[Coral-List] tank experiments with corals
Charles Delbeek
delbeek at waquarium.org
Thu Jun 28 21:29:56 UTC 2007
Aloha Monika,
Depending on your experimental design, there may be ways to do this
simply and make it work. If incoming seawater temperature is steady and
reliable, you can use this to supply your holding tanks with water.
Setting up the tanks outside in full sunlight as open systems will work
only if you can keep water temps from getting too high. You can then
adjust temperature by adjusting the flow rate of the incoming water i.e.
decreasing it will cause an increase in temperature and increasing a
drop in temperature, but obviously not any lower than the incoming water
temperature (hence the importance of the incoming water temp). Another
way to control temperature would be to build raceways within the ground
by digging trenches and lining them with plastic liners such as those
used for ponds. The ground will then act as an insulator and may help
keep the temperatures a bit lower. For light levels you can use shade
cloth over a framework above the tank/raceways in layers to achieve
whatever level you want. Depending on the ambient light levels where
your corals came from, you most likely will need to use some shade cloth
anyway, and this will also help with keeping temperatures from getting
too high.
We grow south Pacific and Hawaiian corals in outdoor tanks in full
sunlight here in Hawaii. Our water comes from a saltwater well that is
25 m deep. The temperature of this water is a constant 24 oC, by varying
the incoming flow rate to each tank I can control temperature fairly
well. In the winter, tank water temps can get as low as 20 oC at night
and in the summer over 32 oC during the day. We have been growing corals
in this manner for over 25 years and have supplied over 5500 fragments
of south Pacific corals to public aquariums and coral researchers around
the world since 1992.
I really have no idea if the above will work in your situation as I have
no idea what your facility is like, where it is located relative to the
ocean, what the year round climate is like etc etc ... if you would like
further help with your project design please don't hesitate to contact
me off list.
Aloha!
--
J. Charles Delbeek
Aquarium Biologist III
Waikiki Aquarium
University of Hawaii
2777 Kalakaua Ave.
Honolulu, HI, 96815
(808) 923-9741 VOICE
(808) 923-1771 FAX
>
>
>> Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2007 15:40:02 +0200
>> From: Monika Wilhelm <monika.wilhelm at uni-rostock.de>
>> Subject: [Coral-List] tank experiments with corals
>> To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov, coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
>>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> as part of my master thesis on Reunion Island, I want to carry out tank
>> experiments with corals under high temperature and light stress
>> conditions.
>> Facilities here are rather basic, so I'm seeking your advice on
>> maintaining corals for 1-2 month with low budget equipment.
>> I'm facing the following problems:
>> There is an opportunity to work with tanks supplied with running
>> seawater, but we can't afford the right equipment to heat up the water
>> in an open system. We have thought about working in closed systems
>> instead, but this doesn't seem trivial either. Another problem is an
>> artificial light source, which again needs to be cheap yet spectrally
>> close to natural sunlight.
>> I would welcome any advice from people who have some experience with
>> maintaining corals, especially concerning equipments and ways to keep
>> costs low.
>>
>> Thanks a lot in advance.
>>
>> Kind regards,
>>
>> Monika
>>
>>
>>
>> Monika Wilhelm
>> Graduate Biology Student
>> University of Rostock/ Laboratoire d'Ecologie marine
>> Germany/ Reunion Island (France)
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Coral-List mailing list
> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
>
More information about the Coral-List
mailing list