Fish Tank Depth and Light

[Glyn_Wil]

We are collecting about 5 or 6 concrete cattle water troughs, ranging in size from 2.1 to 2.6 m. I have not found any minimum depths for fish tanks and one of the 2.1 troughs is about 650 mm to the top, giving a water level of about 600 mm and a volume of 2000 l. Is this deep enough? I also can't find much information about light requirements for the fish. We plan to put the fish tanks under a fairly gloomy carport - closed on two sides by the garage and a back wall, almost no direct sunlight at all. Should I replace some of the roof iron with clear pannels? The grow beds will go under a plastic/shade cloth hoop structure in the existing veggie patch. I only have holes in the side of the troughs, so not all the water will drain out of the grow beds - will this cause any problems? It is really encouraging to see the diverse systems around Oz and the globe.

[GaryD]

Hi,

Your cattle troughs will be fine for a whole range of freshwater fish and crayfish......and under the carport arrangement will be good, too. Fish live in subdued light in the wild.

I only have holes in the side of the troughs, so not all the water will drain out of the grow beds - will this cause any problems?

No.....many people have grow beds which don't drain fully. For two years, I ran a metre square grow bed with a drain about 60mm from the bottom. For simplicity's sake, you might want to consider a continous flow watering regime......through a PVC watering grid.

You'll find a picture of such an arrangement in Martin A1's thread.

Gary

[djs-sa]

crayfish Um i would want shallower than 600mm gary for sake of working with ur stock, but 600mm is fine for fish