Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Back in 1993 my husband & I read an article about aquaponics in West Plains, MO. I saved the article and realized last month that we are in a position now to start our own system. We've been trying to get in touch with a man that has a 400 gal. fiberglass tank with no luck. My husband could wait no longer and put together a small system with a 55 gal. barrel for a tank and a split barrel for grow beds. We put 12 bluegill in the tank and a few cuttings from the dirt garden in the growbeds. Also planted several lettuce seeds. I used some water from my indoor aquarium and squeezed out a spongefilter into the aquaponics system. One fish died the 2nd day (probably stress?) The system began spiking in nitrite on the 7th day. It's been 11 days and the ammonia is going down. The 11 fish, cuttings and seedlings are doing great ! Thanks for all the good info in the forums!

Hope to hear from someone else in Texas before the temps go above 100. We aren't sure whether to raise bluegill, channel cats or tilapia.

Welcome! I'd love to see pictures of your system!
Anyways, good luck

hello DG, welcome to the forum. Sounds like you are off to a good start. There are a couple of Texans here who usually pop in each day.

Hopefully the pics will post.

Are those loop syphons? What's the middle loop for?

It looks simple yet neat

The middle loop is just water going back into the FT for aeration. It didn't have to be looped, guess my husband just didn't want to cut good hose. (He really liked the loop autosyphons.)

Welcome!

(Go tilapia!)

Welcome to the forum Dgr, nice compact little system you have there

Hello neighbor, I agree with Janet to go with the talipia. I believe you are restricted to the mosambique variety in Texas without a permit. Here in Louisiana I have to post a $25K:( bond to raise any variety of talipia; agree to drop in inspections by the LaDWF, but they are the perfect fish in my opinion. I even found some pelletizers for turning lawn clippings into fish food, but $25K... May retire in your fine state. I'm sticking with channel cats and bluegills for now. I found a 300 gallon bulk container in the paper for $100. I'm planning on puttng in the ground in my greenhouse, but watch the paper plenty of good deals. Good luck with your system. I'm about to find out if I can fit 100 half grown bluegills in a system very similar to yours. By the way, the june bugs are coming out so a light over your barrel and your fish should be well fed!!!

Welcome, dgrdalton!

Do check on the legality of tilapia. The folks I know in TX are using catfish, mostly, because dealing with the permitting for tilapia has been a nightmare.

I've been wrong before, tho!
This guy is doing barrelponics in Texas: http://aquaculture.taroandti.com/

Tilapia mossambica are legal to raise without purchasing a permit in Texas. Guess we will go with those if we can find a supplier of fingerlings.

We are already working on the 'real system.' We can get a 500g concrete tank for $150, but would have to season or seal. We've also found fiberglass tanks, but haven't been able to contact owners. TSC has 300g rubbermaid stock tank for $200. I'm leaning toward the 300g.

BRB, our son-in-law is from Alexandria. Nice place (to visit) Thanks, I will be checking the newspaper. On Sat the FtWorth paper has a come&get it section that often has old hottubs to give away.

My biggest worry is the hot weather and keeping the fish cool enough.

dr, you will need to provide shade for your system, or you will get big temperature swings. Simply shading my system went from 36 deg c water to 28.

This little system gets shade in the afternoon from the trees, but you are right, we will be adding shade soon. The temp this afternoon was 96F (~35C).

About 15-20 miles east Baton Rouge is til-tech tilapia hatchery and they sell fingerlings, http://www.til-tech.com/
I called them and that's who pointed me to the La DWF for more info. They will question you as to your location before they sell you any.
Also, I believe I read either here or somewhere else of someone who converted a small 110 volt window unit to cool the water for his rainbow trout tank. I don't remember the particulars, but it seemed like it had the potential to become expensive.

ahoy! I'm in austin tx. I've got 15 or so bluegill in a 300 gal. tank and 6 half barrels for grow beds. I went with bluegill because it was a hardy native fish that wouldn't need any sort of temp. regulation (at least in a 300 gal rubbermaid tank buried in the ground). I can catch them locally. They're tasty. It's legal to keep wild caught bluegill of any size. Wild caught channel cats must be 1' long. Either must be cause with hook, no nets allowed... /cough.

I was very tempted to buy some channel cat fingerlings for like $.25 or $.50 each (cant remember the price) but decided not to because it wasn't as self sufficient. If you don't care about the absolute self sufficiency I'd go with channel cats instead of bluegill. Channel cats have some sort of crazy feed to weight ration (soemthing like 50%+) and they can grow over a 1lb in the first year. Oh, another reason I decided on bluegill is because it's something I could breed, which you can't do with channel cats (unless you have a huge pond).

I was also tempted to try tilapia. I don't know where you live, where your tank will be or how much you're willing to invest in keeping tilapia warm in the winter but I austin the water temperature of my tank got down into the low 40s, high 30s and my bluegill where fine. Tilapia would croak. Of course at that temperature the bluegill aren't eating and there's not much in the way of nutrients for the plants. I think tilapia will die at much colder then 50 degrees and stop eating way before that. Even a tank dug into the ground gets effected by the air temperature pretty well because when the beds drain they suck cold air into the beds. Hmmm.. that may be a one point in favor of continuous flow vs flood and drain in marginal temperature environments.

Ummm.. enough rambling? ok right.