Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I have emptied my fish tanks, many many times - the fish mostly survive.

I dont recommend making it a regular occurence though

So, to date, how are the led's doing. I was thinking of using them in my system.

I came home Friday night to an odd-sounding AP system. The pump was running dry, but there was plenty of water in the tank, so there had to be a blockage.
*Sigh.* It was one of my catfish. After my last HSM, I hadn't completely capped the pump pipe. Poor guy was really wedged in and long dead.

The water was in bad shape, so I did somewhere between a 30-50% water change, and forced some cycles. That seems to have done the job, because no one else died, and my water quality really went up. I'll need to do more water changes, I think, since the pump doesn't pump up my solids very well.

Down to 9 cats...

There are two pics here, but ya know, pumped fish...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/47653141@N ... otostream/
Taken with my cell, so the quality is really pretty poor.

Now that fish had a baaad day at the office

rmack5, I haven't forgotten this. I'm just looking for a summary I wrote elsewhere, so I don't duplicate the effort.

On a completely different note:

In my basement BAP setup, I have too many fish (5 fat goldfish and 9 growing catfish). :-\ Or, rather, my fish have grown such that the system cannot support them anymore.

I have two other systems in my house - a small one in my kitchen with tilapia, and one out on the front porch which is currently being used for a quarantine for two new crayfish and plecos. This one was just decommissioned due to weather.

Neither of these systems can take up basement fish overflow. I see three options:

1) Build a 4th system to take the extra basement fish.

• I really don't have room. My house is tiny, and I'm already having humidity problems from my current systems.

2) Add another barrel-tank to my current basement system.

• If I did this, what I would like to do is to connect the two barrels with a very large PVC pipe (like 4") and a ball valve. I do have room to do this (barely).
• I would pump the water from one barrel and drain to the other, to make sure the flow kept up. The fish could travel back and forth as well.
• This would only be a stopgap, but would probably get me through the winter.
• I would probably also have to add growbeds. What I would do here is put in two new barrel-halfs, stacked, with duckweed and maybe some azolia (sp?) to suck up the extra nutes.
• The fish would only have to be in a temporary system for a few hours.
• I do already have the barrels I would need to do this.

3) Radical redesign of my basement system from BAP to a larger capacity system.

• I would have to build a tank, probably out of wood and pond liner. All the wonderful stocktanks I've looked at would not fit down my basement stairs.
• The fish would be in a temporary holding cell for a very long time, days, and I don't currently have the room to do that.
• I would put in large growbeds, too, using wood and pond liner.
• this would give me plenty of room for future growth as well.

I do plan, hopefully in the spring, to put up a 4 season greenhouse that would solve all my space problems (for a few more seasons), but I'm not sure I'll get it done (time, money, zoning issues...)

So I'm not sure which way to go - temporarily increase the basement size, or build it for longevity. Thoughts?

Two further options for crowding reduction (or "reduction")
4) if the catfish are even marginal size, you could scale back by eating one and reduce pressure on your system.
5) cool the system. If it is at a lower, but still at healthy, level for the fish you will have slower growth, nutrient creation, and energy levels: effectively less crowded.

Have you taken a look at the integrated sump/growbed that I built? It might help with your space issues. You could also reduce switchover time by building it elsewhere and carrying it down to the basement (probably weighs about 200lbs (empty, of course)). viewtopic.php?f=18&t=3620&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

Moisture problems? Yah, especially with the cold outside (and you haven't even hit winter yet!). And, of course, warmer water=more power use (if you have a water heater), more evaporation and moisture trouble, and faster fish growth/more crowding trouble.
1) Cooling your system would reduce all these problems with the disadvantage of slower growth for plants and fish. I haven't re-read your thread, so don't know your system temp, but my catfish feed ok at 65deg F. My temps (indoor/outdoor hybrid system) haven't yet dropped lower than that. Cool your system below the dew-point of your air and it will suck moisture from your air, but for that you would need trout and a heat pump!
2) enclosing your system (or parts of it) would help with moisture/heat loss, but you would need a bubbler to bring air in from outside the enclosure. A de-humidifier would help with any excess moisture outside the enclosure (and, with a fan, might keep plants from getting humidity troubles like mold), but I am not sure of the costs. It would, additionally, help warm the house so might be a reasonable idea in places with low power rates.
3) covering the water and adding air by setting up the incoming water to suck up some outside air on its drop into the FT as well will help. I have one of my fish tanks covered with tempered glass (from local dump re-use area: old sliding glass door glass) and it really really helps with moisture and heat loss.

My thought is to sit back and figure it out as much as possible before spending more T&$. You've experimented enough to have an idea of what is what. Layout, appearance, lighting. If you are considering covering the fish tank you might see what glass is available for free or what size plexiglass is standard so you can plan your tank accordingly. You could even post a sketch (by hand on paper if you don't want to spend hours with sketchup) of your basement layout, including current system (for logistics of changeover), and see what people here come up with....

Madness, but fun, eh!?

It's been awhile since I added pictures here!

My basement barrelponics system is still going strong. The system has cooled down, so the fish, while still eating, aren't growing all that much, and due to the onset of winter, moisture isn't a problem. In fact, it's welcome.

I added a fluorescent growlight down there as well, just to add a bit of oomph. It's across the top of this pic.


Small bell pepper. Blurry hand for scale.


Kale and basil:



tiny bellpepper:


I was having problems getting the pepper to fruit, but added some phosphate, and voila, fruit! That's so cool how that works.

I was going to increase the size of the fish tank down here, but today I went and got a greenhouse:


So come spring, I'll be moving the fish out there. So no point in building another tank in the basement now. This is the 10x12 harbor freight greenhouse, on sale, plus an extra 15% coupon. I couldn't resist.
I never expected them to have it in stock, otherwise I would have rented a truck!

SNOW!!!

Sorry couldnt resist

There is nothing like the smell of warm, moist, growing plants in the middle of winter. Your snow juxtaposed with your garden sure brought back childhood memories.

Make sure you do anchor that green house down to a slab or good wood frame or it will blow away... I know I'd show you a pic, but I cant find enough of the old green house to take a pic of..

I just wrote up this review of my LEDs for another forum, and thought I'd x-post here:

They are outrageously expensive. And the prices aren't coming down as fast as I had hoped. However, they do sip electricity, which is why I got them. I decided that for this use, the environmental savings in electricity was more important to me than the cost of the lights.

Having said that, I've had burnouts. The lights have been quickly replaced under warranty, but it's frustrating to have lights that are supposed to last 10 years burn out after 3 months.

I should have the lights closer to the plants, but I didn't plan well, and didn't put similar-height plants in the same growbeds.

Leafy greens are doing by far the best in my setup: cilantro is going nuts, miner's lettuce, tatsoi, kale and basil are all quite happy. And most things are pretty leggy. I've gotten very few fruiting veggies to work. Failures are: spaghetti squash, tumbler cherry tomatos, soybeans, snow peas and strawberries. But my bell peppers are large and lush green, and once I added phosphate, they started fruiting happily. The fruit is small (2-3" long), but very tasty.

I'm going to start supplementing the light with a fluorescent growlight in the near future, and see if that helps.

BTW, I bought a bag of sodium thiosulphate off of E-bay, and have been using that in all of my water. Haven't had a problem since.

The peppers are still producing (the peppers are only ping-pong ball sized, though), and I tore everything out of one bed and planted low-light stuff: kale, tatsoi, claytonia etc. The kale is doing great, as is the tatsoi, but the claytonia died.

Also, the worms I put in the system a year ago are still in there.