Looking to improve speed!

[gregsfc]

I'm part of a fish hatchery crew working for the fed's (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service). We have a need for speed in quickly prepping 8' wide x 100' long x 1.5' deep (average), concrete raceways that we clean while drained just before we put another round of trout back in them. It takes us about 30 minutes to move fish in to an empty raceway, and it takes us about 1 1/2-2 hrs to pressure wash one, depending on who is cleaning it and how bad it is algae wise. Ideally, if we could find a way, it would be great if we could pressure wash one as quickly as we could move fish to it. That way, we could have one person PWing and two people moving, which is usually about all the workers we have available at any given time.

It is very thick algae we are removing off the walls and floor, and the algae goes down the valve into a waste-water system, so we have no recovery issues and are not limited in that way. We don't go for perfection, because it is ongoing process that goes on year after year; month after month. We can't eliminate the algae, because it'll grow while fish are in them for many months at a time; we are just trying to control it so that are screens don't clog during fish hatchery operations between cycles of fish. We do not have a period of time when they are all empty. We raise fish year around and many times during the year, we'll have fish in all 104 raceways; we'll empty one out on a couple of trucks, and then we'll immediately PW it and split another raceway to it, because we'll have other raceways that have become too dense, and so we'll use that space just as soon as it becomes available.

While cleaning, we have as much as 3" of water running through them near the lower end of the raceways running down the drain, as it is impossible to stop all water flow from leaking into drained raceways that can leak through the upstream end or back through the downstream end via dam boards. This constant flow helps rinse away our work but blasting through it quickly can be difficult on the lowest 20' or so.

This is an ongoing process that is not on any kind of regular routine. In other words, we don't empty out raceways to clean them; rather it's the need to move fish around the hatchery that drives our work, and that's the priority. We have 88 of this size raceway, and we have 16 that are roughly only 4' wide. This is a year-around process as I've posted before that we cannot contract out, because we have to clean them immediately when we need them. We cannot upgrade at this time on major components or machines, but we do have some money available right now to do some minor tweaking if there is anything we could try to speed us up.

We have one 3.7 gpm/3500 psi machine and we have one 4.0 gpm/4000 psi machine; both belt driven.

We do not have a dedicated vehicle or trailer; we move our equipment, including water, via a forklift. That situation won't change any time soon, unless we can pickup a surplus 5 ton or something from another field station. We have about a quarter mile of raceways, and a city water source too far away to operate using garden hoses. We fill tanks; pressure wash till their empty; refill; and go back to the raceway(s).

Everything is going well compared to the old days when we dropped garden hoses off the side of our distribution trucks and it took much more effort and time to move equipment around the hatchery and took 3-4 hrs to pressure wash one raceway. However, I'm always looking for ways to get faster.

Looking for tips to make things faster and easier to manage...

How to set up a return line for quick connect/disconnect?
We use traditional 100' feet hoses; hose reels; but don't know how professionals properly run return lines back to tanks. Right now, our newer unit by-passes the by pass and has a return when the trigger is let off. When the unit arrived at our station, it was set up this way and would just spray out on the ground when we weren't spraying, and it even loses some water when we are spraying. I took a length of 3/8" rubber hose, stuck it on with a worm clamp and ran the hose through the top with the cap off, but what is the best way to hook up to a tank via a quick connect? We have this newer unit on a pallet and the water tank on a second stack of pallets and move them around separately around the hatchery, so we need a way to quickly disconnect and connect when setting up and moving.

How to set up a quick disconnect from the hose reel so that we can leave our 100' of hose, come back, and hook up?
Our older unit is on a platform where we move the machine and tank together around the hatchery. Overall this is better (although the supervisor doesn't think so). Sometimes we need just to fill water and keep the machine on the same raceway. In that scenario, we must first roll up the hose before we move to fill the water. Is there a way to disconnect our 100' of hose and take everything else on the forklift, fillup, come back, and reconnect the hose?

Looking for better tip options for increased speed?
We use traditional tips; usually a green tip works best. I know about the chart for the proper orifice size, but am looking to try out turbo tip or some sort of trolley or anything else that might speed us up even more. Any suggestions?

I know alot of this will be hard to visualize, but basically we fill our water tanks with an 80 gpm 2" line pumping lake water that is filtered and that takes only a couple of minutes to refill, but we have to go to the head end of our entire hatchery to do the refill. Within all this major limitations we have any advice to help with the little stuff until the time where we might be able to do some major upgrades would be helpful.

 

[Steven Rowlett]

I would look at a 8gpm or larger machine.

 

[gregsfc]

Not in the budget for a new machine at this time and water source may be too limited for an 8 gpm machine anyway; more interested right now with anyone's ideas with regards to accesssories to try out in order to increase speed especially as it relates to the tip end using a 4 gpm/4000 psi machine.

When we're spraying the floor, we're going 8'X100', and there is water running through right where we are standing and working. This is water that leaks through the upper end. This is water we can't stop when we divert it to the adjacent raceway; and also there is also always a little water seeping through the dam boards on the lower end, leaking through in an upstream direction. We wear hip waders and vinyl aprons. If the leak through on the lower end is particularly bad, we'll spend some time trying to stop some of it with garbage bags or something, because this is working against us, because it's sending the crap back towards us. The leak through water on the upper end, however, does a good job of rinsing everything away until we get near the lower end where the valve is, and then we'll start getting some swirling or trail back. The water is deeper near the lower end as well; maybe up to 3" on some raceways. So the last 15 feet or so is much slower.

When we PW the walls, it's much faster than the floor. Sometimes we'll actually let more water though the top on purpose when doing the walls to help rinse away the crap, but a larger path would make the walls faster as well as long as we could keep our gun movement speed high with that bigger path.

I know it's hard to visualize. I think if I could create a video and upload it, this would all make sense to those who could help us speed up. I'm going to try and find the time to get someone to help me with a video, but in the meantime, the accessories that I've read about that maybe could speed us up are:

(1) Turbo nozzle -- but the vidoes I've seen of folks using those have a smaller spray pattern than what we're doing now with a standard green tip, and they're moving along at about the same speed as what we're doing now, so I'd hate to get one for $100+ and it not help us.

(2) Sweeper -- We have an old sweeper that when used, was more trouble than it was worth, however, I've not tried it with the larger machines that we have now. So I'll try it out and report it the next time we PW. When we used it, we had a 2.4/3000PSI machine, so I don't know if it would do better with a 4/4000.

(3) Trolley-type tips ends -- I don't know what these are called or how to find one to buy one, but at one time I had read about one. If we had a way to increase our scrubbing and rinsing path larger; maybe 40 degrees or more, we could maybe move along faster.

 

[WASH-IT H.B.]

I wouldn't write off the idea of a turbo nozzle just yet.. Spend the $100 get one and try it.. Looking at your last photo your end result with the green tip is not all that flash,,Not being critical.
The wash pattern of the turbo nozzle is entirely dependant on the distance between the nozzle tip and the work surface. You can wash a 2 inch radius or a 12 inch radius. If the surface that you are washing is fairly rough, and it looks like it is, the turbo, for me would be the weapon of choice simply because of the rotary wash pattern from the nozzle.
The quality of the wash is A. Dependant on the distance between the nozzle tip and the surface and B. The speed you travel over the surface with the nozzle. Looking at the last photo in your posting it is clear that the operator only washed with the "Green" nozzle in one direction , from side to side. The zebra stripes are obvious. try washing side to side and then cover the same area up and down. You will be surprised at the difference it can make. AS far as washing the bottom of the raceway if you have 2 or 3 inches of water in the bottom the wash jet will be struggling to be effective. Is it possible to hire a trash pump and run it at the downhill end to keep the water moving away from the job.. I understand the problem with holding back the tide and that you have leakage to contend with but trying to effectively wash a surface through a 2or 3 inch cover of water is going to be hard work. That also shows in you photo. More water as suggested may not be the best answer. Learning to use what pressure and water quantity you have on hand effectively is more the answer. Just a word of caution**Turbo nozzles can create a lot of damage in a short space of time.** Start off with a medium to low pressure and work you way up. Don't just jump in at 100% pressure because if the concrete in the raceways is non to flash you could end up stripping the face off the concrete although looking at the photos the cream has long since gone off the concrete below the water line anyhow. Hope my thoughts are of help.

 

[maynianj]

Greg - I have a 14" surface cleaner that I use in "tight" areas, and sometimes on walls that are covered in algae. The housing is made of plastic, and ins't too hard to operate (as in not too heavy). It attaches to the end of your pressure washer wand via quick connect. Might be an option for you. Feel free to give me a call and we can talk about it, and I can send you a video of my 12 year old son operating it. I would upload it to here, but honestly don't know how to do that.

 

[gregsfc]

Greg - I have a 14" surface cleaner that I use in "tight" areas, and sometimes on walls that are covered in algae. The housing is made of plastic, and ins't too hard to operate (as in not too heavy). It attaches to the end of your pressure washer wand via quick connect. Might be an option for you. Feel free to give me a call and we can talk about it, and I can send you a video of my 12 year old son operating it. I would upload it to here, but honestly don't know how to do that.

Thanks. I too think a surface cleaner might be the best way to go, even though we do have an old one, probably 14" aluminum casing, that doesn't do the job. Like I had stated, we used the one we have last with smaller machines; 2.4 gpm/3000PSI. I don't know how old the brushes are or how long we've owned it or how much better it'd be on the bigger machines. We would be using it in running water from 1" to 3". I'll check out what we can do and give you a call.

 

[gregsfc]

I wouldn't write off the idea of a turbo nozzle just yet.. Spend the $100 get one and try it.. Looking at your last photo your end result with the green tip is not all that flash,,Not being critical.
The wash pattern of the turbo nozzle is entirely dependant on the distance between the nozzle tip and the work surface. You can wash a 2 inch radius or a 12 inch radius. If the surface that you are washing is fairly rough, and it looks like it is, the turbo, for me would be the weapon of choice simply because of the rotary wash pattern from the nozzle.
The quality of the wash is A. Dependant on the distance between the nozzle tip and the surface and B. The speed you travel over the surface with the nozzle. Looking at the last photo in your posting it is clear that the operator only washed with the "Green" nozzle in one direction , from side to side. The zebra stripes are obvious. try washing side to side and then cover the same area up and down. You will be surprised at the difference it can make. AS far as washing the bottom of the raceway if you have 2 or 3 inches of water in the bottom the wash jet will be struggling to be effective. Is it possible to hire a trash pump and run it at the downhill end to keep the water moving away from the job.. I understand the problem with holding back the tide and that you have leakage to contend with but trying to effectively wash a surface through a 2or 3 inch cover of water is going to be hard work. That also shows in you photo. More water as suggested may not be the best answer. Learning to use what pressure and water quantity you have on hand effectively is more the answer. Just a word of caution**Turbo nozzles can create a lot of damage in a short space of time.** Start off with a medium to low pressure and work you way up. Don't just jump in at 100% pressure because if the concrete in the raceways is non to flash you could end up stripping the face off the concrete although looking at the photos the cream has long since gone off the concrete below the water line anyhow. Hope my thoughts are of help.

There is alot of complexity in our situation that you've hit on that I did not get into for simplicity, but I appreciate your time and keen observations, and your feedback is very helpful. You've caught alot from the picture that is absolutely true, but there is some reasoning for it.

For instance, one reason you see the striping, is because the supervisors are worried about ruining the concrete floors over the long run, which I think is silly, but never the less, they want us only to half-a** the floors. In other words, it's to the standard that they want. They also worry about too much sand in our drum filter system by eroding too much of the concrete floor with pressure washer, which I think is also silly, because even the seller of the drums told us that sand helps keep it clean. But there is a third factor here for the less-than-steller quality, and that is the need for speed. We're not trying to satisfy a customer. We're simply trying to control algae that's going to come back pretty quickly anyway, even if we get every single hair. If we pressure wash each one of these at least once per year, then they remain fairly easy to clean and it provides some control. The reason to control the algae is only to keep the screens that contain fish from constantly getting clogged up. If not for that problem, we'd probably just let it grow and break off at will. But I'm sure professionals like you see this and just cringe.

The flowing water issue is both a blessing and a curse. If we stop too much water, on the up stream end of the raceway, we have problems clearing and moving the algae out of the way enough to see what we've scrubbed off. If there is no or too little flow, the algae will start piling up in front of us and holding back water as well. If we don't stop enough flow, it's too slow peeling off the algae., because then the water is too deep. The trail back flow would be best if there was none at all, but again, we have to stop and place trash bags behind the dam boards using a long screwdriver, and there has to be enough back flow pressure to let the trash bags suck into the seams. This take a little extra time. Usually, if this back flow is not bad, we just let it happen, because it's quicker not to mess with it and just blast through deep water down near the end. We have to weigh the time factor. When we had smaller machines, we almost always spent time stopping the back flow, because it took us three to four hours to PW one raceway, but nowadays, it's usually quicker not to mess with it.

The second issue is that this is an ongoing operation. It's not on a set schedule, but it's is whenever we need one cleaned for fish. We discover when we need them as we move along in the cycle and look at what fish are where and which ones need to be moved or split up. This is based on fish growth and density and space available on the hatchery and sometimes the location of the raceway (smaller fish have to be on the upper sections, and so if, for instance we need to split a raceway of 6" fish, we have to wait until a raceway becomes available near the bottom of the serial of raceways). We end up pressure washing almost every week; sometimes three or four days per week. Quick set up times are important. If we can just move the equipment; block the flow; start up and start pressure washing; get done in an hour and a half; and move on to the next one; we're doing good. We've got trash pumps, but we really need all that crap to go down the drain to our pollution abatement system, otherwise we'd need something to recover that water. But more than that, if we take the time to set all this up, it would kill us time wise.

Something you stated about the turbo nozzle really intrigues me though., and that's the 12" pattern that is possible. That would definitely save us time if we can move the gun along at the current speed as our green tip with a larger swath. I've not given up on them; I just haven't seen an example that shows quicker work than what we're doing right now, however, the vidoes I've seen is higher standard work than we're doing, so it's hard to tell. If we could get the floors at the same or better quality without stripping too much concrete at the same speed or faster than we're going now, then a turbo nozzle would help.

And yes we do only one direction cleaning. All but one of us sweep back and forth horizontally. The supervisor will stand sideways and run the nozzle up and down stream and its harder to see what's been accomplished this way but is faster, because one is taking larger sweeps. His end product is less quality than the rest of us but he's in a bigger hurry, because he's got more to do. He gets out there an pressure washes sometimes, because it's the cog in our program, and that's why I'm here trying to find a way to take away this cog.

 

[gregsfc]

Thanks. I too think a surface cleaner might be the best way to go, even though we do have an old one, probably 14" aluminum casing, that doesn't do the job. Like I had stated, we used the one we have last with smaller machines; 2.4 gpm/3000PSI. I don't know how old the brushes are or how long we've owned it or how much better it'd be on the bigger machines. We would be using it in running water from 1" to 3". I'll check out what we can do and give you a call.

Another issue I've found with the surface cleaner when I tried it was the hassle of it, since we often move along from one raceway to another and have to carry everything along with us. It'd get tangled up with our hoses and such and had to be carried in a separate truck; picked up out of the raceway; loaded/unloaded; etc. So it's important that something like that really speed us up, because it slows us down setup wise. The one we've got just doesn't scrub away enough algae or consistently enough, but I'll experiment with the one we've got to see if there is a problem with the cleaner maintenance wise. There are ways for us to change our setup where we could carry it in an unobtrusive way, but we have to make sure this is going to be the way forward to make it worth while to change are setup scheme.

 

[gregsfc]

looking at the photos the cream has long since gone off the concrete below the water line anyhow. Hope my thoughts are of help.

Yeah, those raceways have had running lake water through them since 1965 but are in better shape than the ones that were built in an expansion in 1990.

 

[maynianj]

Greg,
Here's the one I was talking about. You could possibly just leave it at the end of the wand. I love mine! The reason your other one may not have done the job is because the machine you were using was only 2.4gpm - you can't expect any surface cleaner to do anything with that low of a volume. You need to figure 1 gallon per minute minimum per 4" of surface cleaner. Also, do you have the correct tips? Using the wrong tips can make it seem as if it isn't working properly - becasue it isn't.
As with the usual problem I am seeing from reading your multiple posts, you have an issue with water volume. If for some reason you could solve your issue with getting a good supply of usable water, then all of the suggestions we have given you would probably work. You constantly are looking to speed things up, and the the thing that probably needs speeding up the most is your water volume. I understand you are on a limited and minimal budget, but I think we can all agree that to speed you up, you need more clean water.

 

[WASH-IT H.B.]

FYI. Re the turbo nozzle.
Check out the video's below. The last one is the one you will probably get the best impression from. As far a removing concrete goes the crap growing on it is compromising the integrity of the concrete along with the water every day an every time you wash you will be taking off a micron more. It can't be helped. with regards to the turbo nozzle full pressure is going to give you and optimum clean and if you wash in side to side up and down pattern even more so but if you knock the pressure back and can achieve the same clean the go with the less pressure. If you need for the crap to go into your waste recovery system how do the raceways drain into it.? do you block off both ends of the race to clean them? Just trying to get a picture in my head as to why you can't suck out the wash down water with your trash pump as you work and hand it off to your waste recovery system. I'm going to suggest to you that the more of the green you leave behind the faster it will grow.. I understand that the green is water born and that can't change but the more you leave behind on the walls and floor of the raceways the more there is still established to seed the next growth pattern. Maybe your Supervisor needs to slow the cleaning process up a bit and do a proper job the first time in stead of a lick and a promise job that's not lasting. After all it doesn't matter what you are doing a job half done is a job not finished. Maybe an extra half an hour added per race and one or two less cleans in a year will be a cost saving in the long run...JMHO.
.https://youtu.be/Wlye-3U9NkE
https://youtu.be/ijH-vtKiBYo
https://youtu.be/nmrMcD6Rb1Q

 

[gregsfc]

View attachment 29924
Greg,
Here's the one I was talking about. You could possibly just leave it at the end of the wand. I love mine! The reason your other one may not have done the job is because the machine you were using was only 2.4gpm - you can't expect any surface cleaner to do anything with that low of a volume. You need to figure 1 gallon per minute minimum per 4" of surface cleaner. Also, do you have the correct tips? Using the wrong tips can make it seem as if it isn't working properly - becasue it isn't.
As with the usual problem I am seeing from reading your multiple posts, you have an issue with water volume. If for some reason you could solve your issue with getting a good supply of usable water, then all of the suggestions we have given you would probably work. You constantly are looking to speed things up, and the the thing that probably needs speeding up the most is your water volume. I understand you are on a limited and minimal budget, but I think we can all agree that to speed you up, you need more clean water.

Thank you. I'll try the old one with the 4 gpm/4000psi machine and then if it's somewhat successful, I'll try to get a new one like the one you've shown that is lighter. It might take a week or so before I can try it out as we run sort of like a factory in some respects, whereas the guy in charge of raising fish has total control of our time. It'll most likely have to be when the boss is away or the boss assigns me to pressure wash a raceway.

Absolutely we need to solve our water supply issue. There were prior posts regarding our limitations and those will likely stay the same for quite a while. We can't bump up city water supply, because it's supplied to us free by another gov't entity; and to extend city water via spigots for 1/4-mile will take a gov't contract. Any job bidded on for gov't will be very expensive and will require lots of people above me giving it a priority at the hatchery.

There will be a time when I can lobby for access to more water, and then even larger machines, and more flexible methods to transport our equipment to these job locations, and that will absolutely speed us up. But this is not the time. I get what you're saying, and I agree, but I still feel like we can make some minor gains while we wait for the big upgrades.

 

[gregsfc]

FYI. If you need for the crap to go into your waste recovery system how do the raceways drain into it.? do you block off both ends of the race to clean them? Just trying to get a picture in my head as to why you can't suck out the wash down water with your trash pump as you work and hand it off to your waste recovery system. I'm going to suggest to you that the more of the green you leave behind the faster it will grow.. I understand that the green is water born and that can't change but the more you leave behind on the walls and floor of the raceways the more there is still established to seed the next growth pattern. Maybe your Supervisor needs to slow the cleaning process up a bit and do a proper job the first time in stead of a lick and a promise job that's not lasting. After all it doesn't matter what you are doing a job half done is a job not finished. Maybe an extra half an hour added per race and one or two less cleans in a year will be a cost saving in the long run...JMHO.

Thanks for the links and the advice...

I believe I'll definitely try to work in a turbo nozzle in my next order for parts or accessories. We're a person short right now, and we're getting full reimbursements from the Tennessee Valley Authority and the U.S. Army Core of Engineers for the trout we stock in their waters, which had not been the case over the previous four years when the U.S.F.W.S. director decided he no longer wanted to pay for hatchery operations. So all of this makes money not so tight, and so I can get away with ordering little things we need.

I'm not sure what you're thinking about our recovery, but each raceway has a valve at the lower end. Normally all valves are closed; the water is 1 1/2 feet deep average; and the water runs over dam boards at the lower end of each raceway and through our system to our discharge that we call a "creek". This is called a flow-through system, and it is all gravity fed. The creek goes back to the river and none of this water is pre treated before going back in the river. Some states require that some hatcheries treat this water as well, but not Tennessee and not us. We have to test our intake and creek water twice monthly (once while flushing and once not flushing) by law so the water regulating folks can see what our operation is doing to the water.

When we open a valve, that raceway drains down very low increasing the exchange rate or turnover rate as the incoming water is not changed. This allows us to clean the raceway for regular maintenance; to remove uneaten feed, fish waste and loose algae. If the raceway is empty, we'll open the valve all the way, lowering the water even more than if it has fish in it. The water going down the drain goes through our effluent system automatically through gravity. To lower the water even more in order to pressure wash or remove fish stragglers, we can block the water from the raceways above with a "blocker screen" in a slot near the upper end that a regular screen would normally be in. All this water automatically goes through our effluent system as well.

As for the quality of cleaning, we have experimented and tried all different standards of pressure washing over a period of about nine years now. I personally do a little better than what you see in the picture. And yes, getting them squeaky clean will help them go a little longer than just half **sing it, but when hatchery personnel have an opportunity to clean them only once or twice per year around fish movements, at the rate at which algae grows at our hatchery, and we're worried about the algae level only as it relates to being so bad that it's clogging up the lower screens as it breaks off; the difference is very minimal. It does look much better when we first clean them if we do a "bang up" job, but three months later, the difference is not all that much different. Moreover, we struggle sometimes to keep up and often we'll skip pressure washing and actually scrub the sides with brushes as this is faster when we're in a hurry and have lots of fish to move; and also, when the water gets warm (over 55 degrees), it really stresses the fish to cut some of the water off from the raceways above. So we'll do a quick cleaning instead of pressure washing. However, if we get to the point that we can pressure wash as fast as we can clean the sides and floor with a brush, it'll save our shoulders and it'll control algae a little better. We're getting pretty close thanks in part to the knowledge I've gained from you guys; just shooting for a little more speed.

 

[gregsfc]

FYI. Maybe an extra half an hour added per race and one or two less cleans in a year will be a cost saving in the long run...JMHO.

Another 30 minutes per raceway would be unnacceptable for the pace we have to complete the entire process, and therefore, it would result in probably 60-70 less raceways pressure washed per year; not just a few. We have 104 raceways; some that hold smaller fish towards the top get about 2 or even 3 cleanings per year and some others may just get one, but we probably pressure wash over 200 per year currently.

The fish work to be done becomes apparent on about a weekly basis; it's not like we can plan this out over a long haul, because the work becomes apparent based on fish growth and space available as we move along in fish culture. Sometimes we'll figure out that we're going to need to move or split ten raceways into ten empty raceways. Another week, it may be only one. But a week where we have ten, if we don't get it done, then we'll get behind. So it's got to happen with limited help, and so the cleaning step can't hold up the steps that follow it for too long.

I know a half way job must be hard for professionals to understand and accept. But one must understand the alternative to pressure washing in order to appreciate the need for speed. The only other option for preparing raceways and removing at least some algae that we've found so far is to drain them; get in them with a wire brush; scrub the walls and flush the floors; set the screens; fill them back up with water; and put fish in them; and we'd be wore out. This process (the old way) takes about 35 minutes for the cleaning and refill for one person each, and then 30 minutes to fill them back up with fish. So this method, we can use two people, and do two raceways, and it take approximately 2 hr and 10 minutes. But this method barely removes any algae compared to any standard of pressure washing. The algae growth maybe set back three weeks this way and we have very sore shoulders and little to show for it. I've been fighting very hard not to go back to this method, but it is faster. So it is a constant fight to keep pressure washing; especially when time gets tight.

The new way is pressure washing. This method sets back the heavy growth two to three months instead of two to three weeks with some striping in the floors, but in addition to controlling the algae better, once a raceway has been pressure washed the first time, it is much faster to re pressure wash it as long as we continue to do it on a regular basis (at least once per year). After nine years of this, all 104 raceways have been pressure washed several times and we're pretty much getting to all of them at least once per year.

It used to take us 3 to 4 hours to re pressure wash a previously-washed raceway. This was due to a higher standard and smaller machines. We used to do a better job and got all the algae we could get. We even tried spraying the walls with bleach and letting them sit to see if this held back the growth longer after we finished cleaning them. All of this took time and often we had to just scrub many of them because fish grow and have to be moved faster than we can do good quality work pressure washing. And honestly I can't tell that it made anything any better except that they looked like new when we first put fish back in them. When I state "better" I mean it didn't reduce the amount of time and effort spent unclogging screens, because that's all that really matters to us.

So in the previous scenario with two raceways, with two people, pressure washing at the speed we're doing it now. We can set up, pressure wash, set screens and fill back up with water in 2 hrs with two people working on two raceways at the same time. Then we'll work together to move fish in them. This will take 1 hr. working together. So the entire process pressure washing the half**s way takes us three hours, versus just brushing them down, which takes about 2 hrs. But even the half-**s job is much better than scrubbing them. But if I went to the boss and said that we need to spend 3 hrs, instead of 2 hrs pressure washing raceways in order to remove all the algae, and I were to convince him this was necessary; then we'd end up not pressure washing most of the time, but instead, scrubbing with wire brushes. The time just can't be comitted to the process with the help and equipment that we've got, because it's almost like an assembly line process.

So the goal of my inquiry is not to improve the standard, but to increase speed. If a turbo nozzle helps us do a better job in the same amount of time or less, then it' worth it; but we definitely cannot slow the process no matter what changes we make.

 

[Benjamin]

Do a turbo nozzle and maybe even a double wand turbo nozzle. I can't remember your machine specs, but this might help improve even more.

https://www.dultmeier.com/products/0.48.906.2332/2701

Russ or most vendors can get this if you ask.

 

[Andy Vickers]

I have cleaned hatcheries.
Flood the race way with sodium hypochlorite @ 1% for 1 hour.
Neutralize after 1 hour with sodium thiosulfate. Verify free and total chlorine with test kit to zero.
I did this weekly at several fish transfer stations, wholesalers and hatcheries.
For questions call me at 6788575309

 

[gregsfc]

I have cleaned hatcheries.
Flood the race way with sodium hypochlorite @ 1% for 1 hour.
Neutralize after 1 hour with sodium thiosulfate. Verify free and total chlorine with test kit to zero.
I did this weekly at several fish transfer stations, wholesalers and hatcheries.
For questions call me at 6788575309

Thanks! I'm sure you do a great job and great information! I had heard there was something non-chlorine that can be used at hatcheries w/o killing fish that can be used up to a certain percentage.

If something happens, like we get shut down for a found parasite or disease, we'll give you a call. Otherwise, at our hatchery, which has ongoing stocking every month throughout the year with most all raceways being full of fish most all the time, we just can't shut down raceways and have them professionally treated; or even work on them for hours on a regular, ongoing basis ourselves. Is it okay to use this stuff if there is some leak through below to raceways with live fish?

There are a couple of times per year on some of our worst raceways, that we could try this. (1) Our lake trout and brown trout are stocked in Jan/Feb and March/April, respectively. Those two species do not eat algae nor do they stir up raceways as well as rainbow trout, and so those raceways get really, really thick algae growth. The species also have to be located at certain locations on the hatchery (the lake trout must be at the top and not in reuse water, because they require really good quality, and brown trout must be kept above rainbow trout, because rainbows can carry a disease that can hurt brown trout). When we stock these species out each winter and spring, we'll have up to 16 empty raceways for up to a couple of months. But there will be fish below them, because, like I stated, we had been keeping them above rainbows only. So we have to be careful putting any kind of chemical in those empties, even if drained, because they'll be a little bit of leak through, and then we have to turn the water back on them.

(2) In the Fall, we have some space and have water quality issues and low oxygen levels and warmer water. Therefore, in order to reduce mortalities, we empty out all the lower raceways (12-20 of them). We could have some time to really do a good job with these before filling them up and may could try doing such a treatment. In this case, we have no raceways below them, but we do have stocked fish in the discharge below them.

Overall though, the solutions we need are: (1) reduce algae growth while fish are in them throughout the year. If their is a better way to control algae without spending more time than the two days per week we spend brushing them down; and (2) if there were a quicker way to knock the growth off between cycles of fish than pressure washing the way we're doing it now; those are the two things that would save us time and effort. I just don't believe spending alot of time making them perfect between cycles is going to accomplish much. We've tried all kinds of techniques, and we have spent lots of hours in the past making them perfect with no better result. But if that sodium hypochlorite is a persistent agent (keep killing after the work is done), it might help some. But unless we can treat up to 15,000 gpm on a regular basis, to all the raceways, in order to stop or slow the tendency of algae to grow, we might just end up spending alot of money and not much else.

I've seen and heard about lots of other hatcheries around the country, and I've seen or heard of none that has algae growth anything like what we deal with. In fact, when in cold water fish culture course, I brought up our algae problems and all the time we spend controlling the growth, and the other hatchery workers didn't even understand the problem. The question was how many times per week do y'all clean raceways? My response was that if we cleaned more than once-per-week, it would take 100% of all of our time. Some of our crew has been to other hatcheries; they said cleaning was nothing like our cleaning.

 

[Andy Vickers]

Phosphate chemical reactors to remove all traces of phosphate in the water and eliminating the source of the phosphate is breaking the food chain of the algae.

Using ozone reactors to raise the ORP potential via electronic probe monitoring can reduce the free organics and allow mechanical removal before nitrification can result in high nitrates as the other source of the food chain for the algae.

Also maintaining consistent O2 level through degassing chambers and the addition of sodium percarbonate to adjust based on maximum O2 that can be reached by degassing.

Also the (Percocypris pingi) known as Garra pingi pingi fish can eat 10 times his weight in a day of algae. Cold water tolerant and won't disturb the other fish.

I have lots of other help anytime....

 

[gregsfc]

Phosphate chemical reactors to remove all traces of phosphate in the water and eliminating the source of the phosphate is breaking the food chain of the algae.

Using ozone reactors to raise the ORP potential via electronic probe monitoring can reduce the free organics and allow mechanical removal before nitrification can result in high nitrates as the other source of the food chain for the algae.

Also maintaining consistent O2 level through degassing chambers and the addition of sodium percarbonate to adjust based on maximum O2 that can be reached by degassing.

Also the (Percocypris pingi) known as Garra pingi pingi fish can eat 10 times his weight in a day of algae. Cold water tolerant and won't disturb the other fish.

I have lots of other help anytime....

WOW! Lots of great info. Thanks! I'm writing your contact information down and will see what the bosses say about some of these ideas. The third and fourth suggestions may be something we could afford or look in to further.

We are limited finanacially for big projects. Nearly 100% of our funding comes from reimbursements from federally-managed water development agencies; specifically the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). We know a little about ozone reactors, but something like that or phosphate chemical reactors are not feasible for us in the foreseeable future, because our own agency won't pay for anything to improve our infrastructure, since they've moved us to the bottom of their priority list and won't pay for anything we do except for recovery or restoration work. Raising trout is mitigation; is 91% of what we do; and so the current directorate refuses to pay for anything mitigation related unless forced to do it by Congress, and even then they'll look for ways to divert the money away from what we do if they can get away with it.

The reimbursement agencies aren't excited about us either. They've sort of been pressured by Congress, the public and state agencies to pay for trout raised by us for their water projects (since their dams cause the need for trout anyway). So they won't volunteer monies for improvements. Nitrogen super saturization is a huge problem for us affecting our fish under 4". We lose lots of numbers, especially in the Fall, due to gas bubble disease, and especially in our inside tanks when the trout are still fingerlings, and this + the poor water quality in the Fall (just before the reservoir stratifies) lowers our survival rate down into the 70% range overall at the hatchery on an average year. The boss wants to get monies approved for O2 injection in the tanks and for the raceways that house the trout under 4 inches to reduce the NSat.

I'm no biologist, but If I recall though, nitrates and nitrites are not an issue at our hatchery, but dissolved metals, low O2 on the lower end of our flow through system due to the O2 dissapating more quickly out of the water as it flows through with warmer temperatures, and high nitrogen super sat. are the main issues, but only in the Fall when the O2 drops at our intake and the water temp climbs beyond the mid 50s. I saw an ozone reactor system when I attended cold water school at the Fresh Water Institute @ Shepherdstown, WV, and so I know something like that will never be in the budget under the current politics and agency direction. I've googled before about what might cause our high production of algae and have always assumed it's phosphorus, but we've never tested for the phosphorus content. It's interesting that you mentioned nitrates. I'll have to look in to that.

The last two suggestions though are of particular interest to me. We use packed columns that are designed to degas and aerate our low O2 intake water, so that option looks like it would fit in to our system. I guess when you state maximum O2 you mean 100% oxygen saturation or higher with total gas pressure at or about 100%. As long as the media in the packed columns are fairly clean, in the Fall of the year, our packed columns will take the O2 from around 6% at the intake, to around 100% saturation, but the degassing function doesn't seem to do as much, because our NSat may reach 106% during this same period coming out of the packed columns. At the intake, the NSat may reach 118, so it does degas by adding O2, but not enough for good fish health.

Thanks again for the post. This gives me alot to discuss with the decision makers.