Ted’s Fishroom

A Visit to

Allen Wood’s

Fishroom

Fall 2007

What is it about ‘toothcarps’ that attract dedicated aquarists?  There are two categories of toothcarps… the ‘egg laying’ toothcarps (more commonly referred to as killifish) and ‘livebearing’ toothcarps (more commonly referred to as livebearers).  Allen Wood is a good friend of mine who is very dedicated to the keeping of livebearers.  Allen is very active in the Southern Colorado Aquarium Society and the American Livebearer Association.  I got to know Allen when I was living in Colorado a few years ago.  Back then he was keeping a wider variety of fish types, but during a recent trip to visit I discovered that Allen’s fishroom is now livebearer central.

Allen, like most of us, is very hobby-oriented.  He is retired, so has the time to indulge his interests.  Besides the fishroom, Allen is very much a gardener and maintains a huge perennial garden, a large pond and a dwarf fruit tree orchard.  His fishroom is in a building attached to his garage.  The room has a sunken cement floor and a high ceiling.  The tanks are arranged in two sections.  The inner section is a U-shaped set of racks in which tanks line both the interior and exterior of the U.  The outer section is comprised of racks that ring the outside walls of the room, except for a few areas (such as doorways and the heating stove… yes, a heating stove).

Temperature control in this fishroom is a challenge.  The area of Colorado where Allen lives has cold, windy Winters and hot dry Summers.  The two extremes are hard to plan for.  Allen has a harder time keeping the room warm than cool, which is one reason he has gravitated towards livebearers.  Many of them are more comfortable in cooler temperatures.  He uses a gas stove to heat the room.  Here is a picture of it.

During the Summer the heat can be a problem.  Allen uses an evaporative cooler, which is a simple machine that pulls warm dry air through a water-soaked pad of plant fiber.  As the air passes through the moist pad the water evaporates and cools the air.  So long as the air being pulled through the moist pad is dry, the process will drop the temperature of the air significantly… easily down to 75F from 90+F.  The system is similar to an air exchanger… but less expensive.  Unfortunately it will not work where there is a high humidity.  Allen’s evaporative cooler is located between his fishroom and his greenhouse.  It is a small unit that looks a lot like a window air conditioner unit.

 Allen’s tanks are filtered with sponge filters.  The air is provided by a regenerative blower located up high in the fish room.  Allen’s blower is a relatively quiet one… either that or the acoustics of the room make the sound of the blower less noticeable.

The air pipe is hung from the ceiling.  Since the ceiling is so high, Allen suspended the pipe using wire.  This is a great idea.  Using wire would allow the pipe to be placed anywhere in the room.

Allen uses an automated water changing system.  The tanks are drilled in the bottom (some are dilled in back) and fitted with a stand pipe that reaches up to the level in the tank where Allen wants the water.  When water is added to the tank the level rises over the stand pipe and drains out of the room.

Because the floor is sunken, the water will nto easily drain out of the building.  The drains from the tanks flow to a sump with an automatic pump that turns on when the water level rises to pump the water out of the room.

The water enters the tanks from a network of irrigation tubing originating at manifolds above the racks.  The parts Allen uses are made for landscape irrigation.  The systems work, but frequently leak.  Not a problem if you do not mind a little extra drippage in the room. 

Water is aged in a vat before it is pumped to the manifolds for delivery to the tanks.  The aging vat is a timber box with a pond liner in it.  Aging is necassary, especially in the Winter when the tap water is too cold to drip directly into the tanks.

A timer controls the whole process.  The system is simple but elegant.  Allen can change the water in all the tanks at once as often as he wants to.  The only limiting factor is the time needed to age and warm the water.

Electricity outlets are located above the tanks to avoid drip problems.

Allen makes his own light strips out of lamp fixtures, rain gutter and coiled compact florescent bulbs.  He gets some amazing plant growth with these lights.  They are not bright, but provide plenty of light to grow the low-light plants Allen uses.

There are both wood and welded metal racks in the room.  The wood racks are constructed using the rabitted system in which the tank supports are screwed into notches in the legs.  This is a strong way to build racks.  Allen makes them stronger with the use of lag bolts in the joints.

Rack stability is provided by tieing the rack into the wall of the building.  This is accomplished using a board screwed to both the rack and the wall.

The metal racks in Allen’s fishroom were in need of replacing.  (Allen has replaced the metal racks with wood racks since my visit.)  I like welded metal racks for their strength and space saving dimensions.  However, after 15 years of continuous use a metal rack may rust… just a bit.

 

Allen showed me a cross bar from a metal rack that had separated from the rack and fallen into a tank.  The tank the bar had supported was sitting on three rails instead of four, and those three rails were as corroded as the one that fell off!  I think that I will stick to wood.

Allen’s livebearer collection includes all kinds of livebearers.  He has an impressive collection of goodeids.  Here are a few of them.

Characodon laterialis ‘Abraham Gonzales’

Goodea atripinnis

Iliodon furcedens

Xenotoca variata

Zoogeneticus tequila

Allen also has a large collection of Poeciliid livebearers, including several very cool Limia sp.  Here are some of the Poeciliids.

Limia melanogaster

Limia nigrofasciata

Limia sp. Tiger

Limia vitatta

Poecilia litipina ‘Coleto Creek’

Xiphophorus nezahuacoyotl

My favorite livebearer in Allen’s collection is this very cool knife levebearer, Alfaro cultratus.  Someday I will find some.  Maybe that is all the excuse I need to go to the American Livebearer Association convention in San Antonio in April (2008).

Thank you Allen for the tour of your fishroom and your hospitality.

 If you would like to comment on Allen’s fishroom, please feel free to do so.