Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello everyone, new and old alike. I need help, I really want to use shrimp for my Aquaponics system! So far, I have come up with a few people doing it as an addition to an existing Tilapia pond and that looks doable. But I am not a big fan of fresh water FISH eater... fresh water SHRIMP on the other hand, I can eat a mess of them!

That all said, by way of introduction, I am a fairly up to speed hydroponics grower, indoor and out. Never really had my own 'greenhouse' to play with though. That may be in the not so distant future. I have been playing in the meantime, with small scale outdoor capable hydroponics systems for the past year. One of the criteria I have, as I live in a colder part of the world, Colorado, is the ability to bring the systems and plant sites, indoors. This accomplishes two things for me, in the spring, it means I can start in the hydro system indoors, like a greenhouse, then transition the system outdoors after danger of frost. Again, in the Fall, I can bring the systems indoors, or break them up and only bring in a small group. So, smaller systems on the Hydro side it is!

I am also trying to make this as organic as possible, hence my researching aqua-ponics. For some additional background, I have always been able to grow my own, in dirt, pots or hydroponics and last year one of my long time friends who manages a retail orchard and organic farm outlet, told me to sell my peppers in her store... so, this last winter I have been getting geared up to mass produce certain varieties. Where I used to have 2 or 3 of a plant, now I have 12 or 13, of a dozen varieties. And that's just my peppers...

Right now, I have 4 individual systems running, 3 outside, 1 indoors. None of the systems have more than say 10 plant sites? I have been getting creative with some 'up-cycled' containers and will post some pictures as soon as I figure out how to do that on this board

My plan, and I am hoping it will work, is to have shallow water tanks for the shrimp, like deep water culture depth? 12 inches seems to be about right, then stack them, like doing a rack system of micro greens only, I do not need to light them up. From what I have found, this system works indoors and is currently being marketed as a stand alone shrimp farm, able to be shipped pre assembled in containers. Ok, but I only need like, a 1/4 of a container, not a stack of 6 at 53 feet long each!


that all said, anyone have experience raising shrimp in aqua-ponics or even just aqua-culture? HELP ME!

@CoconutIsland - Hi and welcome to the forum.

We are also interested in shrimp or crayfish and want to dedicate one tank to those with plenty of places for them to hide.

@rhoover - How big is the tank you are thinking of? You need to brace yourself for loads of carnage if it is just one tank, take a look at my system thread, i dabbled with them for a while. Take a look at the link attached, it is quite interesting. You can also do a quick search, prawns and crays in AP is a hot topic here. You can also PM Charlie or Porter (Jeff), their love for these little critters are bordering insanity.

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=24260

Ditto to the comments..
"... and I put twenty inthere and can only find four now..."

If it is crustaceans you want, then you will need to Farm then in tubes to keep them apart completely..

I seriously can't see how buying a system would be economical, considering the slow growth times..

.
.

Thank you for the quick reply guys (gals?) I had read the posts about Yabbies and yes, those are pretty much the same little buggers I want to grow. Over here in the US we have a few other varieties of fresh water prawn and red claw crayfish, but the systems and environmental conditions should all be the same?



I think I might have figured out the picture problem as well. If this worked, the above is a working scale model of what the professor calls 'stacked raceways'. Basically long narrow and shallow FT's for your Yabbies or Shrimp or whatever, to spread out in. Because of my cold winters in the mountains, there is no chance of doing an open outdoor tank. The season is too short to grow them too harvest with only about a 4 month window. Which is why I came up with some of the small scale systems, like this 'cucumber stand' with 10 x 1 gallon coffee cans over a 20 gallon reservoir:



That system the pots are set up to act as individual aero-ponics in some, some have a media of baked clay, others have a media of chopped recycled rockwool from previous grows. Trying all three ways to see if there is a difference noticeable difference. I also have an Ebb/Flo setup using recycled 2 liter bottles that is working good after a few weeks. I just picked up enough materials to add 10 more grow sites to this system:



I am also setting up a bank of 5 gallon buckets and have the materials for a dozen like this: (Note, these are not mine and only 3 gallon)



Some of my thoughts on this, I have a garage to build out the stacked raceways (ST or FT in a normal system) so the whole thing ends up plumbed out to where ever I need it anyway, I figured I would just make the whole thing indoors with its own stand alone filtration system. Pull dirty water out during the prime grow season, revert back to the stand alone system for the winter?

Still trying to mull it all over in my head as too how much grow area I will be able to support, how the square ft ratio may be off because of the shallow pool nature of the raceway's? In reading the press release on the system I am looking at and some of the research data, they were projecting close to 1 million pounds of shrimp, per acre ft of water (roughly hectare?) to compare with a return on standard ponds of only 30 to 60,000 pounds. Not really sure if that is going by the actual surface area of the tanks, or the footprint of the facility... hmmm... Anyway, This is what I am playing around with, nice to meet a group of like minded people doing the same!

Cheers!

@ CoconutIsland - Your 1st picture shows some really interesting concept, where is it from? Can you provide a more detailed explanation/pictures on how that is set up?

Regards

@ Curious, this is the original article I found when stumbling around the internet:
http://phys.org/news/2011-09-shrimp-technology-world.html

The system is now patented in the US? Can you patent a method of farming? I guess so... anyway, I am not going for an aqua-culture shrimp farm, I am looking for a way to organically feed my hydroponics systems and provide me with a few shrimp taco's or fajita's a month...

Anyway, this is the latest on where Doctor Lawrence is with his patent...

"United States - Texas — The End of Shrimp Farming Research

By Aquafeed.com Staff, 03/18/2015


On February 25, 2015, Dr. Craig Nessler, Texas AgriLife Research Director in College Station, and Dr. Juan Landivar, Texas AgriLife Research Director in Corpus Christi, announced that AgriLife was closing its shrimp farming research programs in Flour Bluff and Port Aransas and that Dr. Tzachi Samocha and Dr. Addison Lawrence would be laid off effective April 24, 2015. This closing of the shrimp farming research programs in Texas after more than 40 years leaves a very large void in the USA shrimp farming industry.

http://www.aquafeed.com/news/news-brief ... -Research/"

Just spent the morning at my local farmers market, everyone is interested in what I am working on. Getting some interest in my produce that I intend to start selling locally. Gave out some samples, which is probably all I will do for the next couple of months as I simply get used to maintaining this size of a garden and the variety. I have grown all one crop before, never like this, with a dozen varieties of just pepper plants, then a whole laundry list of other plants...
So I figure this season is pretty much going to be testing. Find out where there is a market niche that I can fill ( I think I have that with exotic hot peppers ) Figure out which grow bed or system works the best for what I am doing.

Will probably only put a half dozen in a 275 gallon IBC with lots of hiding places and see what happens with them. They are less important at the beginning than the fish at this point. When I get the first part up and running, we may consider adding a long shallow shrimp tank using a 10' x 2'6" feed trough liner.

@ rhoover, I just spent 20 minutes looking at feed trough liners, thanks for that idea That is one of the issues I am playing with now. The FT or raceway's. I did spend some time building and working on boats and so far, for what I am thinking of doing, it looks like just hand making my own custom raceways, just as I would have made boat hull, is going to be the best option. The cost of a system like this, or one of the commercial grade units, looks to be running tens of thousands. I am pretty sure I can build a room full of fiberglass and epoxy for a couple grand. I have some time to work with, I do not think I will be any where near ready to put this together until next season. Even then, I see starting with only one of the raceways, with at least one more for expansion ready to go but empty at the start. In my mind, I am seeing shorter stacks than the shot above, only 2 per stack and just do 3 stacks like that, with a sorting tank eventually connecting them all... If I make these small enough to move around, or to actually 'stack', as in, stack up as many as you like or just lay them out in a row... I like systems that are flexible like that

Just a point to make. The photo with the professors system.... That's EXACTLY the kind of setup that we were discussing in the thread regarding failed commercial aquaponics ventures. The guy obviously is building whatever his grants will fund. *Sheesh*


Yeah, I have no idea whether he has the data to back him up but I'd be willing to bet against that as a commercial operation.

I don't about that poppa, I did some digging and found the data from as far back as '95 or so, when he and the team from TX Mariculture were still building the raceways on the ground. There is still am ongoing farm and operation selling products, in fact, it may end up being where I source Larvae to stock with... They had full breakdowns of different stocking sizes and growth rates, return on investment, feeding schedules as well as the type of feed. They even had a test of different feeds going for a year or two, with some remarkable differences, like a 30% increase in production, just from changing the feeding.

Think I also solved all my tank issues with the inside out boat hull design for the raceways. From everything I found on this particular test or project, a couple of years ago DR Lawrence basically decided to retire and cash out on his idea... The Company that purchased his Patent back in 2011 is doing a system called Super intensive raceway's, just not stacked... I guess real estate is cheap? Anyway, that system uses a constructed insert to the raceway which basically is a series of mesh layers that are racks that drop into the raceway. Much like maybe the float from a float table, just submerged and giving 'real estate' to the growing shrimp.

In yet another garden, they use a very similar insert to introduce shrimp to a Tilapia pond, simply sealing that whole thing below the level of the fish. Shrimp hide out in the bottom, fish swim on the top. But that was an outdoor in ground pond. I have seen a few nice indoor setups on a small scale, just not for shrimp. I think the problem is, in order to really be an effective sustainable operation, you need at least 3 or 4 tanks (or raceways) One is Larvae stage, next a molting stage, then a grow out area and finally a harvesting area... The parameters I think they were calling for in the example of the stacked raceways, called for 7. I also found that as a PDF through some school in Asia? It took some digging to find!

Its not like this guy just started doing this, the TX test site has been operating for 40 years... There was a lot of raw data around from his earlier tests. Then all of a sudden in 2011, he comes up with the patent and takes it to the fist company, who hired him on... then he bought his patent back and sold it to another company that he just joined 3 months ago... It was interesting that when I first started looking into this, a month or so ago, there were some great graphics of the system on that first companies web site, could not find that again? So, something is certainly happening with this stuff.

So far, in three different sources, each quoted the break even point on the initial investment at 3 years given a market price of $6.00 lb...

At the end of the day, it does not really matter to me, I just hate fresh water fish in my diet and would rather have shrimp taco's...

Hej Coconut Island,

Very interesting thread! Thanks for sharing all the info! I wish this thread was longer
I know its old but was wondering if you have an update on your own system?
I find it REALLY hard to get any idea as to feeding rates for shrimp and how many animals in weight you would therefore need to sustain a certain amount of grow area. Do you have any hints or links from your research?

Thanks