Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Well, I have leart that all things being equal, and enough air (DO) trout will handle ( dare I say it)
from my recent experience upto 26c = 78f even a tad over for short periods of time (ie less than a day)
with so far no ill effects.
With a water body of 4000l =1088US gal ( this is my mean water body) I have had no problems.
presumably greater than this would be better not worse.
Being an inground pool and thermal mass/contact, I see no problem.

Isn't OBO also managing to raise trout year round? And I think most of (I'm not entirely certain of this though) Australia is a tad warmer than Northern Arkansas. I've been to parts of Arkansas in winter and snow stays on the ground there for more than a day most winters. So, I would expect a bit of shade might be all you need to keep the water and grow beds cool enough over summer.

Well, I sure am learning alot...

TCLynx, I'll take your word on the nutrient density issue. And I gather that in increasing the depth of gravel in a livestock tank, the grow bed sizing is more about bacterial action than plant action, as depth will not create much more planting area. When temps warm in March, I'm hoping to jump start bacteria by putting an aquarium filter, loaded with them into the skimmer basket.

We have substantially more degree days of heating than cooling (for humans) in this climate. Nonetheless, I wonder if the extra energy invested in oxygenating would put tilapia and trout on an energy buget par.

Bluegill (hybrid or coppernose) & bass (hybrid striped or largemouth) remain an option, if I can track down a local supplier that has feed-trained fish.
Anyone interested in hybrid bluegill should keep the following in mind, which means, in essence, that they need to be batch harvested and restocked:
"Hybrids are 90% male, have a very low reproductive rate...Hybrids back-cross and revert back to a fish that most resembles green sunfish after 1-2 generations. Green sunfish rapidly overpopulate the pond and become stunted, useless as a foodfish for people."

The quote is from this blog, which has a lot of good info:
http://aqua-culture.blogspot.com/2007/0 ... l#bluegill

And then there's the good ole catfish. (Eating is more important than swimming in the cement pond.)

If the sunfish overpopulate you could always toss in a largemouth bass and let it gain weight. *grin* Feed>sunfish>bass not very efficient, though.

For more learning and really good info check out the UVI commercial system update:
http://ag.arizona.edu/azaqua/ista/ista6 ... df/676.pdf and
http://ag.arizona.edu/azaqua/ista/ista6 ... n/p676.pdf
I especially liked the details of nutrient requirements, even relating feed rates required to balance a given surface area of growbeds. (100g/day per square meter...in the Virgin Islands). Nice pics in the second link (powerpoint)

When figuring the amount of grow bed in relation to fish, I am first aiming at getting you enough filtration. If you find that you still don't have enough plant space to take up the nitrates, but you do seem to plenty of filtration, you can always add some NFT or DWC plant space with post grow bed water to help use up nutrients but if you grow really greedy plants, then it probably won't be that big an issue.

Not quite (hav'nt read the rest of the thread) the hottest I am so far is about 28 degrees for 12 hours straight, after that it dropped off rather rapidly. Some may have got through, however a lot would have died while I was away from home, resulting in a very low WAF. (Wife Acceptance Factor)

A large inground swimming pool would be good out here, I just need more water volume. More shovelling

So how many did you end up with all told OBO... how long did you keep them.... and best growout size??

viewtopic.php?p=138737#p138737

The idea being to rotate a drain using a clock motor to multiple outlets (beds).

Just read over this thread and you have received some very good advice.

I run an 18,000 gal. in ground concrete swimming pool, that we swim in, and it does quite well with AP. I have had Blue Gill (no biting problems), bass (need to be kept away from other small fish, they really eat a lot of babies), crappie (no breeding problems, they don't seem to like the swimming pool for it, they don't mature sexually for a year, and they grow Very slow, also very predatory), catfish (no problems if the water quality stays reasonable), Tilapia (will not keep your algea down if that is your only meathod of control, if it is not shaded - once the temps rise you will have lots algea, this will cause you more trouble in AP than in aquaculture).

If you will use your pool pump to either make a water fall or fountain, then you will nearly for certain be able to keep trout all year. If the water is really moving, and there is good aeration, they will tolerate higher temps better. Nature will show you that trout do make it in warmer water, but they have very good water conditions, lots of oxygen. A pool pump will make a nice water fall, and this really drops the temp on a hot day. Ours came down close to 15 deg. F. We let the water fall drop about 8 ft. to the shallow end of the pool, then it flows across to the deeper end to help with the clean up of the pool bottom. Trout grow reasonably fast as well, and I have never heard anyone complain about their meat. I grew up in Missouri, just a little north of you, and nearly every river stream and lake is full of trout.... all year.

My personal choice, if I were to move back to that part of the country would be the trout and blue gill, with cat fish for good measure. Don't try putting the bass in with anything less than mature fish, otherwise you will soon have just bass. You will want to put them in a cage or separate tank.

If you really want Tilapia, there are lots of places that will ship to you. However, everything else is available in your back yard (so to speak). If you have any trouble finding any of these, pm me and I will pass along all the contact info.

Mathew

Only 45 Trout, best size was 820g. Made it to christmas.



After the success of them last year here will be lot more this year.

Our water was down to 17c today, trout were famished.

We can account for about 85 or 90

Still 4 nice trout around 1.5 - 2 kg...

Very nice C1.... they "browns" or "rainbows"

'bows', I need to feed them carrots ...LOL or 'k' to get that nice pink colour..
I don't mind, they taste the same

I have not abandoned ship. I've been trying to read through the forums, so I don't feel like such a dumbo but reading often leads to overwhelm. It all seems so complicated.

Also, I visited a fish hatchery not too far away and talked to yet another round of experts about which fish to raise. They pulled out their pond temperature records. Temps were in the 80's by June last year (summer starts in July around here). Consequently, I've marked trout off the list for now. In fact, I've finally made a decision: catfish. It's the least problematic and converts 50% of feed into flesh. In late April/early May, the hatchery will give me a hundred or so fingerlings to get started.

That means I need to get the rest of my act together. It's too early to build up bacteria--temps are still dropping into the low 20's. But I've ordered a PLASTIC livestock tank and have been fiddling with pool settings, trying to figure out how to use the topside skimmer and/or bottom "drain" to circulate water without sucking in small fish. I have minnows in there now and have been digging them out of the filter basket--even with hardware clothe over the skimmer inlet. Most were probably getting sucked in by the "drain."

Maybe I will use the pool system to aerate instead. Seems like the plumbing can be easily and affordably engineered to suck in air via a valve in a pipe at the filter pad and then push it through the bottom drain.

Catfish are a good choice.