Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

My wife and I just got back from the 2009 Wisconsin Aquaculture Association's Recirculating aquaculture systems workshop.

It was really an amazing event, held in Bayfield Wisconsin. There were about 90 people in attendace for two days of star studded speakers and workshops. We got to tour the NADF (Northern aquaculture demonstration facility), an extension of the university of Stevens Point campus located on the tribal lands of the Red Cliff band of the Chippewa nation.

Most of the speakers had PHDs and I was taking notes as fast as I could keep up. Great material, and great people. Very friendly and approachable.

The Speakers included;

Ed Aneshansley, from The Marine Biotech division of Aquatic eco systems inc. http://www.aquaticeco.com


Ep Eding, from the Wageningen university in The Netherlands http://www.wageningenuniversiteit.nl/UK/

Chris Good and Steve Summerfelt, from the Freshwater Institute in West Virginia http://www.freshwaterinstitute.org

Bill Manci, from Fisheries technology Assoc inc http://www.ftai.com

Rebecca Nelson and John Pade From Nelson and Pade inc, WI http://www.aquaponics.com

And Greg fisher, Kendall Holms, and Dan Duffy from the NADF http://www.uwsp.edu/cls/aquaculture

I just can't express what a unique and exciting opportunity this was for us. I hope to share some of what we learned here, and will be working on processsing the pics and video from the demonstration facility. There's no way I can repeat everything we heard there, so I figure I'll just start posting pics here, and answer questions as best I can.

We also got to go an a cruise through the apostle islands and stayed in a really cute cottage 1/2 block from the morning sessions. Great weather, great trip!

More pics

Sounds like a worthwhile course ... and thanks for the photos...

What fish are pictured??

The top one is Brook trout, the pic below that is of lake sturgeon and yellow perch.

Here is a video of the sturgeon and perch,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLCHwRk0vgg

And one of the brook trout

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TS2mLeN7Zro

Looks impressive, but where are the plants?

And look at all that infrastructure, if you have to ask the price .................. Makes you wonder what a value engineering makeover could do.

Aquacuture not Aquaponics ,, no plants.

No aquaponics at this facility, they were using a variety of fitration methods to raise the fish. The cool thing is that this is a demonstration and research facility, so they can do things like side by side feed comparisons, and testing equipment and ideas. They publish various papers and reports. And allow visitors, which most commercial fish farmers would never do for bio-security reasons.

Some of the most of the systems they had used rotating drum filters for mechanical removal of solids. Then fluidized bio-filters, uv lights, a CO2 stripping and degassing column, and a low head oxygenator using compressed oxygen before the water returned to the rearing tanks.

one of the really exciting things for me is that they are raising walleye. It is a fantastic great lakes fish to eat, but I thought they would be too cannibalistic and too hard to feed train. They have been able to feed train a walleye-saugeye hybrid and raise it to market size in 10 to 16 months. Very cool.

Another interesting thing I learned about is the dual drain tank developed at Cornell university. A bottom drain in a round flat or cone bottom tank is ideal for collecting solids. By rapidly and efficiently removing the solid waste from the rearing tank, you reduce the biological oxygen demand and improve your stocking capacity. They also use a side box drain to skim the surface and collect floating debris. This offers alot of options about how to handle the waste water. For trout or coldwater species, all of the water goes through the full treatment process. For Tilapia, the bottom drain is sent for full treatment, but the top drain is sent directly to the bio filter, allowing for use of a smaller system with good results.

Chappo, I thought the would indicate I knew this thread was about aquaculture and not aquaponics. Sorry for the confusion.

Plantedlab, thanks for all the photos. Your visits to these research facilities would have been fascinating. That side box skimmer for the surface debris looks a variation on the swimming pool ones. It must have some sort of a removable mesh cage inner?

Sorry Mcfarm ..... missed that ,, after a LONG night-shift I miss a lot of things.

One thing they have right is using those union ball valves! You can reuse them or rearrange thing and never have to go buy a new valve.

It's really an amazing facility. They have two high capacity wells with large head boxes. They are computer controlled so they never lose pressure without any spill over. There are sensors installed so they can monitor the level of the aquifer, and it charts the levels and pump usage and such data on a spreadsheet.

They have (4) 1/2 acre outdoor ponds, two flow through raceways, a huge oxygen tank, and a way over-sized backup generator. The local power company has control over the generator and can turn it on during peak usage. Because of this, they get a large discount on their electricity. They even have their own waste water management system in the form of settling tanks and a marsh filter.

Inside the building, the pipes running overhead are the supply lines. There are lines for fresh well water, filtered recircualting water, and compressed oxygen running to each tank. In water parameter chrisis, or disease situation, they can take any tank out of the filtered water system and switch it to a flow through system by turning a few valves.

And yea those valves are super sweet. They are made by hayward flow control, which was one of the vendors at the conference. They even have some with special adjustable flow balls.