Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

hi everybody. I have been working on the fish more then the grow beds at the start, Everybody loves pictures so i will throw a few in right at the start. My collection so far includes an outdoor 1200 gallon pond that I dug by hand and put a liner in. I lucked in to the delivery of 30 2-4 inch blue Tilapia. A guy in Missouri raises and sells them, happened to be driving through and dropped the fish for me. Here is the early outdoor set-up.



It is about 8' wide 12' long and 2 1/2 feet deep. I made a shallow end with gravel for tilapia spawning area. I put half the fish in the outdoor pond and half in an aquarium. Here is a shot at the indoor fish. 75 gallon aquarium.



I then added a pump and filter to the outdoor pond to clear up the water and keep the fish healthy until I can establish a grow bed. The water is incredibly clear now and the fish seem happy. The orange tile are hiding places that I added for cover






Since the fish can not live outside in the cold weather here, I will add a 150 gallon stock tank for winter use inside. I know nothing about hydroponics, so I am reading like crazy, trying to come up with a good system for a fall/winter grow. I have metal halide and sodium vapour lights on my glassed in porch to help winter growth, I look forward to learning a lot from you guys.


Here is my initial game plan and please let me know what everybody thinks as I am a total amateur. I want to grow the 18-20 fish in the outdoor pond as large as possible prior to the winter cold. At the same time a few fry in the indoor aquarium to grow over the winter and throw in the pond as water warms in the spring. During the winter a 150 gallon stock tank for fish and 2-3 50 gallon stock tanks for tomatoes, peppers and basil etc.. I am unclear on the complexity of the 15 minute ebb and flow versus some form of constant flow system. Since I will have a lot of fish I will still bio filter the system after the grow beds and befor the water returns to the fish tank. I mentioned earlier, I have some great grow lights and this start-up will be on an insulated 3 season porch. i route some heat from the wood furnace to this room and it stays 60 F or higher even approaching 0 outside.

What are the thoughts on this basic premise as I still have a few months before I start indoors. Thanks for any help that is out there. i love to document processes and always post lots of pics.

Hautions11, looks good, i have the same idea of growing tilapia in doors in the winter and outside in the summer, i am just going to keep 2 pair in an aquarium in winter and get as many fry as i can to grow over the summer in my aquaponic system and i was thinking of putting a pond in as well as i seam to be getting lots of fry so far.

good luck.

you will have lots of fun setting up and learning.

Grunta

I am a little disappointed that I do not have any fry yet after 6 weeks. The fish appear big enough, and are growing like weeds. I am wondering if 14 is too many, but i struggle with making sure i get a good male to female ratio. I have an empty 20 gallon to put fry in, when I get any.

The pond was converting a ditch that was natural drainage anyway. Not too much digging, but i also wanted to use it for watering the regular garden in the summer. I am probably being a little ambitious with my winter aquoponic plan, but I like a challenge.

At 2-4 inches, the fish may not be sexually mature which is a function of age (6-8 months) and size ( about 80-100g for O.aureus). Spawning is also influenced by climatic conditions.

Water temp 30 C , light hours 18 and you will have more babies than you ever dreamed:)

Tilapia can start breeding while still quite small!!!!!! 4" long I've seen breeding behavior. However, the females won't be very in the "mood" till the water is quite warm. What are your water temps? Been a cool summer in much of the midwest I hear.
With water below 80 F, I can't get my tilapia to breed (though I've heard that it is possible that they will breed at 72-74 F but I don't really believe it from my personal experience.) Water at 86 F and you can't stop them from breeding.

Now if you are hoping to grow tilapia out to eating size in a midwest summer, you want to get your water up close to or over 80 F for as much of that summer as you can. You would also be wise to only try growing out the males (the males grow much faster) or keep the fish in a cage so they don't get distracted by breeding (since breeding behavior will slow fish growth.)

You might use your indoor system with say several females and one or two males and warm the water up to get some breeding. (I would say 3-5 females to each male is probably a good ratio for breeding.) Keep the water warm for them and get your fry stock to keep over winter.

Main thing you need is lots of filtration. What are your water test results? Tilapia may be able to survive very poor conditions but they will not necessarily thrive under them.

Just an FYI about tilapia. I know so many people tout them as the wonder fish that can grow out in 6 months and eat veggies. Please don't think you can grow them out in 6 months in 70 F water eating only lettuce scraps. 70 F water is actually kind cool to them and is about them minimum water temp for even feeding them a little bit. To get fast growth out of Tilapia you want your water up in the mid 80 F range. Feed, yea tilapia can eat veggies and algae (though algae bloom feeding is not appropriate for recirculating system normally.) However, you will get fastest growth from tilapia with high protein feed (at least for the first couple/several months of their life.) You will not grow out plate size tilapia in 6 months by feeding them lettuce scraps. The fry really need high protein starter meal to get off to a good start.

Anyway, Tilapia are easy fish to keep and even easier to breed provided you can keep the water warm enough. If you can keep their water warm enough, then growing them out may be within reason for you.

Thanks TC. Indoors is 84 degrees, but outside is only 76. I really do not expect much breeding outside, I wanted to add 3-4 inch fish and grow them out over the summer. I do have a pure strain of Blue tilapia that operate a LITTLE better at cool temperatures. I am thinking of a few 300w heaters in the pond in the spring to at leaste hit 70 as early as possible.

As far as filtration goes, I am running 2 wisper 60's on the 75 gallon tank and was planning on using my 3000 gallon rated preasurized pond biofilter on the 150 gallon tank. I want to run the water through a grow bed, then in to the filter, then back in the fish tank to get dirty again. That way I can run 80 degree water and high feed rates as I have ample filter capacity in the 150 gallon tank. That seems logical, but as Sgt. Shulz used to say " I Know Nothing" Thoughts?

Probably need to use a little heat in the spring to really get going before it's too late.


I'm not quite sure how you are going to use a pressurized biofilter after the grow beds unless you are going to have multiple pumps.

Well then again, if you did CHIFT PIST where the fish tank overflows to the grow beds then the grow beds drain to a sump tank where the pump can then push the water through the pressurized bio-filter and up to the fish tank.

Since the bio filter is sealed gravity will work for me. grow beds at one level, filter lower and tank lower yet. Am I all wet here????? I could add a collection tank/pump and then in to the filter at a low rate 100-200 gph with a 15 minute cycle on the grow beds. Does that make sense???


The more I think about it I need the gravel beds to darain so a collection tank/small pump through the filter makes sense.

I finally got a batch of fry, Yea here is the happy mom and babies pretty cool. You would not think she could fit all these in her mouth



[img][IMG]http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e165/Hautions11/IMG_5704.jpg[/img][/img]

Looks like you double punched the img button.
Yep those little fry are so tiny.

As for growing Tilapia in a sun room or porch in cool climate you might wish to look up Janet's Jungle in member systems. She hasn't been active on the forum lately since I hope she is just busy with the eco-village thing. However, she managed tilapia in PA for a few years. 150 gallon stock tank as fish tank I think and 3 50 gallon tanks as grow beds.

It can be done!!!!! She did have to heat the tank and insulate.

If you find you can't keep the water at least 70 F, then you might want to look into a different variety of fish.

Thanks for the help. I heat the porch a little due to the plants anyway. Should not be too hard to keep the tanks 70+ with regular aquarium heaters.

Here is one of my bigger fingerlings growing like a weed.

Great photos...