Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi Pancakes;
We're not hiring yet, but hopefully soon. I haven't even started paying myself yet...

Never mind that "today" is two months later...

I guess it's pretty hard to see how bendy the aeration pipe is in this pic:


One of the sandbags:


and how deep it is:


An honest to goodness update next...

A reminder:



In that last image, the water color difference is so dramatic because the left troughs have algae in them, and the right troughs don't.

We have the aeration system up and running:

(I'll take a picture of it in place, this pic was just taken to show how the manifold was going to work.)

The big pump is now pumping out of the sump, instead of using pond pumps in each individual trough:


We made bigger and better seedling tables:

The half barrel in that pic is only temporary. We're using a full barrel. It looks precarious, but it's pretty solid, really. I'll update this pic soon.

I hope to take a new video in the next few days, and give more details about what we've been doing. Things have been moving so much faster now with a partner and more help, it's kinda hard to keep track of it all!

But the long and the short of it is that I should start planting for sale next week! Woohoo!

Very little of what you can see planted in the previous pics is actually growing. Lack of aeration, lack of nutrients, cold water and a pH of 9 isn't really great for growing, not even kale.

Oh, fish. Right...
Since we're in the depths of winter right now, fish aren't the easiest things to come by. I've been adding ammonia, but the bacteria are pretty minimal ATM. There's one lonely goldfish in the entire system.

The trout fishery has 9-10" (23-25.5cm) trout, for $4/fish! But another APer in town has some extra perch fingerlings for $0.50, so I think what we're going to do is get 20-30 trout, and 50 or so perch to power the system for the next few months. Each species will be in their own tank. We'll harvest the trout as soon as it starts to warm up, at which time the perch will start to grow. Once it gets nice and warm, we'll get tilapia.

Right now we're not heating the water, so it's not too far above freezing. But next winter we will heat the water.

We'll probably also get some channel cats as well.

I'd say skip the tilapia so that you don't have to heat the water so extremely come next fall. Bluegill, perch, catfish and even koi will all appreciate a little heat but they don't need you to keep the water up at 70 just so you can have some nutes for the plants.

Oh, and how do you prime the sweetwater pump? I don't see a priming pot. I'm guessing you have a foot valve in the sump tank so that once it's going hopefully you won't loose the prime if the power goes out.

Sounds good Karen I was wondering about you, almost PMed you yesterday actually. Are you planning on selling the fish at all or will they just be for nutrients? If just for nutrients it sounds good to have a big mix. Btw I got 6" trout $1 apiece here. The hatchery tries to grow them out for the Spring stocking and those were the smallest they had right now. How soon do you need to make a profit?

Karen, what thickness skrim are you using? 20m? I'm looking at getting some to set my system up.
Thanks, Will

On the subject of Koi..

they need a period over winter, when the water gets to be around 50-55F of fasting..

It does a few things.. the most important one is it cause the females that are egg bound to re-absorb the egg's..
the females will live off the eggs, if they have not spawned..

so in other words Koi do Like the cold for a short period..

Juergen

My invoice says 202WB, so I think so.

Great thread Karen. How's it all going?

Hi,Karen

You can try some white amur, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grass_Carp,
nice white meat.....They eat up to three times their own body weight daily.
My temp. 50F(10C) white amur growing fast
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POCnTOk3gBA

Cheers

white amur are considered an invasive species in some states..
in ohio only the triploid white amur are available/legal

Sketched this up the other day, as a basic overview of my kind of system: a CHIFT PIST raft system with a gravel bed filter:


Blue pipes are gravity fed, red is the pressure pipe from the sump back to the fish tank.
(link to various sizes here.)

Should I put it in the Useful Aquaponics Diagrams topic that TCLynx started?

Sure you should!!!!!

Copyleft

New video, about 6:30 long.




I'll have more pics and stuff up soon, including Fish!


(200 yellow perch fingerlings)