Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I have a quarantine 4 barrel AP system, and new fish go into there, and then when they are big they go back into the quarantine system as death row for a week or two

As long as you don't have green water or particulates, just having a separate tank works fine. That is what I do. Tilapia can filter feed, so particulates and green water defeat the purging process.

Sounds doable. We don't really have room, except for perhaps in the summer, to setup another system. Or, I suppose we could just move out of the downstairs of the house...

Otherwise, we can easily add another barrel that at least gets some water cycled through. The water is anything but green... seems to have taken on this lovely brownish color. I seem to recall somewhere that mature systems get browner.

We just got our electricity bill and I'm very pleased. Last year at this time, we still had the greenhouse setup with a dirt bed, etc. The heat was set to come on at 50 degrees F (10 C) and would run at night to keep the greenhouse from getting too cold. It was using the same oil filled electric heater we still use. Our daily usage for the period was 27 kwh.

Over the last month we've been heating the tank water to 65 F (18 C) and the heater is set to 60 F (15.5 C). And, we had an average of 25 kwh per day.

Now, the truth is we've focused a lot in the last year on how to minimize energy consumption which feeds into the equation. But, we are running an aquaponics system and keeping the greenhouse warmer in addition to household energy on less energy than we were using before we had the AP system. Pretty cool.

And, the best I can tell from looking at some local weather data, temps were not dramatically different between the two years.

Hi all- thought that I would post a pic of our homemade fish trap. It is difficult to trap the young tilapia in our system as our fish tank is a mostly buried IBC. Little light, coupled with could be better access etc. Using various nets and techniques got the job done w/ a few beers and bruises before. We needed to get fish out for brother John's system. Our fish are currently only 4-5 inches long. The first time we trap fish for the day , we seem to get between 7-9 fish at a time. Do it again in a hour 4-5. 2-3 on the last dip is about all, but it gets us enough fish to add to his system at one time. We'll eventially start a thread so you can see his system. Really nice. So far, we have 60 fish at his house.
The feeder is a 4 gallon - I think clay kitty liter bucket. We've used them around the yard for years. I cut the very end off a deli container and it snaps into a hole cut w/ a 4 1/8" holesaw. The window screen is secure w/ twine and it is lowered also into the tank w/ twine as well. The pics show a piece of flat rock for weight inside. I attached the rock securely to the outside bottom instead. The fish swim in through the container and then don't quite know where the exit is. The end of the container is about 2 1/2" from the side of the black bucket.
Fishing day we don't feed. I'll put some pellets inside the trap and lower it into the tank. A bit of commotion like a flashlight beam or bit of swirling with the net seems to help the numbers. Once raised, I un-snap the clear container and dump them into the cooler. Lowering the bucket into the cooler, 4 inch hole down helps get out the stubborn ones. A bit of fresh food, snap the clear container back in , lower it back into the tank, open another beer = low impact fishing. We do a few dips over a few hours whilst we are killing time otherwise, leaving it in the tank close an hour each time.
This seems to work well in our sytem for now. I think to design a new system I would have a tank w/ a mass flood valve or dump to help w/ the fish removal.

We also went into HSM just before Thanksgiving. We went into the greenhouse Wed morning as we were heading out and the valve blew out of the faucet assy above the sink. Looks like it was overtightened at the factory 2 YEARS ago. It put an extra 50-75 gallons of cold water into our system, effectively lowering the temp 10 degrees F as well. Water was streaming into 1 row of grow beds. The rest of the water ran out through the floor and did no other damage besides raising the humidity. We had one tank that was not being circulated into the sytem we opened into the system to introduce some warmer water. We also took the turkey fryer and heated some tank water and re-introduced it back into the system to get out of the danger zone. All for now Tom and Vic

Wow, Tom and Victoria, I guess the larger the system the more potential for bigger problems. Good thing you weren't on a trip, and were on top of it fast. We left for a couple of days at Thanksgiving but put the system on a timer and came back and everything went well.

HB

hey? In a smaller system all the fish would be dead from a bigger temp change.