Karim's 1500gal dream reef

Could use eggcrate and plastic mesh. I hate the pads.. pods always getting stuck inside and dying. Feels like eggcrate + mesh would be more like a hive.. honeycombs for pods with water flowing through except for detritus that catches and becomes food. Then the pods can be harvested by pulling out an eggscrate screen (like a beekeeper pulling out a honeycomb frame)

19686560-Beekeeper-checking-a-beehive-to-ensure-health-of-the-bee-colony-or-collecting-honey-Stock-Photo.jpg


https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01EYZWJV...t=&hvlocphy=9026834&hvtargid=pla-351285759261

Then the pods can be collected and weighed... that way people actually know what they're getting instead of the 1000 pods that is totally false.

You can buy 1g, 2g, 10g... all weighed and known (give or take some detritus flakes). Now that I can market and sell. :D
 
I knew it would be easy with that size system but I was thinking it would be more time consuming to deal with for the potential return. Since most of us have full time jobs too. But yeah I was thinking just like you using egg crate to make divisions. If you aren't wanting to light the area then Cheato obviously wouldn't be a good idea. I was think more along the lines of the Cheato being a tight weave to trap pods for sell. But would be harder to judge true population sizes. You might want to DIY using the plastic netting/screen people have used for DIY algae scrubers. Thinner than beehive screens and would be easier to use a squeegee to harvest without harsh scraping. I think you'd miss more pods in between the comb structures.
I would also suggest to change from weight to condensed volume. 5mL, 10mL, 20mL etc increments of sizes would be a lot less time consuming than weighing wet pods in such small batches. You then can expand the water volume afterwards for shipping.
 
I was going to cover the eggcrate with the mesh.
They spray the eggcrate mesh with a saltwater hose to flush the pods off into a sieve to drain and weigh. Whatever's in the sieve gets dumped into a bag.

It needs a little workstation ~ 1.5x the eggcrate frame.
 
Unless you are selling to a commercial market with strict guild lines, you are creating unnecessary work.

To sell to the hobbiest market you should consider what is best for him. IMO, fixed numbers that quantify are not important. What is important to a reef tank is a living biofilter that cleans and feeds the tank. I think of pods as the “little people” that do the visible work, but “bugs rule” as “microbial overlords”.
 
I'm looking for differentiation vs every other pod guy claiming 1000 pods. No point setting up a business to be mediocre. I like to win :)

When I think of what frustrated me when buying pods, the number one pain was not knowing what I was really getting. Quality, quantity, etc... all bogus. I'd pay more for a known value than go on faith.

We can even compare the 1000 pods claimed by others to grams by weighing them. If we offer more value, more will buy.

But this is all aside for now :)

My concern today is making the HOA connections to get clarity on the rules and constraints. I have the rule book but it just says "HOA needs to approve"... helpful ...
 
I have a somewhat adversarial position to HOA as a regulatory agency over my actions on my property. In Texas, the village is the smallest unit of government, not HOA. Only because of community organizers have HOA taken on power that they were not granted by Texas constitution.

HOA can not enforce their vague rules. Instead, they insert their influence during real estate transaction by raising red flags to mortgage brokers.

Being somewhat familiar with the Code of Federal Regulations, I would play lawyer with MMS, formally the USGS. For offshore drilling rules, the United States Geologic Service became the Mineral Management Service. When I would install instrumentation systems on remote platforms, I would review schematics and safety inspections with MMS on a regular basis. On one such occasion, after looking at paperwork an inspector challenged the positioning of a certain safety shut off device and wanted to see it work in the field. After a 15 minute boat ride to platform, I simulated high pressure shut in. After venting off test pump pressure, some few drops of hydraulic oil spilled from pump vent cap. Because of the extremely flat seas a slight sheen was evident. Inspector shut platform which cascaded into shutting a complete field of platforms down. Lost production while bringing wells back on line was $1M.

While he stood by his authority to operate our safety equipment, he was fired at the end of the day. In their wisdom, Odeco hired the USGS commandant as Superintendent of their Marine Department. Not withstanding the politics, the MMS inspector was wrong and I read to him his bible “Code of Federal Regulations”, where he was wrong.

I suggest you find out who board members are. Go to next board meeting and broach the subject. I have a very weak HOA. in its rules, it says that all added structures must be approved by HOA. When they start subsidizing me, I will seek their approval.
 
LOL!!! Love it! I agree- those with outstanding authority and no penalty for poor judgement are a real danger to the freedoms of others.

Unfortunately, the rights granted to the HOA are absurd but they're part of my mortgage (that I still need) requirements.

I'm reaching out today (hopefully) to get closer.
 
In my subdivision down the road the HOA hasn't done anything so far. Everyone has had free rein and had approval afterwards with most peoples front yards and backyard structures against the "rules".
I know people in Artesia (not sure where in Prosper you are building) that feel the same way about their HOA
 
I'm looking for differentiation vs every other pod guy claiming 1000 pods. No point setting up a business to be mediocre. I like to win

When I think of what frustrated me when buying pods, the number one pain was not knowing what I was really getting. Quality, quantity, etc... all bogus. I'd pay more for a known value than go on faith.

We can even compare the 1000 pods claimed by others to grams by weighing them. If we offer more value, more will buy.

Karim,
While I hear a lofty business model, I do not think that it is pragmatic considering the fragile nature of product. You should consider your market first. In some cases you develope a market with social media. In the case of live pods as food for reef tanks, you could raise a co-culture of mollies as food for marine predators.

Marketing is my weak point. Operations is my strong point.

I went 10yrs without paying HOA dues. When I refinanced house, I paid back dues.
 
I think it depends on the HOA's teeth and willingness to bite. :)

I really don't think I'll be running into the pod business anytime soon but if I did, they would be the best pods and well worth every incremental dollar.

What I'd really love to cultivate are glass shrimp! Those are excellent.
 
Tell me about “glass shrimp”.

When I lived closer to Gulf Coast, we would net grass shrimp in fresh and salt water estuaries. They were clear about a 1/3 size of peppermint shrimp. There was a different shrimp about twice the size of grass shrimp caught in salt water canals where tree branches hung in water. Best I remember, these shrimp were dehydrated and sold in small bag as a dry protein snack.
 
When I started my current tank ~ 4 years ago, I found a source for pods and glass shrimp called reefs2go. They were decent for this but their reputation for other things drove them to change their name. But the shrimp were excellent. I got a couple of hundred and put them in my fuge.

With my heavy feeding, they were constantly pregnant and babies were erupting all the time. This was the period of fastest coral growth I had ever experienced.

They eventually dwindled since I really didn't have a nursery to get them to maturity. The origin nap population lasted two years or so.

I've since looked for other sources and found one for predator feeding. They were half the size and didn't reproduce well in the tank.

I finally found a real source from the Long Island Reef Aquarium. It's a partnership with a an aquaculture business up there but they collect thousands from the wild. They'll only sell in bulk though and with my current tank in transition, I decided to defer.

They're marine shrimp about the size of peppermint but clear/glassy. They live in marine grasses and can be very fruitful.

With this new tank, the idea is to stock all the non-DT bodies with these shrimp and establish natural nursery solutions (green water) to get them to self cycle. I was visualizing my large solar scrubber as the fields and these glass shrimp as the sheep in the fields.

I'll look for some old pictures. When I first found them, they didn't look like anything special... just feeder shrimp.
 
Babies
<a href="http://s1062.photobucket.com/user/karimwassef/media/FA4F26A5-132D-4EF2-A7B2-ACCFC5D85BE7.png_zpsbkg8idai.jpeg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1062.photobucket.com/albums/t496/karimwassef/FA4F26A5-132D-4EF2-A7B2-ACCFC5D85BE7.png_zpsbkg8idai.jpeg" border="0" alt=" photo FA4F26A5-132D-4EF2-A7B2-ACCFC5D85BE7.png_zpsbkg8idai.jpeg"></a>
 
The first fields
<a href="http://s1062.photobucket.com/user/karimwassef/media/12C10112-45BB-4135-B1C4-94F73DD2A274_zpsvxsxzfrd.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1062.photobucket.com/albums/t496/karimwassef/12C10112-45BB-4135-B1C4-94F73DD2A274_zpsvxsxzfrd.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 12C10112-45BB-4135-B1C4-94F73DD2A274_zpsvxsxzfrd.jpg"></a>

<a href="http://s1062.photobucket.com/user/karimwassef/media/87D77C7F-68AB-4227-8760-E07B97E2DD45_zpsfpukqqrz.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1062.photobucket.com/albums/t496/karimwassef/87D77C7F-68AB-4227-8760-E07B97E2DD45_zpsfpukqqrz.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 87D77C7F-68AB-4227-8760-E07B97E2DD45_zpsfpukqqrz.jpg"></a>

<a href="http://s1062.photobucket.com/user/karimwassef/media/571EF0EB-D913-497E-8762-A3B6D912AEFB_zpsnd4ab0p1.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1062.photobucket.com/albums/t496/karimwassef/571EF0EB-D913-497E-8762-A3B6D912AEFB_zpsnd4ab0p1.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 571EF0EB-D913-497E-8762-A3B6D912AEFB_zpsnd4ab0p1.jpg"></a>

<a href="http://s1062.photobucket.com/user/karimwassef/media/A4D67D43-B2B5-4264-B26E-82CAD9727847_zpsgjpwq0w7.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1062.photobucket.com/albums/t496/karimwassef/A4D67D43-B2B5-4264-B26E-82CAD9727847_zpsgjpwq0w7.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo A4D67D43-B2B5-4264-B26E-82CAD9727847_zpsgjpwq0w7.jpg"></a>
 
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