Cold Water Reef Plan

[danny zubot]

Stupid question, how cold does a cold water tank have to be? My basement will keep standing water at 66F no problem.

[Coldwater]

Stupid question, how cold does a cold water tank have to be? My basement will keep standing water at 66F no problem.

In the winter the west coast of the island is about 9 degrees Celsius. 66 degrees Fahrenheit is about 19 degrees Celsius. It can be around 8-14ish degrees Celsius (46-59 degrees Fahrenheit) at the most or less. What ever you want. The ocean temperature doesn't really change temperature much during the seasons.

Matt

[Dale]

Depends on what you call cold water.

Conventional thinking is that subtidal species from our latitude will probably need temps with an upper limit of 55*F or so. You may get away with 66*F with some hardy intertidal/tidepool species as they are used to greater temp fluctuations (but they do get a regular drop of temps when the tide comes in) while some species like the three spine stickleback can take higher temps in the mid sixties. It all comes down to livestock selection.

I toyed with the idea of keeping a tank at higher temps (without a chiller) but by now I am convinced that one is needed to knock the temps below 60*F at least. In your case a small chiller combined with reduced heat inputs and evaporative cooling might be all that is needed.

[Coldwater]

Depends on what you call cold water.

Conventional thinking is that subtidal species from our latitude will probably need temps with an upper limit of 55*F or so. You may get away with 66*F with some hardy intertidal/tidepool species as they are used to greater temp fluctuations (but they do get a regular drop of temps when the tide comes in) while some species like the three spine stickleback can take higher temps in the mid sixties. It all comes down to livestock selection.

I toyed with the idea of keeping a tank at higher temps (without a chiller) but by now I am convinced that one is needed to knock the temps below 60*F at least. In your case a small chiller combined with reduced heat inputs and evaporative cooling might be all that is needed.

Sorry my bad. I should have said thats what the temperature I run my tank at. Since I have stuff from a little deeper down.

Matt

[Scavenger]

I toyed with a cold water tank a couple years ago and posted some research results at the time.
In short, I contacted the DFO and was told collection is legal with a fishing licence and you must observe quotas. (The exact email is somewhere on this forum if I remember correctly.)
As for temperature and species selection, I found this a great site for potential species.
http://hmsc.oregonstate.edu/projects/msap/index.html
And for insperation,
http://www.racerocks.com/
Hope this helps. Hmmm got me thinking of doing this again. (And I blame you all!! LOL!)