Ok everyone, I’ve got a unique situation that I need help with. I have been contacted by a coworker who’s wife does educational coastal boat tours. She catches and keeps a few different species of crabs and shrimp in order to show and tell about the creatures. She releases and replaces them every other day, and currently keeps them in a dock box off of the side of the dock and transfers them to a tank with an aerator on her boat (it works great). Here’s where the situation comes in.... She has started to have back problems, and pulling dock boxes from the side of the dock is becoming a task. He wants to set her up a tank on the dock so the livestock can be kept above water. So I need to figure out what type of pump we’ll need to pump fresh saltwater into a tank on the dock? Important information for project... The pump will need to pull saltwater from the end of the dock to the tank about 50 feet away... Also at low tide, it could need to pull water UP possibly 15-20’. We can just do a overflow box to drain, but I can’t figure out what type of pump we’ll need. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated!
Specialty dockside aquarium
- Thread starter ff.rice
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That’s what I was afraid of.... I was also thinking that the pressures are going to change so much due to the tides changing (unless it’s not attached to the floating dock, but hard piped to stay a foot or so off the bottom all of the time.... I was also wondering if maybe a pool pump would work better just for the height and distance?!? I don’t know, maybe too many variables for it to work...
Pete_the_Puma
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If its only for Crab and shrimp it might not be completely unreasonable to have a fixed pump at "high tide" position and only exchange the water every 12.5 hours (on a timer or something programmable to high tide times), using an air pump or protein skimmer to keep the saltwater aerated and circulating. Shrimp and crabs are usually pretty hardy and I doubt they would have any issues with 12 hour "old" seawater.
Montiman
Valuable Member
Even if you only have the pump run every 12 hours you would still want a self priming pump. That is why I would look at the Lifegard units. They have a 3 horse power 9600 GPH model That I believe would do this for sure. It is 230V so you would likely need to have an electrician install it.
This is easy!
First, a bilge pump from a marine boat supplier
Second, don’t ever take water at low tide
Thirdly, if you filter the incoming saltwater, there will be less algae to clean up
Lastly, create a shade roof, or awning over the tank or you will never control the algae.
Lots of fish keepers do this with very little else to do, I do, and have great results. I have a cheap filter system, but NO skimmer, heater, ATO, dosing, or anything else. It’s the least expensive fish tank I have ever had. Just WC’s. With a 60 gal DT, I do a WC every 2-3 weeks......20 gal out.....20 gal in. It’s that simple. I do have a deep sand/gravel bed, but that’s all.
First, a bilge pump from a marine boat supplier
Second, don’t ever take water at low tide
Thirdly, if you filter the incoming saltwater, there will be less algae to clean up
Lastly, create a shade roof, or awning over the tank or you will never control the algae.
Lots of fish keepers do this with very little else to do, I do, and have great results. I have a cheap filter system, but NO skimmer, heater, ATO, dosing, or anything else. It’s the least expensive fish tank I have ever had. Just WC’s. With a 60 gal DT, I do a WC every 2-3 weeks......20 gal out.....20 gal in. It’s that simple. I do have a deep sand/gravel bed, but that’s all.
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