Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Yeah, it's been awhile...

Hum, last I heard from him was about the 1st of Nov. Hope all is well.

Dan?....

I was really enjoying this thread.... hope he's ok!

I talked with him by e-mail not too long ago so he is still alive. And I believe still interested in Aquaponics.
Hope he checks back in here with some updates soon as the seasons are changing and would be interested to know how the blue gill are doing.

Hey guys! Sorry I have been offline for a long time.. I trust you are all doing well and looking forward to a happy new year.

So guess I will up date you guys on the AP system. I have not even taken pictures as I should So I'll tell you whats been going on and you just have to take my word for it. It been running auto pilot for some time. The siphon drain was changed as per last posts because the siphon would break and there was still a lot of water in the gravel due to the size of the bed. After the drain was changed to an active setup the plants did a LOT better as all the water could drain out of the bed.

This system produced about 500 to 600 pounds of tamitillos, tomatoes, melons, cucumbers, corn, beans, peas, basil, pursalane, turnips, swiss chard, and carrots. We harvested something around 300 pounds of fresh fish. With no greenhouse I have not planted anything for winter.

I made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot about production this year. There are changes that need to be made for a more optimal system. The system pretty much ran unattended since my last post. No PH checks nothing but harvest and seed throwing and occasional hand full of sea salt when leaves looked yellow. Last check the DO was 5 with 45 min pump cycles. The fish thrived and multiplied. After getting an electric fillet knife and filling the freezer there were an uncountable number of smaller fish left. I dont think I ever want to harvest that many fish at once again.. Cold weather forced me to this time. I put a couple hundred into the indoor system for next year and left the rest in the pond to see what would happen. So now after a few weeks below freezing I had to net and trash 3 trash bags full of dead fish. I hope the bluegill are still living, but have not tried to hard to look.

Now, the indoor system..
I have it set up with enough pvc bio-ribbon for 400 pounds of fish bought direct from manufacturer. I have a home made add-o-mizer with nitrogen venting that keeps DO at 10 at all times. My bead filter has preformed very well keeping water clear.. However, I keep loosing beads each time I flush because of the dumping of water pulling beads down.. So this is going to be redesigned for an old fashioned bubble washed bead filter instead of the "poly geyser" method. Its just more simple and more effective in my opinion. I am convinced that I could raise fish stacked on top of each other this way, lol.

So in the mean time the fish indoors are eating and waiting for spring.

Basic Lessons:
-Sea salt is only additive needed
-Stinkbugs love squash, but buck wheat and sticky traps draw and traps them.
-Fully draining gravel is important
-Fewer flood cycles produce plant growth better, so continuous bio filtering combined with grow bed via indexing valve would be perfect balance for optimal plant growth. Or move grow beds. and few floods per bed
-One large bed required longer drain time that a siphon can not do.
-pH needs to be adjusted for better plant growth.
-Wood ash adjust pH up and adds potassium and healthy bacteria adjust pH down. But system does reach its own balance where nothing has to be added, however it slows plant growth.
-I need a green house to keep eating
-Growing plants that mature or can start eating from within 30 days is important for mass production i.e. green onions no onions
-Tilapia taste great fresh, it would be better to have all male fish to avoid the mass of small fish.
-A fish that can survive out doors in a green house without heat would be better for year around veggie production and they could be eaten when needed saving the trouble of a mass harvest which is to much work to be enjoyable.
-Indexing valves are a wonderful opportunity to run a wet bed for biofilter and a dryer bed for normal veggies.
-1900 gallons is my system water volume and it has no problem raising 600 fish but a 1/8 Hp air pump was required.

What would you consider optimum flood and drain cycles?
Also as much as I don't like hormones and chemicals with the tilapia, if breeders are raised in seperate tanks where fry can be harvested and kept in fry tanks hormone sex change feed would be worth it. I'm trying to find some now. You should get better growth and not have all those wasted lbs of undersize fish.
Besides the plants and fish... how's the Dexter and the chooks???
Keep up the good work and stop and visit us more often.

Good to hear you are still with us!

The cage method worked well for me for raising tilapia without over population. But we have now decided that tilapia are not worth the extra trouble and I will not grow many in the future. It seems they are harder to process and we have decided the catfish tastes even better and they are far easier to fillet and they get bigger in one season.

I just got a new batch of catfish fingerlings that are really small and they are out in my unprotected quarantine system, we will see if they survive the next two months, if so, they might be the right fish for ya (if you don't mind fish without scales.) They can grow out in a year or less, are happy with really warm water and so far survive in my cool water. And in your large pond, you might even manage to breed some maybe? I'm making a point this year of not going crazy trying to keep the greenhouse warm and only closing it up on nights that get down near freezing. The quarantine system is not under cover of any sort so I suspect the water in there is already in the mid 40's F. I've had trouble keeping thermometers functioning properly, they all seem to be way inaccurate so I don't have one in there at the moment to be sure. The big system has been down below 55 F and the few tilapia I had left in there, some of them were floating upside down the other day thought they were not quite dead, they would react when touched, they became chicken treats.

Thanks for sharing the info on the flood/drain of the big grow bed.
I am definitely liking the indexing valve for most of my grow beds.

I find that as few as once a day is very good. Of course if its to hot then up to 3 times a day is great.



A fish farm in Thailand linked by Chapo will sell me 1000 fish already sexed for 3 cents each so I might go that route or get some of the feed they use.



Well, we have a freezer full of steak and roast. It is REAL good for only being fed hay I'd say there is almost to much fat in some cuts. I am sold on raising dexters. The chickens should be starting to lay eggs any day now. We have one rooster in 6 sexed chickens Perhaps we will have some babies in the future. With over 600 pounds of meat and piles of veggies I know we can raise all the food we have to have. I even grew some stevia for sweetener.

I have not had time to catch up on reading.. How are you doing in your efforts?

TCL, I agree. No heated greenhouse and no fish that require special treatment. I really prefer tilapia, but after this next year I dont know if I will keep them anymore. Bluegill seem to be surviving in the cold water so they may be what I use. I prefer scaled fish. I saw that you have added some new rubbermade tanks to your system.. They really are nice aren't they?

I want some long season tropicals like coffee and medicinals so I probably will have some heat in the greenhouse as well as solar pool water heaters with an electric water heater backup. I'm starting to assemble my warm water greenhouse, hope to have complete for spring growouts. I got lucky and found a source for free IBC's and will be using those for growbeds and will have about an 24" sump under each growbed where I will have some crawfish with prawn in mind for the future. I have a harbor freight green house and two dirty water 1/2 hp sump pumps. Other than that the chickens are laying way more eggs than I can eat and I'm setting up a little rabbitry. PM me If you are planning on ordering the Thai tilapia feed...I want in!
Happy New year to you and your family

Yea, I had to switch to rubbermaids for some of my grow beds as termites don't notice the difference when eating from wood to liner until they get all wet. I have a feeling that the liners where they are against untreated wood have a limited life span here. The stuff against treated wood or simply in the ground seem to be just fine.

Hey BR Bill, might consider making fish food from the extra eggs. Seems I always have to many or to few eggs.

TCL, I did not know termites will eat liners.. This concerns me a lot. From now on I am just going to use 1/4" hdpe hard liner. Its cheap and very very strong. Only issues with it is its stiffness so it so easy to form to a random shape as a liner is.

I don't think termites will eat the liner on it's own. Otherwise all lined ponds would be leaking terribly from termites. However, I used un-treated wood for a bunch of my lumber grow beds. It seems that where un-treated wood gets wet and termites get into it, they won't necessarily stop chewing when they hit the liner.

Is the frame around your big grow bed treated or no?

BRB,

What industry is your IBC source in? Maybe I could score a few freebies here in Dallas if I did some inquiries.

My grow bed is untreated, but oil stained wood. This could be an issue. Ill watch for it.

One interesting thing I forgot to mention above is that when you get the DO up to 10 all the fish poop floats, so swirl my swirl filters on the indoor system are not very effective..