Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I got my fish today, and ran into my first uh-oh.

I was planning on keeping 20 finger-sized tilapia in my (well cycled) 50 gallon indoor aquarium while waiting for the barrelponics-mutant-system to cycle.

Here is the Uh-oh.
Instead of 20 small tilapia, I got...
10 finger sized tilapia
5 sort-of-inbetweens
5 bigger than my hand almost-ready-to-harvest-HUGE fish

My 50 gallon tank is very very very crowded.



Tonight I am going to put together a chemical (Ammo-Carb) filter for the barrelponics system and transfer the big fish into it.



Wish me luck!
-ellie

I though tilapia ate each other?
Good Luck

Tilapia only tend to attack eachother when quite small ,, it's a craving for protein that does it. As they get older they tend to settle and be happy with pellets and some algie,, perhaps it has to do with their gill-rakes developing and they are getting nice protein from the algie and the little critters in the water.

Nice range of sizes there Liz... perfect way to start.... if you can get away with it....

Maybe put the smaller fish in the new system anyway and cycle with them...

Just keep testing and be prepared for water changes...

When the bigger system is cycled you can add the larger fish... or keep a couple in the aquarium as breeders?

Tonight I Jigsawed the top out of another barrel and scrubbed it. It is on the back porch now with the "little" 330 GPH submersible pushing the water around. I'll dump and refill it in the morning, and start the 24 hour chlorine de-chlorination clock.

In other news, the fish are doing great. They all have their color back and have settled in the tank. I fed them a little bit, and they are eating. This is a good thing. I'll check the N0x tomorrow and see if it spikes badly.

As of this morning, pre-tilapia, Ph 8.0 Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate undetectable. I had done a big water change to get the levels down, so I should have some breathing room. I've left the Ph high to help the bacteria in the filter get a jump start, but over time I would like to dwindle it back toward the 7's. Does anyone know what Ph shell grit buffers to? Also, can someone post a link to the Ph / NOx toxicity chart?

Curiosity: This aquarium had two existing occupants, one of which is a small (2 inch) orange cichlid with black fins*. One of the primary structures in this tank is a "cave". Apparently the little orange fish has called dibs on it and it is hilarious to se her gnawing on a fish more than three times her size to push them out of the cave.

Go Little fish, don't let them keep you down.

Thanks!
-ellie



* The other is also a cichlid, I think. It is solid white and about 4 inches long. The poor thing has had most if its control surfaces chewed off. It looks pretty pathetic.

Shell grit normally buffers to pH 7.5 or there abouts.... with your system currently running pH 8.0.... no need to add any shell grit....

Attached pH/ammonia chart for you.... it's temperature dependant more than pH dependant...

The fish looked happy this morning, and enjoyed a small Breakfast, though a couple of them looked at me as if to say.. "That's it? You are kidding, right?" Sorry Fishies, I can't have a big ammonia spike killing you off.

Rupert: Thanks for the chart. I've seen it like 50 times but couldn't find it when I needed it.

Tonight I'm going to put together an aerator "tower" for the barrel system if I can find a pvc bit that is the right size to screw into the fitting on the barrel. The idea is that Water will pump in at the top and splash down through a series of baffles tor maximum air exchange. Physically I think it's going to look like one of the "strawberry trees" folks make out of PVC, but upside down to keep the water splashing +inside+ the tube. All of that is contingent on me not thinking up something else that will require less pump head.

Does anyone else have other ideas for aeration? I've also thought about setting up a _small_ paddlewheel instead, but that would mean adding another motor and using more electricity in a wet environment.. I should mention that I'm using my fish barrel(s) vertically | instead of horizontally _ like in the barrelponics book.

The idea de jour is Tank -> FBF -> Aeration -> Tank, with the growbeds optionally inserted in the system between the Tank and FBF. That will allow me to move the fish bits into the garage and keep fish over winter. Explaining the Bulkhead fittings in the garage wall may be "interesting" if we ever sell the house.

-ellie

No doubt, the Martian Tilapia put in the bulkhead fitting.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=3553

I like the water inside the strawberry tower idea, would muffle the noise too

However a safe option is to run an air pump from inside house / shed somewhere, and route the airhose out to the fish tank.

I run one hose from the little air pump about 20 metres

Using an airlift tube gets plenty of water circulation too.

Unpleasant test results tonight.

pH: 7.6 (-.4)
Ammonia: ~3 (+~3)
Nitrite: ~.30 (+~.3)
Nitrate:~2 (+~2)

I was expecting a bump, but this was a bigger change than expected.

Tomorrow morning I will be doing a 40% water change, and the "waste" aquarium water will go into the barrel system to help push it along the cycling process. I am also going to find some way to plumb some ammo-lock into the aquarium's water flow. With the feeder off, Tank temp at 70, and the drop in pH, they should be okay.

A fish, Big-or-little-or-feeder-goldfish as-yet-undecided, will make the trip to the barrels tomorrow. This is as much to verify the water quality (did I get those barrels "really" clean?) as it is to reduce the crowding.

Also I came up with a neat little idea for self cleaning screen filters. It has some difficult compound curves and would be a nightmare to try and fabricate, so it is going to stay in the notebook for now.

-ellie

Today I spent an hour trolling the Lowes plumbing section and managed to put together my fluidized bed filter. I was even smart enough to rinse the sand before putting it in the filter tube. Unfortunately the tube diameter was too small and it pumped all the sand (in a fluidized state) out of the tube.

The decision of big-fish/little-fish got a lot easier when one of the fishes jumped out of the tank this morning. It was one of the larger ones. She? is in the barrel out back now and seems to be okay.

The tank conditions are about the same.
pH: 7.8 (+.2)
Ammonia ~3 (n.c.)

I observed a curious behavior from the fish tonight. We had a number of friends over, a loud and boisterous lot. I came back in and all of the fish were huddled together in a tiny corner of the tank. It was rather odd.

-ellie

There was at least one bad person amongst the group ..... fish , dogs and children can sense anger and or danger.Either that or they were wondering when they would get a BEER.

At least one, possibly two, of the larger fish are building nests in the aquarium.

Based on my limited understanding of Tilapia reproduction, I believe this means that I will have an even MORE crowded tank here in a couple of weeks.



-ellie

Yes Elizabeth , time to prepare ,,paint the nursery , buy lots of nappies. ( diapers?).

Seriously , you only have a little time to get a nice little nursery tank ready.

Update:

The fish are doing well, and now snapping up 2 meals/day. I added some chemical filtration and it has brought the aquarium system to managable levels of TAN. The male is no longer gaurding the nest, so one of the fish probably has a mouthful of eggs.

Outside the mutant barrelponics system is coming together. There was a minor change of plans when I realized that 2 auto-siphon half-barrels wouldn't leave any water in the tanks for the fish.. (oops!) So now I'm aiming for one gravel bed and two NFT beds. I have the autosiphon on the flood and drain growbed working! I had to pull the gravel out to fix a leak, and I want to change the corrugated anti-rock-clog pipe in it. The NFT growbed still needs some plumbing too. Busy Busy Busy.

I am trying to start some lettuce for the nft raft, but I can't figure out how to get them to germinate.. If there is anyone with floating raft experience here I could sure use some help. I want to do net pots in a styrofoam raft, but I don't know how to germinate the lettuce, or how to mount them in the net pots.. nor which size pots to buy. Help!

Thanks,

Ellie