Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

My fish arrived an hour ago. 200 channel catfish, 250 hybrid bluegill, 50 yellow perch, and 25 hybrid stripped bass. That is 525 fish! I have the bass in a seperate, smaller tank and the 500 in the bigger tank. They look happy enough. Water temp is 58F(14.5C) and they are quite active. I was told not to feed them for 24 hours. I work on a contract away from here tomorrow, so they will have to wait about 30 hours.

Now the fun begins. I started the plants earlier and used top feeding with fish emulsion and seaweed extract to keep them going until the fish arrived. They look very healthy. Leaf color is a nice shade of green. My water was cycled with ammonia and it went from 5ppm ammonia and 5 ppm Nitrite to 0,0. It took seven weeks with the cold water. Glad I started early enough to get it done in time.

Going to feed 3.5mm Silvercup 35% protein pellets. All fish are pellet trained. The company that I bought the fish from is Jones hatchery near Cincinnati Ohio, which is 300 miles away. They brought the fish and 160 lbs of feed to me at no additional expense! Nice people with lots of helpful advice. Tom delivered them and he said it was worth the drive to see my system. He had studied aquaponics in college, but had never seen a system before.

Today is my 60th birthday.....nice present!
Pictures will follow in 3 days (Sunday here).

I am finally in aquaponics after 3 years of building, learning, preparing....great!

Congrats! Now the real fun begins. The endless hours of watching the fish do what they do....

Wow! Congrats on the fish and the birthday! Copious pictures are required!

A pre-mature Happy Birthday to ya DB....

and good luck with your new found siblings.... all 525 of them, each and everyone

Congrats on both the fish and the B-day!
What torture, having to be away from the system as they settle in. I would guess you'll be thinking of the fish all dang day.
Like the read of a good book, I'm looking forward to the updates.

a great birthday present Doug!

My wife is in Greece and she called with a group of friends. I got an international "Happy birthday to you...".

A big thanks for the birthday wishes from forum members. My birth certificate says I'm 60 but I just do not feel 60! I have learned a lot in the first 60 years that I plan to use in the next 60 years.

Today I got my fish and planted two grape vines. Next year I will be eating fish and drinking wine. I also let my Kubota tractor pull the fence tight around my garden and I got it fastened to the posts. Less for the deer and more for us. Saturday I will build some cages to protect my strawberry plants. Less for the birds and more for us. Then the netting over the cherry trees. Less for the birds and more for us. And they say greed is a bad thing?

Can't wait to see the photos, well done and happy birthday

LOL generally I try to plant more then I need so that I can share with what ever creature may decide to desire a taste in passing thru my dirt garden. Only have bunnies and they are a welcome site. Again Happy 60th.

Gotfish, you bring back a funny memory. My wife was a city girl...grewup in Detroit. When she saw my 60' x60' garden, she thought it was way too big for two people to eat all the produce. She did not know you only get about half; the wild life gets the rest...and that is a good year!

Good on you Doug, a long wait, but rewards are coming. Happy Birthday too

i hope i dont have to wait as long as you for my system
Happy birthday Doug

CHeers
Pete

I see three dead fish on the bottom of the big tank. Maybe 3 out of 525 is OK. Tomorrow, I will pull out the dead ones for inspection. Also, the first feeding was not very much (about 30 hours after fish arrived). I will feed twice tomorrow and see if feeding picks up. this is all new stuff for me.

The fish are evenly distributed vertically and horizontally. They all appear calm. The water temp is about 60F. My outside pond goldfish are feeding eagerly now. The water has a pH of about 8.5 otherwise water quality is high and DO is about 8.5 ppm. The limits on picture file size will make it better for me to get high res pictures onto my web site of www.thebasbergs.com and then post to this forum that they are ready for viewing. My birthday and the holiday "cinco de mayo [5th of May}" parties have slowed down my time for posting picture, but within the next three days is a good guess.

That's not a huge casualty rate. The pH seems rather high though...

Probably died of heart failure. That is a lot of fish! I will be eagerly watching.