Newbie interested in shark(s) for private enjoyment.

[Zoodiver]

On another note, I am fixing to ask a stupid question that I'm feeling about now shouldn't be asked. When it comes to adding salt, will this setup work as a "salt adder"? http://www.amazon.com/Intex-Krystal-Clear-Saltwater-System/dp/B002V1H11C It's supposed to have a control panel to adjust how much to add and how long to run, and is supposedly able to be manually run just to add salt when it's needed(when lvls are low)

You won't need anything like that. In fact, unless you do a big water change, you won't add salt, you'll top off with freshwater. When you lose water to evap, your salt stays and salinity will climb.


Here are the chiller/heat pumps on my 10,000 gallon outdoor stingray pool. We have a canopy over it, but it still takes on rain during big storms. We also top off with freshwater a lot to keep salinity down. A wide surface lends itself to evap quite well. Hopefully it will give you some ideas.

 

[yogurt_21]

climate really changes how much outdoor pools/ponds will flutuate in temperature. I can tell you that even in AZ in the middle of summer I have no problem keeping my 6000g pond below 80 degrees. Shade helps alot but depth helps more. If you have a direct sun pool/pond you really only have to worry about the top 18" getting too hot (in a low flow environment higher flow means better circulation means less fluctuation overall), as you go deeper the temp gets cooler, this is why I did my koi pond 6' rather than the recomended 3'.

you could go even deeper from there and regulate even better with higher flow. (just be ware of any water features such as a waterfall as you'll get severe evap off of it in higher temps.

as for the cold alot of people hook their tanks to waterheaters in freshwater setup. This can be problematic if the waterheater contains copper anywhere but coppers beign used less and less due to cost these days.

something like this
http://allaboutkoi.co.uk/460,000-btu-heat-exchanger-p-29933.html

although if you're in a non-snowing area you could always do the solar heaters

could take care of the winter heating needs, but as long as you stick to 72-82 degree range stock you should be fine with shading and a high depth

if you want to go cooler you'll have to get a chiller, which is either going comercial units as zoo showed or you can go the ghetto mod style and try gettign a couple of freezers and pumping water through a thousand feet of tubing inside of them.

personally I'd stick with the 72-82f range stock

 

[Zoodiver]

We struggle to keep our temp in check even with those 3 units. But saltwater shark/ray set ups require a lot of turn over.

 

[yogurt_21]

We struggle to keep our temp in check even with those 3 units. But saltwater shark/ray set ups require a lot of turn over.

yeah this is exactly why the shark/ray setup at the phoenix zoo is a traveling one and only there at specific times during the year.

http://www.phoenixzoo.org/events/stingraybay.shtml

they are gone for the winter/ summer and come through in the spring and fall. this way the outdoor temps are ideal. They travel to other zoos during that time that have indoor setups.

all in all i think the canuck is correct in saying that outdoors is more expensive than people think. I learned that the hard way with my koi pond.

 

[TheCanuck]

yeah this is exactly why the shark/ray setup at the phoenix zoo is a traveling one and only there at specific times during the year.

http://www.phoenixzoo.org/events/stingraybay.shtml

they are gone for the winter/ summer and come through in the spring and fall. this way the outdoor temps are ideal. They travel to other zoos during that time that have indoor setups.

all in all i think the canuck is correct in saying that outdoors is more expensive than people think. I learned that the hard way with my koi pond.

reminds me of how I really want a koi pond, but it just gets so dam hot here! I refuse to fight those awful texas algae battles as well..

 

[yogurt_21]

reminds me of how I really want a koi pond, but it just gets so dam hot here! I refuse to fight those awful texas algae battles as well..

as with everything save the money and do it right unless you like the headaches, which I do, it's half the fun

but on koi ponds, everyone tries to cheap out on the liner, they all end up at 45mil epdm with underlayment of some sort to prevent puncture (carped padding, or in my case concrete to keep out underground critters, etc)

everyone wants to cheap out on pumps/turnover (be it sump pumps and there oil, used pool pumps and their high energy requirments, cheapo pond pumps) they all end up as designed for pond mag drive pumps that put out 3x or more the ponds volume in an hour. (some up to 10x but it's not required for most setups)

everyone wants to cheap out on filtration, they always end up at at least 1/8 the volume of the pond's worth of filtration.

everyone wants to cheap out on the koi (they all look pretty right, those walmalt/petsmart/petco koi are perfectly good right, until they don't take to pond life or die off quickly) they always end up getting a japanese variant form a local breeder or in my case a freind who can't stop his japanese koi from breeding lol.

its the samo samo with salt. While you can do it reasonably, you can't do it cheap. So diy is good, ghetto mod is not.

 

[Mr Mikey]

Alritey, if I permanently enclosed the pool(like an indoor pool, but in a separate building), and used air-conditioning, and in-pool heaters....would that not work? You'd think that whatever temp it is indoors, the tank walls would eventually match that temp, then the water would also. If I'm wrong, somebody tell me....this is actually what I thought about doing with the permanent structure, and just dividing off sections of the pool until the pups got a little bigger.

Sorry if I sounded like a quitter last night, I just was really tired and the negativity just overwhelmed me temporarily.

 

[xwbcx]

shark pools!

 

[TheCanuck]

Alritey, if I permanently enclosed the pool(like an indoor pool, but in a separate building), and used air-conditioning, and in-pool heaters....would that not work? You'd think that whatever temp it is indoors, the tank walls would eventually match that temp, then the water would also. If I'm wrong, somebody tell me....this is actually what I thought about doing with the permanent structure, and just dividing off sections of the pool until the pups got a little bigger.

Sorry if I sounded like a quitter last night, I just was really tired and the negativity just overwhelmed me temporarily.

yea it would work if it was done right.


If you don't mind me asking, how much do you have saved or what is your budget for this project?

 

[Mr Mikey]

Well, I meant an enclosed shop-like structure that's insulated and using like twin window units(currently I have the pool inside my workshop with a concrete floor, and it already has the window units)....Put it in there early this morning to see if i could keep the temps stable, and using the window units to keep it cool, the water is currently at about 2-3degrees higher than the thermostats are set at, but I'll go check later tonight after the sun has set to see if the water temp gets any closer to what the thermostats are set at, which is 74. I don't think i'll have to use the units' heat functions since I got the underwater heater, but I may just set them to automatically switch from cool to heat anyways so to help keep the top of the water warm during the winters. Only thing with having the pool at the shop, is having a slightly longer walk from house.

My current budget that I can just drop on setup, is pretty much about $4000. But the permanent spot for the large pond won't really cost anything except diesel fuel, welding rods, and time of course. I've already got the lumber, irons, insulation, and extra window units for the cooling of it.