40'x4'x0.67' Plywood Shrimp Farming Tank, thickness plywood?
- Thread starter fullmetal7777
- Start date
Welcome to the forum!
Yes you should worry about bowing. Any horizontal span will bow to some degree, it might not be detectable but bowing will occur. Steel mesh should be very strong... but metal does bend pretty easily and will bow.
The question will be one of how much bowing will occur and how much give your seal will compensate for? A roll on seal will be firmly anchored to both sides of a seam in the plywood bottom. If that seam spreads only 1/64" the sealer will most likely pull apart, become compromised and a leak will occur.
If you use a rubber pond liner that is not fastened to the plywood bottom I would bet that you could develop a 1/4" gap in the bottom seams and the liner membrane won't fail.
I look forwards to seeing your plans... when you are allowed to post them.
What kind of filtering is your shrimp farm going to employ? Are you going to have any aquaponics as part of the design?
Yes you should worry about bowing. Any horizontal span will bow to some degree, it might not be detectable but bowing will occur. Steel mesh should be very strong... but metal does bend pretty easily and will bow.
The question will be one of how much bowing will occur and how much give your seal will compensate for? A roll on seal will be firmly anchored to both sides of a seam in the plywood bottom. If that seam spreads only 1/64" the sealer will most likely pull apart, become compromised and a leak will occur.
If you use a rubber pond liner that is not fastened to the plywood bottom I would bet that you could develop a 1/4" gap in the bottom seams and the liner membrane won't fail.
I look forwards to seeing your plans... when you are allowed to post them.
What kind of filtering is your shrimp farm going to employ? Are you going to have any aquaponics as part of the design?
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If needed, we can definitely add more 4x4's to the workbench to strengthen the structure. We can also add a frame to the outside of the tank using 2x4's. But basically your saying it's going to be difficult to build this tank using plywood and some sort of epoxy paint/liquid rubber?
Will be integrating a sump below the tank where we will have a couple sock filters and a wet/dry biofiltration system.
I called a fiberglassing supply place and it would end up costing about $1700 in supplies to fiberglass the tank, that's painful!
Since you aren't doing an aquaponics system you are going to want to remove as much waste as possible before it breaks down to nitrates. This is the coolest filter design I have ever seen.
The water falling over the stainless steel mesh gets filtered and the waste is pushed down the mesh removing it from the water stream before it can break down. This filter costs more than your whole project... but I mention it as you might be able to build something similar... or might spark an idea or two.
I am a big fan of filter socks... make sure they are easily accessible and easy to change. The more waste you can remove before it breaks down the less water the system will use.
Since your tank will be in a large green house I would plan some way to use the tank water to water plants. Good for the plants and will keep you from wasting water.
With 160 sq feet of surface area in a green house you are going to loose a lot of water to evaporation. I would suggest thinking of some sort of automatic top off system. A toilet float valve would make a really cheap auto top off system. Then you could put a second pump in the sump, connect a hose to it and use it to water plants. The auto top off system would fill the sump as you are draining the sump watering the plants... Just a thought.
Algae! A shrimp tank in a green house sounds like you are going to get a LOT of algae. You can fight the algae or embrace the algae. Growing algae will pull nitrates out of the water keeping the water healthier for the shrimp. You might want to google algae nitrate filter for some ideas.
I think you will have a MUCH easier time using a pond liner. I think you will have a much lower chance of developing a leak after the system is in use which would make patching a leak difficult. If you fiberglassed the entire inside of the tank and used a sealer I think you would be fine. If you are only going to fiberglass the seams and corners I think your would have a hire chance of leaks and be better off with a liner.
What is the purpose behind the shrimp farm? Senior project I assume? What is the goal of this project? Are you trying to prove the practicality of a shrimp farm in a green house? What kind of water temperature range will shrimp thrive in? Are you worried about the water getting too hot in the blaring Texas sun?
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