Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I was wondering if anyone had thoughts or information about if one is superior to the other in aquaponics. I live in vermont where its pretty cool but we do have some really hot days here and there. I am hoping for a more adaptable fish.

We have Brook trout since we began our 2600 gallon AP back in October of 2015. I'm no expert but I did get advice from professionals. Here is what I learned: Brook Trout like fast moving cold water. While our AP water got warmer than it should have 69°F this Summer they stayed active. They appeared to be doing fine even with a month of outrageously hot weather this year. . That said ours are going into their second season with no serious issues. "Brookies are a cold-water species, although they can tolerate a large range of temperatures from 0 – 22°C, but prefer 13 - 18°C. " (54°F to 71°F) From http://easternbrooktrout.org/groups/whitewater-to-bluewater/species-spotlight/brook-trout-salvelinus-fontinalis
I think Brook trout are the prettiest of the North American Trout. They also come in blond or golden.

Here is another research paper on Brook trout you may find helpful. http://www.nwrc.usgs.gov/wdb/pub/hsi/hsi-024.pdf
I've recently added four times the amount of air to our tank and this is the most active I have seen them since the beginning. I think the like lots of oxygen and lots of water movement.
I hope this helps.

The Guys at the hatchery reckon the Brown trout are more sensitive to higher temps and are shyer than the Rainbow's. So intil I can maintain lower temps I'm sticking with 'Bows.

Pete.

Hmmm, I can keep my water below 70°F for several months a year. Maybe I should start a trial set of trout next winter. Brian, any leads on a source for trout fingerlings that will ship overnight?

You'd need to start with big enough fish that they could grow to eating size before it gets too hot for them. Getting fish that big shipped in might not be a viable option. You could get eggs and tiny trout just days old through Troutlodge in Washington state - they ship all over the country for fish growers/stockers and bioassays (usually testing of waste water from treatment plants and factories). There are probably other operations that do this but this is the only one I know of at the moment. My guess is the cost of shipping will be very high since water weighs quite a bit and I believe their minimum order is $100 but I'm not sure about that.

Yeah I don't know either. We drove six hours up to Colorado to get ours. River Bend trout farm http://www.riverbendtrout.com/ I searched and searched starting with the state of New Mexico Game and Fish Website
Here is yours https://www.wildlife.ca.gov/Search-Results.aspx?q=fish%20venders
I don't know anything about this place, but the website seems nice.
https://freshwaterfishco.com/

I am concerned about the brown's sensitivity to the higher temperatures. I live in Vermont on top of a ridge in the woods so it is cool. I am just concerned about the handful of days that we don't seem to drop below 65 at night. I don't own property so I can't bury the tank. I would get rainbows but none of the local rainbow suppliers seem to answer the phone. Does anyone recommend a diy chiller? I was thinking of using a old mini fridge with a copper coil running through it but wasn't sure how to make it temperature activated. I have found in line thermostats (http://www.morelectricheating.com/defau ... oC0MPw_wcB)but nothing that could be submerged.

Don't use copper with fish, it will poison them.

Best bet would be stainless, or if that's too expensive or difficult to get then pex

I suggest you design in more natural temperature stabilizing elements instead of trying to control the water temperature. It was nearly 100 degrees for most of month here and our fish AP water temperature was very steady albeit near the top of what our trout prefer. I did labor related extremes to solve this issue by building an earth-sheltered greenhouse in which most everything is below grade levels.
Our Fish Tank is 5.5 feet deep. It is rock and rocks absorb some heat and earth surrounds the entire greenhouse. The idea is the rocks warm up during the day and radiate that heat during the night. You may see this phenomenon in nature during the Winter. The snow melts off the rocks first. I've seen water vapor coming off the rocks on sunny Winter days here.
The earth stabilizes the temperatures in our greenhouse further. So far no additional heat has been applied to the greenhouse other than the door to the house is always open. The greenhouse didn't lose enough heat to ever make us close the door.

You'll find if its only a few days at a time the temp will slowly ratchet up to a point you'll need to stabalize with 4 - 6 gal of ice for two or three days. Then the ambient goes down again. Use the freezer to make and store ice. I came up with a design to do what you descibed but inthe short term ice is easier.
Pete.

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As posted above, Copper will kill the fish.

A mini fridge does not have enough capacity to cool any significant volume of water, it would only be useful if you have a tiny AP system.

The only way to know what capacity chiller you will need to to know how much water are you trying to cool down, and how much do you need to cool it by.

Alternatively you can use ice, but you need a lot of it. I started a thread about how much you need here:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=26563

It has been done before to take a rectangular freezer and seal it to use as a FT, don't know if it is big enough for your application though. If the temp range on the built-in thermostat isn't enough then you could use an inline temperature one with remote probe in the water.

hey I like that idea of using a deep freeze as the fish tank to be able to control the temp in the summer. Only problem is that even the largest deep freeze I can find (21.7cu ft @ close to $800) that is only 162 gallons. Not going to keep very many fish in there once they are grown up a bit. I would think for $800 I could build a 1900 gallon fish tank (96" x 96" x 48") that would probably be about as good just adding more water capacity to make it take longer to warm the water up if your summers aren't consistently over 70 degrees for long periods... for that matter you could buy a 6000 gallon swimming pool for $400... but you would need to be able to keep them in the shade somehow, so if you don't own the land that is tough not being able to build a building to house it in... I guess you could put up a carport to shade it but still allow breeze through. I doubt you'd have trouble with water temps getting over 70 with a pool though... from what I recall our pool growing up (while larger than 6000 gallons...) rarely ever got much over 70 even with a solar cover on it all the time...

Awesome tip, I'll check into it. Thanks!! I buy fish and pay shipping maybe once a year (though I hope to be done buying now and breed my own tilapia and catfish in the future). It's normally just under $50 to ship 8 lbs. FedEx next day, am delivery. I can get up to 100 fry or so in one shipment, so probably similar for eggs.

As for temp control there are options. I picked up a 1Hp chiller on Craigslist for 25% of what it costs new. With solar electric I can probably run it off and on for a couple months before it costs anything. I could also try evap cooling as it is pretty low humidity here most of the time, though that will increase the top up water needed.



That makes AP in most forms very challenging. As for the deep freeze for cooling, maybe don't raise the fish in the freezer, rather coat it so it's water proof, fill it, and use it to chill a large volume of water (close to freezing). Run a closed loop cooling coil through the chilled water for "normal" conditions, then in emergencies pump the chilled water directly into your system, refill and chill overnight? I'm not sure if this would work well but maybe worth a trial. You can use a simple thermostat to turn the freezer on / off to keep it from freezing - about $30 on Amazon. Also search for Frosty Fish, a guy that does coldwater AP up north (USA) using old freezers. Good source for info, be sure to use fish safe epoxy coating, etc. I think I might have to try this. Thanks for getting the thought process started!

You can use seperate heat exchange fluid made up of tap water mixed with 10% salt so it won't freeze. Run through a stainless steel coil.

Pete.

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