Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Just so you all know, I know nothing about what i'm talking about when it comes to AP.

I should have started a post earlier this year when i first started but I wanted to know that I could run a system on my own. I did have my friend mikeym help a lot though. Here is his thread http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=7072.

I like to cook and the idea of growing clean and fresh vegetables, fruits and fish is very appealing. So I caved and started a tiny experimental system to see how well it would work with the weather here. We get so little sun year round and it rains a ton. It actually worked decently well. I had a bunch of problems that set back my AP system multiple times.

After many discussions with my friend, I decided to do a continuous flow DWC system. Sorry about not using metric conversions. I have a 31 gallon fish tank with comet goldfish (currently 12), a 10 gallon settling bed for bacteria, and two 10 gallon DWC grow beds. Here are some pictures of this years system. I'll explain them as I link them.


This was a design that I came up with along with my friend. Here is where the bacteria was planned to change the ammonia over to nitrogen.


with the pea gravel in it


this is how the final design looks


my friend suggested growing watercress out of the settling bed


which I thought was a good idea until I went to house sit for two weeks and came back to this


yes thats roots and even leafs growing into the settling bed input.


the watercress completely cleaned out the whole system of any nitrogen. all of the plants were dying. I was only able to save a few plants and luckily the system was up and running again within a week or two.

I had an algae growth problem at one point. it was growing on the roots and suffocating them. duct tape was the cheap solution.


Here is the input to the fish tank. It looks different now but this was my first idea on how to add some oxygen. Also my rope idea to keep the tote from bowing.


and this is a modified design of my main dirt growing area that i came up with after seeing a crude version that was used for an older woman that couldn't bend over too well to work on her garden



I had a ton of leaking problems around the PVC connections to the totes and a leak has actually started back up again that I'm just letting go. It is too much work to fix and not enough growing time left this year for me to really care.

I'm looking for suggestions on what to do with my fish over the winter. I was hoping to possibly put the fish in a half buried container, around 100 gallons that I can just have a surface heater(like my friend in NY) and leave it like that for the winter. Some things that I've tried to keep in mind is the next system I want to build next year. So anything permanent really isn't ideal. I'm thinking of just buying something tall, plastic, and cheap.

If you have any questions about what else I've got going on with my dirt or AP stuff just ask away.

any questions, comments, concerns, ideas, ect. are welcome

Hi Scarton,

I've been lurking here for about 3 years but this is my first post. Just to give you a little background I ran a system for about 2 years in my basement with trout and am in Oregon. The largest one wound up being 19.5 inches and almost 3 lbs. How many comets do you have for this system?

Your location in Washington will have a lot to do with what works since elevation and location in relation to the Cascades will be a factor. I see your options as
1. Bring them indoors in an aquarium.
2. Bury a tank outdoors. You could also insulate using hay bales without having to bury the tank. If you lay some clear double walled plastic across the top you could use the greenhouse effect to raise the temp 5 to 10 degrees. Usually when it's cold it's clear so this should help (might even get too hot). Use an air stone and water movement to keep ice from completely covering the surface.

If you decide to bury the tank outdoors then I would think a Rubbermaid stock tank would be a good way to go. The other thing to consider is the more water you have the longer it will take to freeze so upsizing the tank might help for short term cold spells (unfortunately you may have to heat this water as well).

Scotty

I've thought about it a bunch and talked with my friend. The best option I think is to probably bury something tall and around 100 gallons. Then buy this surface heater. My friend has the same one and thats all he does the entire winter for his comet goldfish. The nice thing about it is that it only turns on if the temperature drops below a set level so energy cost is dropped. I only have 12 fish but I would like to keep them for future years so they can get much bigger. Maybe work them into my next system or keep them in their own smaller system. I'm hoping to start an AP system next year that'll have a minimum of 50 trout at a time and I may start a new thread soon to toss ideas around with everyone.

I think you're right about burying the tank and that water heater looks good to. Goldfish are pretty durable and they might even survive without the heater as long as the ice is kept open.

it can get cold enough to freeze over here so i think the heater is a good just in case option

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but once the surface ices over, any heat loss slows way down since heat is lost by water evaporating. Ice in the wrong place can stop an A/C unit dead in its tracks!
Aeration would be a reason to want to keep the surface open, though.

Oxygen was the reason I was concerned with keeping the tank from icing over. The dissolved oxygen levels would drop lower than the fish could survive. Putting a bubler in the tank would provide oxygen, keep water moving and help keep the ice from covering the entire surface.

I have seen goldfish survive in ponds that I thought were completely frozen during midwest winters - I still think the heater is good cheap insurance but it may not be needed.

I think the Goldfish will be fine so long as Scarton has a "big enough" container of water buried partially underground and picks up that Heater... Goldfish are extremely hearty and I have the same heater... My goldfish (37+) have been in ~100 gallons for a few years.

I only turn the "waterfall" back on when the weather channel tells me that the temperature will be over 45 degrees and I'll even throw them a little bit of hikari wheat germ fish food if they come to the top looking for some food. Here are some pics to back my claim of thinking they will be fine. I don't bother them at all until the spring rolls around and all I really do is a couple of partial water changes combined with just enough food to keep them alive until the plants in my AP start to pick up. Also the water can hold a LOT more dissolved oxygen at lower temps near the surface of the water. My pump is at the bottom of the pond so when I do turn it on it mixes up the water at the bottom via the waterfall which I guess increases the DO levels. So high DO levels due to cold water combined with the fishes very slow metabolism at these water temps makes for a high chance of survival.

36F water

36F water by mikeytitan, on Flickr


65F surface of de-icer

65F de-icer by mikeytitan, on Flickr


Pond with some snow... Sometimes I'll throw more snow on top of the rocks to let the water from the melting snow drip into the pond for a little bit of fresh water... It probably doesn't make much of a difference but it makes me feel like I'm giving my fishies a little bit of fresh water.

covered in snow by mikeytitan, on Flickr


Pond in the back of the picture

IMG_1757 by mikeytitan, on Flickr

End of winter, spring is almost here March 8th pic... waterfall is pretty much always on at this point and I believe I planted some seeds in a little container around this time which were transplanted around March 19th... definitely NOT a good idea since there was a frost while I was out drinking and I lost many of them!

IMG_1809 by mikeytitan, on Flickr

Summer pic of the pond


poooond by mikeytitan, on Flickr

I think the only other thing I can think of is to maybe do some water exchanges as winter nears since the fish will still be active but you may not have any plants growing to remove the nitrates from the water up to the point where the fish become very lethargic and they no longer need frequent feedings.

DO vs fresh water temperature chart taken from:
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/air-solubility-water-d_639.html



The only reason I wouldn't aerate the water in the winter is for (perhaps an irrational one) of ice crystals forming around the bubbler under water and/or the water temp dropping even faster due to the cold air circulating within the body of water as opposed to just at the air/water interface at the surface of the water. Algae will grow in the water during the winter and I've seen my fish poking around at it perhaps to get a little snack every now and then during the times I'm not feeding them.

Mikeym, looks like you've got some experience with this. I'm not trying to say that with goldfish that you need to aerate the water just that you need to keep an opening so that it doesn't completely freeze. If the surface is completely frozen for an extended period the DO levels will drop because of algae, plants and animals using the oxygen. The water circulating because of the air supply might cause the water to freeze sooner as you mentioned. I wasn't prepared to say the heater wasn't needed for this reason even though Western Washington has relatively mild Winters.

Goldfish can survive a pond being completely frozen over. I had one that got through two Winters like that. During the blizzard the tank he was in was frozen about a foot thick. Not recommended but shows how tough some goldfish can be.

Oops I reread my post and I omitted the word "fear"... heh sorry... I think I have an irrational fear of using a bubbler and I don't know if I'd have to worry about the ice freezing around the air tube as it goes into the pond and getting clamped shut from the expanding ice. I also looked up some air pumps that were suitable for outdoors and they seem more expensive to hook up than just using that heater that I recommended to Scarton.

I guess there are different ways to handle the problem of ponds icing over in regard to fish survival.

Another reason why I try not to circulate my pond water during the winter is due to a layer of water forming at the bottom of the pond that is slightly warmer then the rest of the pond when it is very calm. at temps between 4C - 0C the water actually becomes less dense and moves to the top of the water column so a layer of warmer water is near the bottom of the pond. I've noticed that my Goldfish always hang around as close to the bottom as possible which may not have anything to do with that water column and everything to do with some sort of survival instinct to keep predators swooping into the water and catching them in such a low metabolic state. I don't have access to lab equipment nor do I have the urge to define the reason behind their actions so it's all observations and fancy imaginative thinking going on!

In regard to the comment about Algae using oxygen...



I don't think an algae bloom will be a problem if the water/weather is cold enough to form ice on the surface of the pond but that assumption is based on good water quality and a system that is adequately removing nutrients. I would think that the night time growth of Algae (which is when oxygen is used not produced) would be significantly reduced during such extreme cold weather and you shouldn't be feeding the fish when the water is below a certain temp as their metabolism isn't high enough to process the food and it just rots in their gut which should also control the excess nutrients floating around. I believe the key to a winter survival is:

1. Stop feeding your fish when the water is below 45 degrees Fahrenheit to reduce waste
2. Make sure you balance your fishes feeding with the amount of wastes your bacteria/plants can process and remove from the water as the temperature decreases and the plants start to die as you head into fall/winter. I really can't give an exact guide here since I do what works for my situation and I didn't formulate a plan that can be scaled up/down to anyone else's AP. It's simple to tell if your plants are growing/dying by inspection. If they are growing they are probably filtering your water if they are dying they are not.
3. Make sure there is always a hole in any ice that forms so that any buildup of gases from rotting fish waste/plant-matter on the bottom of your tank/pond can dissipate into the atmosphere. That rotten egg smell is caused from hydrogen sulfide that is produced from bacteria in anoxic marine conditions and will kill your fish. Water circulation is also very important. My system/waterfall pulls water from the bottom of the tank and is always mixing up "chunky" waste which is my attempt to avoid any anoxic areas in my little pond.
4. It might not even be a bad idea to do a partial water change if your volume of water is not that great and you are uncertain of the water quality as you enter into the fall/winter. Of course this is not the most frugal way of conserving water but I doubt those of us living in temperate regions west of the Rockies or east of the Great Lakes are lacking in collectible rain water. Heck you could even save the pond water that you remove for those periods of drought where you can dip into it for a bit of fertilizer water for your garden.

Have any of you temperate climate AP'ers ever heard of using soap bubbles in a greenhouse as a form of insulation to offset the energy costs of growing/maintaining vegetation in the winter? I'd love to hear some ideas of sustainable ways to do AP in the winter without spending a ton of money trying to do so Perhaps this requires another tread?

Found a good website which explains winter fish kill and has some suggestions for pond construction that could be useful. http://ohioline.osu.edu/a-fact/0008.html