Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

This is now getting closer working system. Some more thoughts:

- Create decent stands and organize the plumbig, these are the main causes of flooding.
- Connect the seccond FT right away even if ouy wont use it, the 700l extre water will help a lot in by keeping the temperature stable.
- Im not convinced about heating with the lightbulb. It produces a lot of heat but you heat the air, which is a bad thermal conductive, and will transfer very little heat energy to the system. Most of the big systems heat the water (check out Growing Powers tilapia systems.) they are more effective.

Keep up thinking down to earth, you are on the right path now!

Got a Question..

the New wall you made What direction does that Face..

If it is South.. Why not try to make a Solar Can Heater..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzxw1j-dzY4

this is only an example of one.. there are plenty more on Youtube to check out..

They will heat the air in the room with Solar power....

Juergen

Pipe from FT to swirl filter is 2", inside swirl filter it goes to a 1" T with two 1" pipes, then the outflow from the swirl filter is again 2", then after the duckweed tray everythin is 1.5" including feed to and drain from growbeds.

My plan for the growbeds is to support them on stacked pallets, should be pretty sturdy. The duckweed tray is on a temporary stand but I will have to make a wooden stand for that, and the pipe from swirl filter I plan on supporting from suspended wire from the roof. You think that sounds good, ZsaZsa? Also, I have a 300 watt aquarium heater that I plan to put in the fish tank, and the sump tank has a 1500 watt heater in it as well that I think I will hook up to a temperature regulator to come on and off at the desired temp. The grow light I just hope will keep the air temp above 70F along with the heat coming from the heated basement (I will mess with keeping the two windows and door from the basement open to see effects on temperature).

And unfortunately Juergen, the walls basically are shaded for majority of the day by the house... I may rig up a solar heater on the roof of the house, but that may only be good for the snow-free seasons anyways. Once I get everything together, I am going to try and see the heating/electric impact and then from there research solar and other options like where I can use a rocket mass heater (since I have about 4 acres of trees I can use for fuel!).

Also, about connecting the second FT... how should I pipe in the SLO? Should I connect both 2" SLO lines to the same inlet into the swirl filter? As I have it now, the outside connection to the swirl filter is 2" but inside it immediately drops to 1" and I am not sure if this can handle the flow? Maybe I need to drill a second 2" hole in the swirl filter and have 2 separate inlets, one from each tank? Any advice is greatly appreciated

I would out the return into one FT, connect the FTs at the bottom and SLO in the other, so the water flows through. Will the water levels be at the same height? They will have to be to connect the extra FT.

So I could basically just use the IBC outlet at the bottom and run a pipe through the two to connect them, make water level same height (which was my plan anyway) and then only one of the two tanks needs the SLO?

Based on what you are saying, (if I am right), since one tank is shorter than the other, I would prop that up to be the same height, bring the pump water into the shorter tank, connect the two like in the illustration, and the water would flow down moving solids into the tank with the SLO...

Something like this?

Got it in one but maybe make your SLO 90mm pipe to ensure it can handle the flow. I think 90mm is a pretty good, recommended size

90 MM is pretty big... would that be for the whole SLO or just the outflow? Also, not sure if you (or anyone else) has any experience working with swirl filters, but I am wondering what will be the effect of reducing the size of the inflow into the barrel down to 25mm (1")... i think it should speed up the water which I am guessing is good in a swirl filter, but I am wondering if it will be able to handle the outflow, especially if I increase to 90mm pipe..

As you can see in the pic, the fitting on the right side reduces the current 2" inflow to 1" pipe, and then a T is added on to direct the water in opposing directions along the sides of the barrel to create the swirl effect. Not sure how I should adjust this if switching to 90mm? Heck, not even sure I got it right as is!


What do others do when using 90mm pipe for SLO? Do they T it off and split flow to growbeds?

Pipe sizes look ok to me.

But if you have 4 acres of wood, Ahat the hell do you care about electric heaters?
Get a boiler. Connect it to your system and you are done!

Growing power does the same. (form 0:38)



Sell the heaters, get rid of the electric bill.

Dont worry about the air temp. If your water is warm, the air will be warm.
You need at leat 10C to keep the tilapia alive, so dont expect less than 5-7C air temp. Howere you will have to ventilate daily because condensation on the coldest sports (most likely doors or windows).

Long day of back-breaking work... adding in free pallets as growbed stands, raising up the second tank on mason blocks and getting ready to pipe in. Hopefully by tomorrow I will have the new tank piped in and will seal up all the pipes in place, followed by pictures... it is looking pretty good down there!

Thanks for all the input and help, the advice from all has been of great assistance in shaping and improving the system in these initial stages, no doubt saving me from having to make adjustments after the fact! THANK YOU ALL!

Is the area inside or not? Either way, don't have any pipes against the wall. At -20F a pinhole will freeze your pipes.

Don't get me wrong, neighbor, I'm attempting tilapia in Vermont. But... they are in the living room till early May. I'm off grid though so I can't just plug in a heater. I have an AP setup in my hoop house & the water temp has already dropped to tilapia killing temps at night. The goldfish didn't care but I moved them inside for the winter.

BTW, why do you need permits for an indoor system? Are you planning to sell them?

It is not inside per se... I built walls insulated with R30 underneath my 2nd story deck, and there is a tin sub-roof that I am going to insulate as well, but I greatly appreciate the advice... plan to have pipes suspended from the ceiling for the most part.

I did have to get an aquaculture permit from the state of NH, and also have to do all sorts of crazy testing to import my breeders from FL, however the only other farm in NH that does tilapia (Hopewell Farms in Newbury - Marc is a great guy) he sold me some fingerlings to start getting my system cycled until right around Thanksgiving when I expect my testing and import approval for my breeders. As far as selling, I am guessing i will end up having a good supply, so I will probably sell them. My fry/fingerlings will be 99.9% all male hybrids, so that is a potential to sell, but I am mostly going to concentrate on selling plate sized/filets, etc., though with the size I am starting my system at i will probably have a lot of extra little guys as well!

We shall see

Just a question, did you consider growing rainbow trout instead of tilapia? I had thought they were too difficult to grow (die if power goes out) but the Aussies here have been having great success with them, and our climate is better suited to them than Australia's.

I have vowed not to get trout until I have a battery backup for the air pump, but just got off the phone with my FIL and they are likely buying a deep cycle battery for me for Xmas (with them at Thanksgiving because they are RVers). Trout would love your cold weather and you'd save $ by not heating the water (much).

You could overlap the fish populations for trout in the Winter and try doing tilapia for the Summer.

BTW once you buy your initial batch of tilapia you won't need to buy more unless you let them die out. Set your heaters to 86 degrees and they'll make babies. It's that simple!

I have considered it, Dave, but I am pretty much invested in the tilapia I am buying, which is actually a breeder colony of 6 females and 1 male that will live in a heated aquarium in the basement, and produce fry-->fingerlings that will be stocked into the AP system. These specific breeds were what originally attracted me to backyard fish farming and ultimately AP. The cross between the O. Hornorum male and the O. Mossambica females naturally produce 99.9% males. The o. hornorum strain is also a selectively bred strain with improved body form that produces a significantly higher filet per fish ratio. I am sinking around $500 in permitting and testing just to get these puppies up to me in NH. After that, they will produce all the fish I could ever possibly, and with a pretty much 100% male population I will have a controlled amount of fish which should make it easier to manage.

I am still thinking hard about maybe doing the trout though, especially during winter, but I am more interested in continual harvest in general. I am waiting to see how everything goes with bringing the system online, and will think more about it since I would like to do both, but I also read that the two different fish carry different diseases and immunities, and I don't know if I should be concerned with one having an impact on the other, especially since they are not found in the same environments in nature... I thought about two separate systems, but that would (as best as I can think) require two pumps, which I am trying to avoid.

I suppose I could get the tilapia fingerlings start in my basement in the winter while growing trout, then harvest the trout come spring and switch them out, but I am still not sure if that is the best solution.... Guess I will have to think more about it...

OK, as long as you've got your breeder colony secure in a heated aquarium. I don't think your semi-indoor setup will work for 6 months of the year though. If TCLynx had a hard time keeping tilapia warm in Northern Florida well, good luck in NH! I had wild temperature swings in the FT last spring in my hoop house. Make sure you can go 24 hours without dropping below 55.

Last questions. How many gallons with the FT be? How many/big are the GBs? How many Tilapia in this set up?