DanD's 2300 gallons/8706 liters Aquaponics system

Cyara

Maybe your survivors will breed more temp tolerant fish... is what happened to me with my tilapia. Bought them from a guy who mega-heats his ponds and those that survived natural conditions on my farm have bred the same tolerance in the fry.

DanDMan

The plants are growing now! It will not be long and I will have to thin them out. I hope I can find a power adapter to setup my time lapse camera to record the growth.

I welded in a 1/2" pvc fitting to the drain line to suck air in. I also extended the drain line down to the deeper part of the pond so that the fresh water will replace to bottom water and the bubbles will carry the water upwards. I heated the pipe to make and angle to match the pond.

DanDMan

Here is my home made polygeyser filter and swirl filter. These have made the water SO much more clear. The swirl filter removes the fish poop and uneaten food before the pump. Its amazing how much fish poop this thing catches!

I also found a baby tilapia in the swirl filter. Hmmm, perhaps this is a good second use for the drain? I could put some fake plants around the drain and when the little ones take shelter they would be sucked out to a safer place. Well, as long as they dont get into the pump..

I have a 1 inch flexable drain pipe that I can connect to either filter to drain waste outside collection bucket.

jdphish

DanDMan wrote:

Ok, I think I see the problem. Its not oxygen. Temp swings from 56 F to 76 F(13.3 to 24.4C) Air temps are swinging up to 30 degrees between sun up and sun down, and water is swinging almost 20. So, being cleaver, I turned off the pump at night (no air), and built up the damn to hold another foot of water increasing the water volume by a several hundred gallons. The fish were then fine and the water was much warmer at sun up. Now, last night another cool front blew threw and rained buckets of cold rain dropping water temps suddenly again, and yep, you guessed it many more dead fish.

They were fine with no air added, but when the temps change fast the fish die.

Whats with this weird weather?

I am not necessarily disagreeing with you, I have been admiring your system for a while and I only ask this as someone that raises fish for a living everyday. Could it not be that the added volume of water adds oxygen holding capacity to the pond as well as a thermal mass? I notice in your latest photos that the water appears rather clear. So I suspect that the algae bloom is far less than it was prior to the initial fish kills. I still think that the algae die off caused an oxygen depletion. Maybe not. Maybe no way to know for sure without some way to measure it.

Anyway you are quite a clever and resourceful person, the venturi type air injection will surely help the situation.

Since there seems to be an interest in hybrid bluegills, I may try to produce some this summer. My family and I usually end up spending a weekend or two in the Shreveport, LA area every summer. Maybe we could meet up and you can get some hybrids from me if you like? Keep up the good work.

Outstanding looking swirl filter. Is it necessary to clean it?

DanDMan

I will need to get some more fish, but I dont know how long I can wait. The plants are going to need nutrients. We had one warm day and algae is already trying to come back so there must be some nutrients even though the readings are 0,0,0. I think the fish I purchased were not in good shape to begin with. Many were lethargic and I suspect that most of them were already over stressed. What do you think? Should I ask the fish seller to make me a deal on some fresh fish?

The swirl filter must be emptied every few days. It catches a LOT of fish poop. I am currently feeding this fish poop to the compost bin and BSF bins. With the pond online I think there will be enough fish poo from there to feed the grow bed. Oh, one thing i don't think I explained is that when the pond is pumping water flows through a check valve into the tilapia system and as the water rises it overflow from the top exit pipes in the swirl filter and carries the water to the grow bed, which returns to the pond. So both systems are tied together with the turn of a valve.

As to the oxygen, you can't have to much when using air. I hope my new return line will exchange the water off the bottom of the pond where it can aerate at the surface. The ripples in the water will also help increase surface area. I still plan on buying an oxygen test kit. I just have so many projects to complete right now and a limited amount of free money.

DanDMan

I posted a video of this new addition functioning: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujOiTpDy2A0&feature=channel_page

Cyara

Nice video DDM. Helped myunderstand the importance of a Swirl filter.

DanDMan

Thanks. Video could have been better, but I only had a few minuets to get it together.

Cyara

This might really interest you DDM with your temperature troubles....

Quote:

The first task of the experimenters in the Back Yard Fish Farm research will be to build an inexpensive geodesic dome which will house the pool for raising the tilapia. Tilapia are excellent and much revered tropical fish which will primarily eat the algae you grow right inside the pool. In order for the tilapia to grow to an edible size, which is about one-half pound, a growing season that's at least six-months long in water that is normally well above 70 degrees F. will be required. The dome provides these high temperatures by trapping the heat from the sun, which is stored in the pool and transformed into algae growth. The fish will die if the temperature drops much below 60 degrees F. Their vulnerability to cold is one of the reasons we chose this fish. If some careless person ever takes them out of the dome and puts them in a local stream or lake they will not survive the winter to upset the natural ecosystems. This is not true for the Imperial Valley in California, parts of southern Florida and southern Texas. Although tilapia are now found wild in these areas, we do not plan to aggravate the problem of exotics by conducting experiments in these regions where they can survive outside the dome.

The dome is a very effective heat trap and the pool is quite an efficient heat retainer. At the time of this writing, which is late October, the water temperature in our prototype Tilapia-Dome is still in the 60s even though the outside temperatures have been dropping near freezing at night. With the addition of a little bit of heat, we have been able to push the temperatures up into the 70s during the cool days of fall. With design improvements in the dome, we think that even in our climate, the addition of heat will not be necessary in the future.

He talks about building the geodesic dome here...http://www.kurtsaxon.com/... go to the left and click on SURVIVAL FOODS.... and then choose THE BACK YARD FISH FARM from the menu. He drives his whole site from only one URL so have to do this to get there.

Dave Donley

Quote:

I used to be a Storm Trooper, and I was a good one, in the toughest unit in the whole country but that doesn't mean I'm still a Nazi.

Wow... just wow... :shock:

(that's from the Kurt Saxon site BTW)

Dave Donley

Also BTW the article is not by Kurt Saxon but is a reprint of an article by the non-Nazi Dr. John Todd of the New Alchemy Institute.

Cyara

Was tracked through google on wonder foods. Now we talking Nazi's?

Dave Donley

Sorry the dude's site freaked me out. I bet it's illegal for him to reprint that article too.

Cyara

Don't get so freaked. Just learn and move on....

Quote:

KURT SAXON ON SURVIVAL:

Kurt Saxon, owner of Atlan Formularies, is the father of Survivalism. He coined the word. For years he's collected knowledge on trades, crafts, cottage industries and survival skills from a past when our immediate ancestors had to do for themselves on a day to day basis. His work is in anticipation of a time when our overcrowded and down-bred system goes the way of Rome.

Kurt started his business in January of 1976 with a quarterly newsletter called "The Survivor". After publishing and selling twelve issues of "The Survivor", Mr. Saxon would collect all those back-issues and combine 3 to 5 long out of print books to this concoction to create a bound volume of one of his most famous works to date; "The Survivor" series of books......

But you got me looking at some of his other stuff.

He sure doesn't beat around the bush!

This came in the interview before your quote from the interview DD.......

Quote:

You were brought up during the Depression...

Yes, I saw it. I was there.

...and you also were involved with many organizations which people consider to be extremist like...

The Birchers, the Minutemen and the American Nazi Party. Then when it comes to the occult, the Scientologists, the Rosicrucians, the Martianists, UFO people, spiritualists, you name it, I joined it. It was a lot of fun.

How did they influence your ideas as a survivalist and about survivalism?

During the 60's, when I was younger, I was searching for answers. I was on the right wing, others were on the left and we were all searching for answers. When it came to the occult, I was searching for answers. Like Buddha. He tried one thing after the other. There wasn't one thing going that he didn't indulge in, but it didn't work. So he sat under that bo tree and said, "To hell with it!" and he thought of the eight-fold path.

I did the same thing as Buddha for my generation. I tried everything possible. I searched for every answer and found that they were all wanting. Just about everyone, political and occult, wanted a hand-out. So then I realized that the only way an individual can free himself from the ills of his society is to become independent of it. He has to learn to do things for himself, take care of himself and his loved ones and possibly provide a service for his neighbors......

Cyara

LOL.... the guy is highly entertaining! Not anyone he doesn't take a swipe at but gotta love his core-gut honesty!

Got to be a survivor to take on the world like that!!!

Backyard Aquaponics A place to discuss aquaponics

DanD's 2300 gallons/8706 liters Aquaponics system

Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics