A Major Undertaking- Eddie's Reef Farm

[Eddie]

Before I start off I would like you all to know a little bit about me. My name is Eddie Ducharme and I am only 18 years old, and barely 18 at that, and have been raised by avid fish keepers my entire life. I come from a very large Italian family(father's side) that has a very large amount of avid fish keeping hobbyists in it. My mother's side is Irish, smaller but has very skilled hobbyists within it, mainly speaking of my loving grandmother. Outside of that we have several very close friends who have been keeping fish either their whole lives or seriously at some point.

I am a strategist and love economics/marketing. I am currently employed as the irrigation manager/foreman for my family landscaping business ELDCO inc.(see if you can figure out what it stands for), and I am going to put all of these resources together to start a serious coral farm.

I am starting this journal to show my step by step processes of how I will start and maintain this business. I will keep this journal updated with every step i take, from planning to construction to stocking, maintenance and eventual expansion.

With the support of friends and family, my loving girlfriend and hopefully this community I will be able to start a successful coral farm business.

I am assuming this thread will get quite large, due to this being a very long process, so I will keep another post that I will continuously update with dates of entries and direct links to the page they can be found on along with a title, I will be titling each of my entries based on the events that occurred.

I personally am very excited for this, I am biting off a lot and I will be the first to admit that, but I am going to pour my life into this for the time being. I will do constant research on the best methods for keeping corals, how to achieve optimal growth rates, setting up my business legitimately and dealing with everything that is entailed.

I am positive my irrigation experience will sure help with this, mainly due to my irrigating experiences revolving majorly around fairly complex plumbing. Designing the farm will be a process in its own and every step of this will be a learning experience and an adventure, I cannot wait.

Wish me luck!

Eddie

[Eddie]

Table of contents

1. 2/18/09 Finding Space

[Eddie]

Entry One- February 18th, 2009

-Finding Space-

Well, naturally the first place I look is my house, but will the space be enough. my basement is finished but the carpet is trashy and the floor under that is solid concrete so this is my best bet thus far I have yet to measure it but it's current look is this--

1
http://i605.photobucket.com/albums/tt133/ELDx/020.jpg
2
http://i605.photobucket.com/albums/tt133/ELDx/021.jpg
3
http://i605.photobucket.com/albums/tt133/ELDx/022.jpg
4
http://i605.photobucket.com/albums/tt133/ELDx/023.jpg

Picture's 1-3 are the basic layout of the basement that I'd be willing to use. Picture four is the room you can see the door to in picture 3 and this has an equal size room parallel to it that can be seen in picture one on the left. These could potentially be used as rooms for a sump system.

Just my first idea for placement, I'm meeting with my father, cousin and girlfriend later this week to talk about business plans, where to place it, a name and when to officially launch the construction, pending the completion of our first task.

[AABatteries]

Awesome, that looks like a fun project.

But let me get this straight... you're pretty much making a frag-tank mania in your basement and you plan to open it as a shop?

[Eddie]

yes AA, that is the plan, but the basement was just my first Idea but you can see, it has flaws, having strangers in my house for 8-10 hours a day 6 days a week would not be the smartest idea.

[PostalPenguin]

Best of luck! However, I would suspect the humidity of all those tanks would cause problems with the walls and eventually structure of the house.

[Eddie]

Best of luck! However, I would suspect the humidity of all those tanks would cause problems with the walls and eventually structure of the house.


exactly, that's one of the main reasons I'm posting this here step by step. More brains thinking on one subject is much more likely to point out everything. I think I'm going to look into buy a building or converting most of my shop.

[AABatteries]

Would you be keeping fish also?

You should look into renting or leasing a building, that may be a better way to go.

[Eddie]

well, I've been doing research into what fish to keep with coral farms and it is suggested to keep tangs and mandarins to keep up with the algae and various little organisms that accompany a saltwater tank that could potentially be unwanted.

[Rue]

The humidity would wreck your house unless you had some serious (and expensive) ventilation installed.

Even the ceiling and walls in the space our reef store rents are having issues...more than I would have considered given that the front door would provide a source of air movement...

[cocoa_pleco]

all you need to help with humidity is a dehumidifier. i have a large one in my basement to take care of the humidity from the tanks

[Eddie]

I'm going to go down to my shop and see how much room I can make, I'm thinking this would be the smartest idea, even if I had to add onto the shop a little, it's no big deal really, adding on could even prove to make construction easier as I could build my building AROUND the tanks system and build a separate sumping room.

[Eddie]

Entry Two- February 26th, 2009

-Space Found, Design Time-

Alright, so basically over the past week/two I've been contemplation how large to make this farm. Initially I wanted to go all out right away but at this time, and certainly in this economy, that makes no sense. I was able to get the full rights to use a large room in my family business's office for my use. This room is about 30'x15' and will serve me as a good first nesting place to let my business take off.

I've also officially lost my first night of sleep over this project. I designed a very complex filter that, in theory, will make water changes a rarity. Not only water changes, but feeding the corals will be automatic, as well as crucial water measurements. I will eventually post my basic schematics for this. At this time I have about 10 pages of sketches and 20 pages of notes along with around 25 pages of calculations and these calculations aren't even final, although they are all balanced and should be fine, I have yet to do measuring of how i can most effectively utilize my space as a coral farm and allow space for me to go in and maintain my "crop".

[Lynn Conroy]

I know nothing but it looks and sounds very interesting and exciting.
Best of luck. I'll be looking in periodically to check things out.