Well done Marcel

 

[viper357]

Dean, you are wrong. The cleaner shrimp is the most popular shrimp in the trade and it goes for 150 to 195 Rand. Until settlement it takes around 120 days. For sure I could produce huge quantities, but because of the time involved, there is no money to make.
Harlequins would become the most popular shrimp if they would take frozen or dry food.
The larvae is much harder than any other marine shrimp larvae. Imagine I could produce weaned harlequins. I would be the only one world wide. Now we are talking big bucks as the harlequin goes here already for 250 each.
So I want to find a way to wean them as I dont believe that they live on seastars only. The shrimp larvae does not eat seastars and I doubt that a settled tiny harlequin would eat seastars.
Full time breeding means, you have to make money and forget about the species you really love. The more money a full time breeder can make, the more money can be used for R+D.

Well best of luck to you, I hope you're successful.

 

[Steve Warren]

Dean, you are wrong. The cleaner shrimp is the most popular shrimp in the trade and it goes for 150 to 195 Rand. Until settlement it takes around 120 days. For sure I could produce huge quantities, but because of the time involved, there is no money to make.
Harlequins would become the most popular shrimp if they would take frozen or dry food.
The larvae is much harder than any other marine shrimp larvae. Imagine I could produce weaned harlequins. I would be the only one world wide. Now we are talking big bucks as the harlequin goes here already for 250 each.
So I want to find a way to wean them as I dont believe that they live on seastars only. The shrimp larvae does not eat seastars and I doubt that a settled tiny harlequin would eat seastars.
Full time breeding means, you have to make money and forget about the species you really love. The more money a full time breeder can make, the more money can be used for R+D.

I think the harlequins would be a better choice too, plus guys that live close to the coast can still get pincushion stars if there are hiccups in weaning them. I read somewhere about guys using frozen starfish, but cannot remember where.

 

[LuckyFish]

Let's face it. Breeding seahorses, mandarins and harlequins only makes sense when the offspring can be weaned. Otherwise the livefood production eats the profit before they get sold.

 

[Dane]

marcell - this is an awesome setup! Thank you so much for sharing. Really neat and tidy - can see the german precision ;-)