Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

The Baby Tilapia are growing like weeds, with the biggest few in the 6" to 7" range

The largest Baby Tilapia in the Fish Tank are about 6" to 7" now, and the others over 5 " with water temp's in the mid 80's...... they should be getting old enough to sex and seperate them soon,

I plan to remove the blue barrel GB inside the GH, to the space at the left end of the outside GB's. And then build a new Larger GB and ST across the front of the GH, so that i have a lot more F&D GB volume inside for the winter, to support all these growing baby tilapia.

Things are looking good RS...

RS,

The fish are looking really good! I sure do like your system too. Very well thought out.

Thanks again kellenw......

The inside Grow Bed / Sump Tank is coming along nicely, all the parts are now cut, and has been mocked up inside my shop, to see that everything fits as planned, and are now being painted, before being reassembled inside the greenhouse, then install pond liner and add gravel, so all these babys have plenty of biofilter over the winter. I hope to have it finished and running by week after next. And will post Pic's of the install after that......

Maybe i need to have one of them there Workshop event's, for help with washing the gravel, as there is going to be a Lot more to wash this time, compared to the outside GB's

Today marks One Year sence I got my Catfish and Tilapia..... the biggest few catfish are about 3' long and the rest are all over 2'. We have eaten several catfish and tilapia over the summer. have about 200 or so baby tilapia, with the biggest few baby's at about 8", and the rest in the 4" to 7" range. Had a new batch of 120+ baby's 3 weeks ago, before the water temps went from the mid 80's F to the mid 70's F at the end of Sept.

lessens learned:

1. Beans and purple hule black eye peas show Iron deficiency before anything else, Cumbers are next, while the tomato's and peppers are still looking good

2. adding Epsom Salts, really help's get things to flowering good

Have now had Cucumbers, peppers, and Basel from the outside GB's, but no tomato's yet. They finely started blooming good, and now if they will set some fruit we might have some 1lb'ers before frost.....

Read on another forum about adding green sand to the GB's for the slow release Iron, etc... So i was wandering about adding Green Sand to my new inside GB's when i fill them up with gravel soon, and how much to add....? just sprinkle it through out the gravel...?

painting is so boring......... but the inside GB / ST is coming along, and should be ready to reassamble in the GH in a few days

Update time again,

I really, really hate the short time limit on edits to posts it does NOT GIVE ENOUGH TIME TO FIX THINGS.....!!!!!!! I wish some one would increase the edit time, so that i can fix stupid mistakes..........

we had catfish nuggits for thanks giving from 1/2 of this catfish

Have been working on the new Grow Bed / Sump tank for the green house so I can keep the water for the tilapia warm. We finely got it going, and most of the outside grow bed plants moved inside right before Thanks Giving, and the first freeze. Have been finishing off the details sence then, and trying to get the outside FT and GB's setup and running independently from the GH FT......

I pulled out the first blue barrel GB and moved it outside.
We took the Gravel out of it and put that in buckets with holes, and sat them in a kiddie pool, with FT water in it, until needed to seed the new Grow Beds to get them to cycle quicker. I think that the new media is close to being cycled now 15 days later.
We Found Gammarus crustaceans living in the gravel, and under the 1/2 black Perf Pipe in the bottom of the Blue Barrel GB's. I will start a new thread about this topic soon.

Then used the entire front part of the Green house for the new setup.

We cut up all the lumber and mocked it up inside my shop, to make sure everything fit as planed, and then disassembled it for painting, then reassembled it inside the green house, and then added the Fire Stone pond liner to the sump and GB's.

The GB's contain aprox. 4.9 yards of media, with a 4" to 5" layer of black lava rock in the bottom, just covering up 1/2 of a perforated black drain pipe run down the middle, and river gravel over the top of that. The bottom sump tank can hold aprox. 1600Gal of water max.

Washing the Gravel and Lava Rock, completely wore out everybody involved......

have planted lettuce from new seeds, and several other things in it over the last few days

i also have several 5 gal buckets of expanded shell, gravel, or lava rock in the sump, to get cycled, before i get around to using use the media for more trickle down biofilters over the FT.

Since the sump is big and shallow, I want to add even more biofilter media down there in some kind of containers, so that the water has to flow through the media, to get from the GB outlets, to the Sump Pump.

To keep the weight of the media from bowing or breaking the 4"X4"'s, we installed 6 3" PVC pipe support stands, under the inside edge of the GB's, before adding media.....

more pic's

finished off, and very close to being cycled up

I forgot to take pics and post them, of the new trickle down biofilters made from Topsy Turvies that I have hanging over the fry barrels.

I will make up several more of these soon, to hang in other locations

They have about 3" of expanded shale in the bottom with about 10" of black lava rock, and about 3" of gravel on top of that to plant into......

so far they seam to be working great.......

...and that my folks is the way to update a thread.

Awesome!!