Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Looking good! Sorry to hear about your fish.

Neat looking set up Max47. Sorry to hear about your fish. Good luck with the new batch now that your system is cycled.

I installed an air pump and two 3" air stones in my fish tank. On my quest to get some check valves at the pet store I also ended up buying 10 feeder gold fish.

Sacrificial starter fish?

Round 2

My water quality is looking good, pH is 7.4. Total alkalinity is 120ppm and nitrates are 60ppm. Nitrites and ammonia are next to zero. My water temperature has been around 55*f so I covered the FT and sump with black garden underlayment and the water temp is now at 65*f.

Purchased 30 catfish fingerlings this morning.

Here is a video of a few catfish eating.

I have a few questions for you aquaponic guru's on here
On outdoor system; How do you handle winter? Should I harvest all my plants and fish at the end of fall or attempt a winter garden and keep some fish in the FT? This question came up while I was showing someone my system and I didn't really know what the answer was. (Thanks in advance for any and all answers)

I'm definitely not as far along as you are! But as I understand it, it's best to keep some fish and plants going all the time if possible, to maintain the bacteria colonies.

Replying not as a guru, but as someone with 2 Sacramento winters so far.
I keep everything running year round.
My tank is lightly insulated, not as well as I'd thought when I first assembled it. Over winter, the tank temperature would see the low 50's, occasionally into the high 40's. (now that I have a thermometer I trust.) Given the tree cover on my lot, I end up with a better winter garden than summer, so we keep it well planted with winter veggies like greens, cabbage, peas etc. The fish definitely slow down on their feed, but I haven't run into that causing nutrient deficiencies even at one feeding a week.

I had some big ideas about enclosing the system and running some kind of heater but so far just haven't found it necessary. I do change the timing of when I cycle flow through my vertical towers to use the heat of the day to warm the water, and turn them off at night, that makes a big difference.

I'd say keep it running...
Good luck!

I have been wondering the same thing Max. I have my wife's Koi on loan for the time being as I monitor water temps into the summer. The Koi go dormant in the winter, no food = no fertilizer so I may be out of luck this first year. My hope is that I can keep the systems water temp below 70 and I can go with trout. Will be a tough sell in the desert. I have seen mention of people splitting the year, Tilapia in the spring/summer, and trout in the fall/winter. Seems to me neither would have much time to grow out tho

Thanks AquaNate, I will try keeping my system running and maybe limit the operation on the really cold nights.

I keep my system running all year as well but you can grow things like Kale and Chard well into winter and possibly all year in your climate. I usually pull mine even though they could go longer (they start to look ratty or have too many pests that I'd rather not carry over to next year). After running the system for a while you'll probably have enough nutrients built up for the leafy greens that you would grow through the winter. This is at least partly due to solids in the grow beds. I do occasionally feed the fish during the winter and increase the feeding as the temp goes up in the spring. Water temps of 50 to 55 F seems to be where bluegill and catfish start to feed a bit more but mostly on sinking chow. You can probably get them interested in red wrigglers long before they'll take to the regular chow (especially the bluegill).

If you want to alternate between the different types of fish you need to buy them at a larger size so all you're doing is the last part of getting them up to harvest size.

Wow, last post on here was in April. I sure learned a few things over the year. Biggest thing I learned was to leave it alone. I had to stop trying to control things and just let my system run. #2. Insulate. Temperature swings from day and night cause added stress to my fish. I added 1" styrofoam insulation around and on top of my fish tank and sump. The insulation removed the diurnal temperature swings. #3. Add a few fish at a time. Dropping in 30 fish at a time caused several issues resulting in stress and eventually leading to fatalities.

Since my last post I have operated with 10 bluegills(gave up on catfish). This month I added 10 hybrid carp, 5 one week and 5 more a week later. For vegetables I currently have are lettuce, celery and broccoli growing until it starts to warm up a little bit.