Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Oh yeah, there is always a chain of events. First, I was out of town for the weekend. Second there were severe storms with heavy rain. I never lost power, but I did have two electrical failures. The wind and rain combo shorted the pump power supply and my battery backup that runs the backup aeration. So both the primary and backup systems failed.

Man, sorry about your catfish! Were they albino, or is that shot of their ghosts???? I know they get more pale when they give up the ghost....Those were some nice cats....
Your tilapia are beautiful too.

Having a freezer full of fillets is a good problem to have. You just need to have more big parties! Fried catfish, catfish soup, grilled catfish, catfish gumbo, catfish po boy, catfish tacos, catfish patties, catfish etoufe, catfish nuggets, catfish in chili sauce....lol Catfish ceviche....The lime cooks it, right??? I know a lot of people use ground tilapia for this.....some question this practice, but I've eaten it.....It tastes good.

I honestly love catfish soup (My mother out-law, I mean in-law, only uses catfish for her fish soup, and it's delicious) , fried catfish, and Thai catfish in chili sauce (At least that's what they call it at a local restaurant) ....now I'm hungry.

Oh yeah, just remembered: good to know the rocotos grow well in AP. I've only grown them in the ground, but they produce great, and pack some heat. I haven't had plants for a few years, but have some seedlings going now.

I first came across them in Eureka Ca, where I scouted an amazing food forest type yard grown by an older man. He called them Manzanos, which is a common name for them in Mexico, but they are one of the most cold tolerant / cool weather producing peppers that exist. They usually grow well in cloud forest type climates of Mexico, central and south America. Even in that cool coastal climate, they packed a punch. And I've been told that many chiles need heat to get hot.
He had many interesting and uncommon plants for the area. He gave me some seedlings, an his plants grew for many years as perennials, they would die back in the frost, but come back real strong the next season.

He also gifted me a few jars of them in escabeche (pickled with carrots in a vinegar brine) They were delicious. I have since made them this way when I had an abundance. They go great with a sandwich.

Here in LA, I've had better luck growing them in a semi shaded area than in full sun.
I think I'm going to give them a shot in AP now. How big are your bushes?
The gentleman's approached 7-8 feet. Mine have maybe got to 6-7 feet. They could probably be kept smaller though, like tomatoes.

Never good losing fish especially the older ones. Dang.
The gbs certainly are chockers, ammonia spikes would be considered after pulling plants. Without looking back in the thread could you say why you think they have gotten so bad? Are you running constant flood? Do you totally remove the plant roots when harvesting? Filter? I have a few gbs which have been in operation for a few years now and none look like the ones you posted! Thanks.

LA Will, the rocoto bushes are large. They have completely taken over one 4x4 gb. My gbs are about 4' high and I have to get a ladder to reach the tops, so probably 4 - 5' tall above the gb.

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Skeggly,

Definitely tomato plants. Their roots are very aggressive and I had several plants that were in for a couple of years with well developed roots. They died (lack of water flow?) so the roots didn't come out with the plant.

Corn also has large root systems but I get a lot of them out when I pull the plants.

Luckily I have 9 media gbs and 3 dwc, so cleaning a couple gbs is a small portion of the system.

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That's a shame,I'm sorry.
The pic looks like something out of a horror film.

So my trout were doing really well...until they died. All 27 within a few days. I was keeping the temp below 70°F the whole time with lot's of aeration. Ultimately I think it was some sort of fungus or similar. They got up to 9" long. A couple months more and I woulda had some nice plate sized fish.

Oh well, I have 90 tilapia fingerlings and just got 100 catfish fry. Trouble is I put the trout in the tilapia system due to the insulated tank so I could keep the water chilled. Now the tilapia are in the main pond (not heated) where the catfish belong.

I have a few weeks before the catfish finish quarantine and get big enough to transfer into a system. I guess they can go in the insulated system until they get too big or winter comes. So I have some time to sort things out. The tilapia need to be in the heated system to survive the winter.

Anyway, it feels like starting over again, not enough nitrates currently for all the plants to thrive. Most are doing pretty well but not growing very fast.

I’m so sorry to hear about your fish deaths. It’s hard to have that happen after all of your investment in time, money, and care. For future reference, most state veterinary labs will do necropsies on freshly deceased (or live dying) fish to check for infectious causes. This would help you plan for the prevention of future losses. The cost is usually quite reasonable, especially if it’s a food species.

Someone rang my doorbell last Sunday at 7:30am and woke me up! How rude. They said there was smoke in my backyard and I said okay thank you.

So I went out back to see what's up.



So, that is (was) a growbed, a camp water heater and propane tank. What a meltdown. Lots of wood and plastic involved. I gotta look out for the guy that rang my doorbell and thank him.

The flames were small, luckily the propane tank and hose did not create a spectacular fireball! So, WTF Happened right? Also, I think the fireproof insulation around the fish tank helped. The fish are fine and the water didn't even heat up (no soup today!).

The Camplux brand propane water heater was a backup for the 1000 watt electric bucket heater I use to keep my tilapia alive during the winter. In very cold weather (below 50°F for southern California) the electric heater doesn't keep up. So I added the propane backup several years ago. It is rarely used but has worked very well.

Well, the heater decided to light even though there was no water flow. So it just kept the burner on indefinitely. The propane tank was 3/4 full the night before and 1/4 full after the fire. The water heater eventually ignited the wood growbed stand nearby, and the slow smolder spread and charred the stand, melted the bed and adjacent RFF barrel. It also melted everything electrical like my wifi thermostat, pump cord, and bucket heater cord.

So, this is a good opportunity to update my tilapia system. I would like to try IAVS but apparently getting the right sand is not an easy thing. But I will change the layout and clean things up a bit. Here are a few more pics.

Quite a mess to clean up there, lucky it didn't progress to the spectacular big flame and explosion phase! It might be worth looking at using an additional 1kW electric heater for the cold weather. electric heater, which should be safer.
Fortunate your fish survived, but it might be worth a full water change if you can, who knows what toxic substances ended up in the water from the burning plastic.

+1

Sorry to see this but glad it wasn't worse

What a mess.
Got away lucky, that it did not explode.

A little cleanup and reconfigure

A little overstocked too, so time for some fillets. 50 fish in the IBC avg 1.25 lbs is 4 gallons per pound. I like to keep 5 gallons per pound min so I filleted 11 fish.



These fish were hatched March 2020, so about one year old.