Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

This is my first system. It is test run for me. There are 14,000 trout fingerlings with two settling tanks and biofilter. I have additional filter space above the biofilter that I will be using as growbed area. The plan is to try some spinach or lettuce. The system is a fairly cold/cool water system. If you folks have any suggestions on other good plants or varieties that would do well in 12-15 degree conditions let me know. If this works out good I plan to expand the concept to my other fish tanks. (I put this under members system but it might be better under commercial systems? The fish aspect is commercial but the aquaponics side is personal.)

Welcome to the forum.

You may need more light for the plants. Is it practical to put grow beds outside? Artificial lighting inside? Has your bio filter cycled yet (processing ammonia and nitrites into nitrates)? How will you eliminate the nitrates from the system? How many gallons of fish tanks do you have? How do you test your water and for what parameters?

We would all like more details and photos so we can learn. I'm interested in the above questions as well as the standard water parameters:
Gallons, pH, Ammonia, Nitrites, Nitrates...gallons per fish now, at what weight do you plan to harvest, what are you using for feed, .... we are an inquisitive lot.

PS: How will you clean the settling tanks? what will you do with the waste?

Grow beds outside is not an option as my trout raising season takes place during winter and we get cold up here. (last week was -30 C;)) I have artificial light to lengthen my day by 8 hours to grow the fish.
I would say the filter is not cycled. The TAN is 6 ppm, Nitrite is 3 ppm, nitrate is 20 ppm and pH is 7.4. I am not to sure how accurate my test kit is though. The volume one fish tank is 1.5-2 m3 but I keep water level around the 1.5. As the fish are around a gram each right now the volume is around 1.75. Total water volume is probably close to 5m3. The system that I am going to do the aquaponics in is two tanks tied together to one pump.
The current fish density is approximately 4 kg/m3. I plan to get the density to 20 kg/m3. The fish will get sold as fingerlings in the spring once the ice comes off for pond stocking. The harvest size is will be about 3 inches.
The feed that I use is EWOS's trout feed. These fish are currently on #1 crumble.
The settling tank drains to a pump out which then pumps into a septic tank. I currently do not have a system set up to capture and make better use of said effluent. The tanks drain to the bottom of the settling "tank" or barrel and the clean water moves into the second barrel which acts a bit like a sump. That second barrel is where the pump is. When I drain the settling tanks, I just turn a couple valves off and turn another valve on and effluent flows out of same pipe it came in.

Here are pics but not necessarily of my system.
Fish that I stocked a farm dam.

Eyed trout eggs and and incubation.

Awesome, thanks for sharing. I raise catfish and tilapia to eat. I hope the catfish will spawn this spring and I will try hatching the eggs and raising from fry.

Trying to spawn and hatch catfish sounds like it will be an interesting project. Hatching my trout can be challenging but I find it so amazing to see the number of changes they go through in a month. I don't breed the trout, I buy the eggs and hatch them out.

Hmmm, buying eggs... I never considered that approach with my catfish. I wonder if they can be shipped easier than fry or if they are more fragile? I currently buy fry from central California and have them air shipped to southern Ca.

It depends your situation. You might like breeding them. For me keeping broodstock for 100,000 eggs once a year isn't worth it so I buy top quality eggs from Washington state and hatch them out. Breeding catfish for your set up might be enjoyable!

Interesting hatchery setup Crackenfish . If I was a bit more confident of being able to keep the temps down enough for trout it would be fun to try hatching some eggs (no where near the numbers you do though).

Cheers

Yes hatching temps can be quite tricky but generally a 4 degree band. I try to keep the temperature at 10 Celsuis and once they are feeding push to 15. If I hatch them in like September it can be more difficult as water stays really warm and I don't have a cooling system yet.

Finally got around to taking pictures of my growbed. Nothing in it yet but hopefully soon. I have spinach seeded in starter pots, and hopefully it will grow good in a cold house. What are other good plants that can grow in cold weather (15 C)?

Chard, Lettuce, Kale, many other types of greens

These probably wouldn't do well
Tomatoes, beans, squash, peppers, basil

That was what I was thinking. Thanks for confirming.

Also broccoli, brussels sprouts and cauliflower