Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I want to build a pond that provides optimum conditions for breeding and raising channel catfish. I'm in zone 6-7, what depth should I be digging the pond out to be? From what I researched so far I know they like to breed withing plant roots and on rocky ledges. Anybody currently have a system that successfully breeds channel cats? I would want to stay around 800-1000 gallons with maybe 150-200 gallons of gravel for plants. I'm hoping someone out there has already accomplished this where the pond is overwintered. Also, how do you go about winterizing your gravel beds? Can I just bypass the beds in the winter and have the pump just recirculating the pond through a waterfall?

As long as the whole pond doesn't freeze (a layer at the top is fine) then they should be OK over the winter.
For breeding, you would probably want 3-5 gallon plastic buckets with holes cut in the lid and laid sideways in the banks of your pond at about 2-4 ft of depth. That is what they do in aquaculture, the catfish lay eggs in there and you take them out to a hatching tank. In an AP-sized system if you don't remove the eggs they will likely be eaten either as eggs or as young fry.

This video has more info on breeding catfish:



This is about catfish in general, but it is focused on southern USA, but a lot should still be applicable to you:



Also listen to TCL in your other thread, she is 100% right.

since it sounds like you are thinking of an in ground type pond, a submersible pump will likely be far easier to deal with since installing an external pump for an inground pond will involve an expensive self priming pump or require foot valves and priming pots and needing to make sure those don't develop a problem or risk installing the external pump in a pit which risks flooding the pit and killing the pump. They make some fairly good submersible mag drive pumps that will handle a 1000 gallon fish pond while not breaking the bank to badly on the electric bill.

I have one of my 1000 gallon tanks hooked up with a HyDrive pump, about half the flow goes to the fish tank and the other half feeds my banks of Zipgrow towers. Pump is in the sump tank, feeds to towers up at about 7 feet above water level and fish tank is about 5 feet above sump tank water level. That pump is 240 watts I believe. The tower system currently has about 90 towers on it and 360 square feet of raft bed as well as the greenhouse seed starting system and an extra 300 gallon fish tank. Sump tank is only 100 gallons since there isn't as much water level fluctuation without any flood and drain beds.

The other 1000 gallon tank system I'm actually running dual pumps on separate circuits. They are Danner MD 18 pumps and there is a swing check valve on each and then they plumb together to feed up to the fish tank about 7 feet above the sump tank low water level. This way if one circuit blows or one pump dies I will still have at least half the flow and hopefully notice and fix things before things go too badly for the fish or plants. The Danner MD18 each run about 145 watts. The gravel bed system is meant to have about 2000 gallons worth of gravel with 1000 gallons of fish tank and a 300 gallon sump tank and indexing valves to sequence flow to the gravel beds.

If I was not pumping so high I could get away with using less electricity so keep this in mind in your system design. Catfish like good water quality and aeration, they are not as picky as trout of course but they will be less prone to disease if you can keep the ammonia from spiking.