Fish House Heating

[brooksbychris]

hello, dint know where to put this one, but i am just wondering on whats the best way to heat a shed, the fish are going to be marine btw and i will be heating around 30 tanks in a 12x8 shed?
just getting a list together for now, a really good plan. now that trop marine have strick laws on moving and surely people would want tank breed fish rather than wild caught, that could have had poisions used on them and other ways to catch them.
one of my lectures used to sell around 500 easy a month, seen some of his stock thats around 5 years old today and they look mint. best looking clowns i have seen in a long time will post pics soon.

thanks for reading chris lucas

 

[mlawson]

First of all make sure you have a load of insulation, over the whole place. I think a lot of people use space heating, and then a fan to circulate it some more. Personally I would have individual heaters in each tank too, just for backup.

 

[brooksbychris]

thanks for reply, i will be ordering a ton of insulation. i am thinking of sumping the racks. so i can heat them that way.

do people think there is the market?

i dont realy want to sump cuz then you have all the pumps to but and the electric will rise though the roof. i know people have breed with spong filters in the past and reg water changes.

do you think some one will do a good deal on the 30 x 3ft tanks.

just worked out thats around 600 gallon

 

[PaulEbs]

I personally would rather back up the heating in the fish house by having a spare room heater, rather than buying an individual heater for each and every tank. In the long run it will probably save you money and effort.

For a job lot of tanks your best bet is checking out a few random local 'for sale' sites, or newspapers/magazines. You can sometimes see people selling a bunch of tanks on Ebay, although the chances of them being local to you is small.

I'm not a marine keeper, and don't have too much knowledge in that area - but if you want pristine conditions and your spending a 'bit' anyway, why not go the extra yard and install sumps?

Paul

 

[CFC]

The trouble with heating the room is that you do get some fluctuation in temperature and i dont know how marine fish will handle that, freshwater fish are used to it but marine enviroment stay pretty stable. I would go with a sump for each rack and place heaters in the sumps, buy the lowest wattage pumps you can get for the lowest turn over you can get away with. Even with pumps running the cost should be less than buying salt for regular water changes.

 

[andywg]

Temp swings of 2-4 degrees a day are no problems for marine fish. It's only deep water fish that need very stable conditions. Reef heads and (especially) lagoons are open to variations from the sun during the day and the movement of the tides. Seeing heat shimmers from differing temperature zones is not uncommon.

The fry would probably prefer warmer temps, but you could just throw a heater in a few fry grow out tanks.

Rather than many tanks for a sumped system, why not have just one large pump with the flow split off to all the different tanks? It's what I would do.

 

[PaulEbs]

Rather than many tanks for a sumped system, why not have just one large pump with the flow split off to all the different tanks? It's what I would do.

That sounds like a good idea, but you'd have no individual control of the different tanks water. Although I bet you could pick up a ready-made one from a fish shop that's updating it's tanks, or closing down?

 

[andywg]

That sounds like a good idea, but you'd have no individual control of the different tanks water. Although I bet you could pick up a ready-made one from a fish shop that's updating it's tanks, or closing down?

That's why you have a tap or valve going into every tank.

 

[brooksbychris]

it sounds like a good way of using the one sump, and then have valves on to control the flow rates etc, i only say this becuase i know that the lavae will not like the flow also they could flow down into the sump. maby i could turn it off at breeding stage and then turn back on when the fry are large enough to swim.

again, do people think there is the market?
wot would you prefer? i know what i would.

i am thinking the top tank could be sepperate filters with heaters and then have the others on a sump system.

thanks chris

 

[andywg]

A market for what? Captive bred fish? There is a market, but how good I don't know.

Banggai cardinalfish are endangered yet cost far more to raise in captivity than the lfs can buy wholesale from the wild, so the fish will always have a premium.