Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I put on wetsuit and grabbed a flashlight to check my greenhouse system today: all fish (two plecos, many tilapia, three goldfish too large to grab with one hand) are looking great despite holding at 60 to 62 degF (about 16degC) all winter, so my indoor tilapia and one catfish are joining them. I think the low temp will preclude any more breeding until the temperature rises in a month or two with the end of the rainy season. Oh well.

I also need to deal with the ich in the outdoor growbed for this aquarium. I don't know if anything will touch the tomonts (even bleach? Anyone know? I'm willing to sterilize the growbed and re-seed it from other systems), so I may just have to wait until the weather warms and let it die off when it can not find any fish. I suppose I could cover the whole thing in a temporary greenhouse and run a heating element in the sump to bring temperatures up to 30degC (86degF) to cycle the ich faster... I'd really like to reconnect the growbed to the fishtank.

One channel cat is showing some shredding on some fins, but I don't know if it is poor water quality or tilapia attack. I hope that with salt, less crowding, and warm temperatures it will heal.


Advice to new folks: The easiest way to cure disease in AP is prevent it! Don't introduce it! Several people here have isolation wards with salty water where new fish go for a while to let their ills be cured. Once they get into your system it is a royal pain to get them out!
"Listen to this poor sinner lest you end up as I am! Repent!"

Strong ozone or hydrogen peroxide would kill most anything and leave no trace of its self. http://amazing1 [dot] com/
sells some nice kits that if you inject into water at high concentrations will kill anything when you pour the water over it.

Update in ich, etc:

I decided to put a heater in the sump as well as one in the aquarium. Even in winter with average temperatures about 40degF (say 5degC) the power use is not too extreme as the sump is covered and insulated and I only run the flood/drain as much as needed for the plants, which is very little in the winter. I've kept salt at about 2ppt (don't want to hurt the lettuce, etc), the water Q has really improved, the fish have shown no sign of any problems for months, and all is well. Currently the aquarium contains two catfish (about 11" or 28cm), one goldie, and two tilapia. Nitrates: 40ppm.

Here are a couple pics: the white threads in upper left are bubbles from the powerhead.

*SIGH*

My greenhouse system tilapia have eggs, so I thought maybe I could gently catch some and bring them inside. Step 1) move existing residents out to the greenhouse system. Step 2) gently catch egg-holders and bring them in.

No joy: the fish spat out eggs as soon as lifted from the water, so I tried placing them in a tea ball (stainless mesh ball) to tumble, but all became fungus covered in a week, even with daily picking the bad ones. Next time I'll try cleaned water and disinfected eggs. Anyone know how to disinfect eggs?


The GH system needs more nutes: the tomato is 6' tall and robbing everything else. And the system 2.5 has no fish. And California is tough on folks wanting to raise fish. So, I picked up a bunch of feeder fish from Petco and released them a week ago, along with one shubunkin goldfish. Turns out that a lot of what I thought were odd goldfish are koi too poorly colored for sale, so sold for feeders. COOL!

Bad news: everything is dying. A few seemed weak at first, although most were very lively. On day 4 one died. Same for next couple days, Then two died and I could see fungus fuzz on some others. Added salt to 3 or 4 ppt 36 hrs ago and this morning pulled out five dead. *grrrr*. I am so, so, so grateful that I did not toss these in with my other fish, but I am not happy. Just killed a little koi with black and gold markings and half-covered with fuzz last night. I liked that one.

Really nice system, Sorry about all the losses and setbacks. Pretty much what I have in mind for my tilapia system, I will probably set it up my portable building to comply with La. laws and I'm probably going to get one of those cheap Harbor Freight greenhouses for the growbeds and pump water between the two. The fish look really nice in the aquarium.

I've heard that the cheap feeder fish tend to be very prone to dieing in some situations. Would make me worried about putting them in a food for some big $$ fish but perhaps the big fish that need live food might have hearty immune systems and not be prone to the diseases common among the weak feeder fish?

Sigh. The cheap goldfish (probably 10 cents each) that I got 8 years ago for my mom's ornamental pond survived quite well for years.

I think the fish needed time to heal as they had just been delivered to the pet store. Guess I should have gotten them a few days later. Here is one of the goldfish I bought about 16 months back, now living happily in the greenhouse system.

Boy, did I screw that up! Mods: could you eliminate that last post? I only wanted this, but hit the wrong key, then ran out of editing time....*sigh*

Anyway...

I think the fish needed time to heal as they had just been delivered to the pet store that day. Guess I should have gotten them a few days later after they had healed a bit. I only lost earlier fish to crayfish (yabbies to you Aussies) or predation by other fish. Here is one of the goldfish I bought about 16 months back, now living happily in the greenhouse system.

It and it's two mates seem to get along well with the tilapia. Here are a couple that are willing to come out from the cavern under the growbed to grab some food, along with the three little goldfish piggies.

And the whole system is about 800 gallons (3000liters) with a 60square foot (6 square meter) growbed above it. Here is some wheat, back in winter:

For more on the wheat: viewtopic.php?p=188267#p188267

The indoor/outdoor system has gone cold-water. I added 13 rainbow trout in November and tossed the rest into the swimming pool and greenhouse tank figuring that these indoor fish (with outdoor growbed) are going to get fed very well and that I'll be able to see any problems or interesting changes that occur much better than I could in less accessible tanks. I did have to take out the two remaining tilapia as the weather cooled and put them in the purely indoor system next to the woodstove. (viewtopic.php?f=18&t=6870)

So far, so good. I've lost two fish: one jumped (and mummified until found...very dry air) and one had blacktail disease and we fed it to the cat. The 11 remaining and a few goldfish are happy and healthy.

So, how big will trout get in a 55-gal (erm....200 liter(?)) aquarium? The biggest is already up to about 7" (18cm).

Nice hydro!!
just wanted to write something to keep an eye on your system!!

regards

Matt

The trout in this system seem to be eating a good deal less than they were and the drop-off is not matched by the trout in the other two systems, so it is probably due to crowding, aquarium size, or O2 problems. On the other hand most of the trout are large enough to eat.

So, I woke this morning and steeled myself to do what had to be done. I walked into the house with a mix of anticipation and dread, pulled the lid from the aquarium, netted one of the largest trout, did the necessary bits, and fifteen minutes later took a bite of hot and incredibly fresh fish.

The mix of emotions as I ate the critter was quite interesting: sadness at killing an animal I had raised for months, happiness that the flavor/texture was excellent, relief that I had finally brought myself to take the final step in raising food fish, enjoyment of a breakfast I have not enjoyed since a childhood vacation at Mt Assiniboine Lodge where the chef would prepare the cutthroat trout my brother and I had caught the day before and serve them to us.


Here are the harvest numbers:
trout was nearly 11.5" long. (29cm)
weight at harvest: 342 g (12oz)
weight (pan-ready): 280g
leftover bones etc on plate: 62 g
Weight that I ate (or evaporated in cooking): 280-62=218g (nearly 8oz)
usable fraction in a fish: 218/342=64%

So, that trout was about 2/3 edible food. Not a bad number at all if you check on any critter we eat, anchovies and sardines aside.

But I have never, never had fish that traveled so little from water to plate: total distance traveled until it was eaten was probably about 20' (6 meters).

The satisfaction of eating fresh fish... just out-weighs any sadness....

I love the pic with the two catfish side by side in their own pvc pipe homes. So cute!!

How have your systems been going recently?

Well, the catfish (those two and a third one the same age) all grew to a nice size before dinner in July, I think. I took this pic on Feb 24th when we transferred them to a different tank because they were eating the trout.

The largest cats I got last fall are about a foot long (30cm) and the smallest only half that. The ten or so smallest ones are in the system 2.5 indoor/outdoor system with a few goldfish. The rest are in the greenhouse main system.

My larger trout (in the greenhouse) died and so did my larger tilapia (indoor system), leaving me with only one of each.

I'm trying sweet potatoes as nice leafy greens for steaming in place of spinach in hot weather. I realize it is an invasive beast, but I'm willing to risk it in a single half barrel. My tomatoes (in the same indoor system) are growing nicely out the window and producing some good ones.

The main outdoor system is really annoying me: the rats (I think) are eating all the large tomatoes, many of the small ones, some sweet peppers, most of the jalapenos, and all of the hot serrano peppers. They eat one side open, eat all the seeds, and drop the pepper to the ground below the plant: one plant has a solid bed of serrano mash about a half-inch (cm+) deep. And they don't get caught in rat or mouse traps. Perhaps it could be a squirrel.. I'm happy to share, but I want to get a majority.... *sigh*

The pool filter is growing lots of mint, water cress, chard, kale, and other unidentified things, but the pool is still very green. I hope by spring there is enough growing to strip the nutrients and leave us a nice clear pool.

We had a rat problem with the greenhouse one year. Hopefully this winter between the Muscovys and the lack of a greenhouse there won't be a rat problem because I don't dare use poison now with the birds all practically running loose.

I'm kinda surprised that a rat or squirrel would eat hot peppers and the seeds? Could it be a bird? Supposedly the "hot" from peppers only affects mammals which is why the critter ridder spray is safe for use around my chicken feeders to help keep rats away. Granted it's safe for the birds but any human that touches the stuff better wash well before touching their eyes or eating anything.