Aquaponics

[RichnSteph]

Hey Sill did you continue on with this project? If so how is it going so far?

 

[Sill]

Yes but getting time to work on it has been an issue.

We scored a nice free 110 gallon tank my DH's work place was throwing out, and it had only been used for distilled water so we don't even have to clean it. It beats the smaller tank we were going to use. It's about 5-6 feet tall but now it's in the ground! I won't tell you what a pain that was since some of the patio cement had to be chipped out and our ground is full of caliche if you know what that is. Yeah, it's mother nature's cement, our desert's excuse for soil. It had to be chipped out too.

We decided right before starting the plumbing to do a swirl filter after the fish tank and before the grow beds so had to wait for new Uniseals to come in. We are hoping to work on the plumbing this weekend. I know from what other's have gone through that there will be endless tweaking of the plumbing, siphons, SLO, etc.

The tilapia are growing like weeds and since I gave away the large koi that was in with them they don't have to compete with her for food. Some of them look pregnant, and I know it's not from too much food because I can't feed them too much as I just have a tiny bio filter for all the fish right now. I'm expecting to look in there some morning and see clouds of fry.

 

[RichnSteph]

I know all about trying to get time to work on things..... my list never ends it seems. I do know a thing or two about caliche and never did grow to like it.

A free 110 gallon tank sounds awesome! We're trying to decide between actually digging a pond and installing a liner or getting one of the large IBC totes and setting that in the ground. We'll have an easier time of it I think since all we have out here is sand.

Good luck with it and I'll keep my fingers crossed that your tilapia make babies soon.

 

[RichnSteph]

Hey Sill any updates on your progress?

 

[Sill]

It's been stalled. My DH decided we need a bigger fish tank, some of the tilapia have gotten huge. Right now they're in a cut 275 gallon IBC, but he wants a 330 gallon that is intact except for the top access. They have been hard to come by unless we want to shell out too much $ for the local tank dealer. We've had a couple of times we thought we had one only to have them turn out to be just the 275s, or someone else beat us to them altogether. It's hard when you are trying to do it on a budget.

I'm happy the fish made it through winter OK. I had an aquarium heater in the tank set on 75 degrees and for the coldest nights I don't think it turned off much. Should have insulated the above ground tank better. Floated a sheet of styrofoam insulation on top and that helped hold in the heat. There were some days the tilapia did not want to eat, it was just too cool for them. Now that its warmed up a bit they hit the surface like piranhas when I feed them.

What did you decide to do? A pond liner or IBC?

 

[RichnSteph]

Glad to hear you're still at it even with the cold issues. We ended up installing an 825 gallon open top container for our duck and water source for the AP and chickens to drink from. This afternoon I installed a second one so we now have 1600+ gallons available. We dropped in some goldfish and two plecostamus to manage the hideous algae bloom. This weekend I'm building our grow beds. Hope to have plants in within the month.

 

[Sill]

That's a nice volume of water to work with! I bet your duck is loving it! I don't know what the climate is like there. I'd love to try perch or trout but they would probably boil during our summers. What kind of fish are you planing to get eventually or are you sticking to the goldfish and plecos? I know people with systems that run just fine with the ornamental types of fish like yours so maybe you're sticking with them? I do have some goldfish in with my tilapia, but they are big enough that the tilapia don't bother them. They ate most of the mosquito minnows we housed with them.

 

[RichnSteph]

The goldfish and plecos are in there just as a quick fix to the algae issue. Seriously it went from pretty clear water to GREEN with stuff floating on the top within two days. The duck spends hours in the tank just eating along the surface. Her egg we got today had the darkest orange yolk I've ever seen so it must be good for her. Our plan for fish is to use hybrid perch in both tanks with a healthy population of crayfish to help clean up the larger particles that settle to the bottom. We'd considered fresh water prawns but I don't know where to get them and since we have a lake nearby I can catch all the crayfish that I want there and drop them into our system. I was going to use tilapia but I ate a bad fillet a few months back that gave me a hideous case of food poisoning and now I can't even look at them with out going "green around the gills" so-to-speak. We'll also drop in a few blue and channel catfish just to round out the variety. I figure with the amount of water we have and the way the upper tank is set up (two feet above the lower) we'll have plenty of oxygen from the waterfall and a healthy enough system to support multiple species. The tanks are roughly 7'x10'x30" so they are rather shallow so we'll have to add in some heat in winter if we want to harvest fish and have them continue to reproduce. Of course we'll need shade in the summer but that's easy enough to do. We've got a line on a solar set up for the pumps so that at least during the day we won't be paying to run them.

Once it's all set up and looks nice I'll post a pic or two. Right now it looks like an aquatic train wreck in the back yard......

 

[Tiller]

A word of warning against using catfish, they are a predatory fish, chances are any fish that can fit in their mouths they will eat when they get hungry, even with plenty of supplemental feed They love crayfish, and small perch.
Ya'lls systems are amazing. Most I've accomplished so far is two tank floaters in two 29 gallon tanks, but have dreams of a larger system.

 

[RichnSteph]

A word of warning against using catfish, they are a predatory fish, chances are any fish that can fit in their mouths they will eat when they get hungry, even with plenty of supplemental feed They love crayfish, and small perch.
Ya'lls systems are amazing. Most I've accomplished so far is two tank floaters in two 29 gallon tanks, but have dreams of a larger system.

Hmmm. I knew that they were predatory but thought that they'd leave everyone else alone as long as they were fed. Thank you for the heads up! If we decide to still go with some catfish I can put them in one tank and the perch in another to hopefully keep the cats from eating all of our fingerlings.

*laugh* At least you've accomplished something! So far all I have is two tanks, one of which is dry at the moment due to a missing plug, and a whole lot of plumbing parts and dreams. If I can get them fenced in, the plug installed and all the plumbing done I'll post up some pictures.