Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I began my systems in May 2012 and went through the usual growing pains. I found this website extremely helpful during the process of getting my systems started. I am indebted to many posters here that provided advice from their postings. I also PM'd a member here who was very gracious in dispensing additional advice especially in regards to specific questions regarding pumps, fittings and automatic bell siphons. Frankly, I've found that after a website's forums have been up and running for a number of years that there is already a wealth of information available to the beginner through the search function and I haven't needed to post much as a result. I do have some questions I will be posing in another thread and I am also posting my systems in case anyone can learn from how I went about it.

In the summer of 2011, I received a 550 gallon/2000 liter HDPE cylindrical brine tank that a friend had used to grow a tropical tree in his greenhouse, and that he longer needed. I stumbled upon this website and decided that I would like to turn the brine tank into a fish tank. I also felt after reading here about the various systems that a CHIFT-PIST system would work out the best given the space constraints that I was working with.

Instead of diving right into such a large system, I decided to first start with a much smaller one and then scale up if I felt that I could make a go of it. I decided on the CHIFT-PIST system. For the fish tank, I used a 55 gallon/208 litre barrel. For the grow bed, I used a 23 gallon/87 liter concrete mixing tray. For the sump tank, I used a 100 gallon/378 liter Rubbermaid stock tank that I already had. I realize that the grow bed is tiny and well under the 2 to 1 volume ratio of grow bed to fish tank that is recommended, but this was to be a test system only and I was looking for the least expensive way to set it up. The concrete mixing tray I used for the grow bed was available at the local hardware store and fit the bill quite well. For grow bed media, I used pea gravel also available at the hardware store.

Pictured below is the system when I first set it up but without the grow media inside it:



The next picture shows the system from above filled with gravel. The system uses a small submersible fountain pump and an automatic bell siphon to make this a CHIFT-PIST Flood and Drain system:



Automatic Bell Siphon:



Gravel guard installed:



Bottom of Automatic Bell Siphon draining:



Sump tank:



Brown Bullhead Catfish in the fish tank:



The sides of the grow bed bulged when it was filled with gravel so I improvised a wood/strap system to support it. It has worked out very well and has held up from early May until now (end of September):



I started the system with cherry tomatoes, horseradish and Swiss Chard:



I developed a terrible algae problem at one point and cleaned out the fish tank. This is a better view of the three Brown Bullhead Catfish. I learned from reading here how well blocking any bit of light in the system is effective at killing off algae:



At about this point, I saw that the small system, while in its infancy, was functioning as expected in terms of the pump, plumbing, automatic bell siphon, etc. and I went ahead and started putting the large system together. I did not want to start the bigger project without having a good understanding of how things worked. It also gave me an opportunity to work out most of the bugs and do more reading here.

The following picture has the smaller system on the right (there are some goldfish in addition to Brown Bullhead Catfish) and the larger system on the left. The larger system is composed of a 550 gallon/2000 liter fish tank, 300 gallon/1135 liter grow bed filled with 200 gallons/757 liter grow bed media (this of course was the volume of grow bed media used for calculations of fish stocking), and a ? 500 gallon sump tank made from an oil containment HDPE container that had a hole drained in its side allowing for 275 gallon/1040 liters. The latter sump tank container had been previously used for an aeroponics set-up and never had any oil in it. I purchased the 300 gallon/1135 liter grow bed. It sits on a wood frame keeping it 17 inches/43cm off the ground so the grow bed can drain into the sump tank:



The large fish tank went through a fish type change about halfway through the summer. I tried Rainbow Trout first. I had many problems arise over time including an early complete fish kill of the first batch due to nitrite poisoning, but the main problem I think boiled down to temperature. They simply needed a lower temperature than I could provide.

I settled on Brown Bullhead Catfish because they are plentiful in the local ponds and can manage condition extremes that would kill just about any other fish out there. I have to admit that I was also impressed by the lowly goldfish's ability to weather all kinds of adversities.

The fish tank has a 2" ID PVC pipe that starts maybe 3"/7cm from the bottom of the tank. There is a 1/2"/1cm plastic mesh that prevents fish larger than that from entering the pipe. The outflow is near the top of the fish tank. The T-junction PVC connector is open at the top to allow for overflow into the pipe at the top should the mesh-covered entrance of the tubing at the bottom of the tank become completely obstructed. Here is a picture from the top. Some Brown Bullhead Catfish can be seen in the photo:



The grow bed media is gravel that I had delivered in bulk locally. It's a very inexpensive but very heavy. I would love to have Hydroton but that's prohibitively expensive because it would have to be shipped here. For plants I have corn, tomatoes, a few horseradish plants and one cucumber plant.



The sump tank is a sump tank. Nothing complicated about it. I couldn't find a short enough container that could contain enough volume to use so I drilled a hole through the side and put the PVC pipe through the hole.



This is a view of the outlet of the bell siphon and into the sump tank:



This is a picture of the grow bed and sump tank (covered by silver-colored tarp). The small system on the right has a blue tarp over the fish tank. The large system produced and is still producing tomatoes. The Red Indian corn is stunted but there actually are some husks. The cucumber plant produced two nice cucumbers



[IMG]http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j33/C-4C/DSCN0767.jpg{/IMG]

The small system produced a lot of tomatoes as well as cucumbers, and the horseradish looks good too. The first picture is a view from above:











The small system also has one Habanero Pepper plant:



That's it for now. I currently have 25 Brown Bullhead Catfish in the large system and some goldfish and golden shiners in the small system. My plan is to use the 100 gallon/378 liter sump tank from the small system and have the catfish hibernate in my garage over the winter. I will use an agitator of some sort as well as a small aerator to keep the water from freezing. That will be the subject of another thread. NB: Since I'm using wild-caught fish in a home aquaponics system, I do have a non-commercial aquaculture license from the state of NH ($20 a year).

Very nice system you have there Pike.... Good production..

Thank you. I started the small system earlier so it's not fair to compare production, but the small system's tomato plants grew and produced like crazy. There are still a lot of tomatoes on it. I used indeterminate Husky Cherry Tomatoes and it seems like it was a good fit for the system. The pictures don't show it well, but I used plastic stakes to hold them up. The stakes stay planted well in the gravel. I like the idea of tomato plants since they are nitrate hogs. ETA: I can't seem to edit the first post and there are a few grammatical errors.

No editing here once some one has responded to a post. Problem is some people would go removing all their posts later turning a thread into complete non-sense. So your errors get to live on.
But trust me, we wont hold it against you. After all, you have posted great pictures and people here love to see what you talk about.

Got it about the editing. It's definitely a good policy.

Because I was trying to learn the basics this season, I may try some additional fish next year. My thoughts are, if the 25 Brown Bullhead survive, is to add some Yellow Perch to the system. They are apparently easy to pellet train and we have an abundance of YP around here in the local ponds.

The other fish I was thinking of is White Perch. They are also fairly abundant, and in the wild are notorious for eating other fish's eggs so they may also take well to an aquaponics system, though I haven't found any information about them being raised. They are a schooling fish so they would probably work out.

Thanks again.

Good Luck with it, It's all good as long as you are having fun and learning.

Hello,

It's nice to see other people in NH, great system. i'm curious why you needed a licence and what that covers, like do I need it to raise wild yellow perch and will it cover bass. I have trout in an indoor system now, but I want a fish for the spring/summer.
Thanks,
David

Thank you, David.

I wasn't aware of any licensing requirement either until I spoke with Debbie Gile at the New Hampshire Aquaculture Association. She suggested talking with Fish & Game because you need an aquaculture license to transport any wild fish in New Hampshire with the exception of the dozen or so baitfish on the approved list (http://www.wildlife.state.nh.us/Fishing/baitfish_species.htm). In addition the the previous link:



Yellow Perch are not on the baitfish list so they would need a license to transport live. This is done so people don't introduce fish into bodies of water that don't have that fish alreayd and also to help reduce disease transmission. You also don't want Yellow Perch in fly-fishing only Trout Ponds.

I would research this further so you don't run afoul of any of the laws. The non-commercial aquaculture license is only $20 a year. The one-page application form has a space for what species you want to keep. It's also worth calling them up. Look up Inland Fisheries and I'm sure they can direct you to the proper person.

Hey Pike, any updates this year? Still doing the brown Bullheads? Did the wild caught ones pellet train easily? I am trapping Bullheads and blue cats this year for my system, and your thread is really the only one to reference the Brown Bullhead. Thanks. Hope the system is growing well this season.

J.B.

I Wouldn't expect this to be a problem with bullhead. New Alchemy Institute used Yellow Bullhead in their studies and they apparently aren't picky eaters.

I wouldn't expect any USA native catfish to be all that picky about food. Let em get a little hungry and they will come up for the pellet feed.

You all are Right. It only took a few days of hunger to get them eating the pellets. Still waiting until they sink, but no complaints as they are eating. I have also made a better determination of the actual species of catfish... not browns, but Flat Bullheads (Ameiurus platycephalus)... native to NC and VA. Quite a neat specimen. Thanks again.

J.B.

How is your system going, getting much growth from the Bullheads?

It is going well. I have to post about my experiences. This will be the third year that I am running a system. It is essentially unchanged in terms of design. Growth is respectable considering this is an outdoor system in New Hampshire with relatively cool water if you average out the temperature over the spring, summer and fall that the system is running.

This year I am trying something new. I am going to continue with the Brown Bullhead catfish and also grow Channel catfish but keep hem separate. The Channel catfish will likely be in my sump tank in this CHIFT-PIST system. I'm also going to grow horseradish exclusively (maybe some cucumber) since it has grown he best of everything.

I apologize for not getting back to this. I had zero problems with the Brown Bullhead catfish and eating pellets. As noted by others, they will gladly take any food I threw at them.

Unfortunately, that means they will also eat some things I did not want them to eat like fifteen 10 gram Yellow Perch. The old rule about catfish is true: if it can fit in their mouth, they will eat it.