Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

To prevent freezing, I would go with more volume and use a divider of some sort. I am not sure of the shape of the tanks but it would also allow you to use just one pump.

You can forget tilapia in cold water though.

trout and tilapia like very different temperature ranges. Tilapia will die at less than 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

i know nothing about breeding trout, but tilapia should breed easily, although not if you ask my tilapia, coy things that they are.

hm i guess i'll have to find some other species, like these:
Thymallus thymallus, Leuciscus cephalus cabeda or Barbus plebejus

can look at their pics here -->http://www.ribiska-druzina-tolmin.si/ribe.php
as they'r all found in our rivers, along with the trouts i bet they live in simmilar conditions...and i know some place that breeds thymallus-es

i think i'll be most likely using Salmo trutta fario(stream trout) and thymallus, what do you think?

one major issue, what happens with ammonia during winter, and who uses the nitrates? or does fish metabolism slow down due to cold temps so they can't eat and exhale all that ammonia?

is there a possibility that the water in growbeds would froze during winter? i really don't imagine how cold it must be to get running water freezing...google-->http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/gen01/gen01478.htm

so by that, it means i would have to isolate as much as i can, put the tank in the ground, plumbings in the ground(prefereably but not very practic). And most of all, little or no air circulation over the water surface, that means covering the tanks and the growbeds?

can plants be grown in winter if the water temperature is high enough(heating the water with sun's energy), in a greenhouse with little or no heating of the air(temps over 4°C, but not much more---> heating costs)

has any of you tried to grow crabs or shells in AP? in our place crabs mostly live in very clean streams with EC ~0.3, so maybe AP would be too hard on them?

janet, i'm googling on ur coy tilapia and i found this...http://www.tilapia.ws/breeding-tilapia.php...which is something that u have probably already read

another one, very informative
http://aquaponicslibrary.20megsfree.com ... ilapia.htm

man i'm long, but i'll be really happy to get some answears !

thank you in advance!

molj-- I have to say sometimes the translation is very interesting...
I like someone that is not shy with their discription...
i am sure bk can get a few words in here.
quote by molj
man i'm long, but i'll be really happy to get some answears !

Please don't take offence we Aussies are a different mob.
and I am glad you like the forum

I really don't see how you could hope to run your system actively during the winter without a green house. Having the tank covered and in ground should keep it from freezing but you still have the issue of the plants. How much would it cost to heat a green house enough to keep it productive year around.

Another option would be to just heat the water in the tank and circulate it through an appropriate sized biofilter during the cold months and switch to grow beds in the more temperate productive months. This way you are not heating unnecessary space, just the water needed to keep the fish growing.

Some of the Aussies are growing yabbies or marron. In the US, we would call them crayfish. They're like a freshwater lobster.

I have seen that document on breeding tilapia. Now if I can just teach my female tilapia to read.

creative non taken at all, thanks though
Please don't take offence we Aussies are a different mob. -->i never thought on it that way, u seem like straightforward ppl, which is what i like
but i think it has to do more with us having the same interests and aspects, which is even better in these days:)

dthawk: i have some charts on how much would that cost, somewhere will look into that, BUT
i've recently heard about a method to keep ur house warm throughout the whole year. it's kind off a heat convection pump, that brings the warmth from down under, bellow the ground, where the temps are close to year's average temps.
so they dig and install pipes under the house(~>10m deep i suppose) and they run water through the pipes and "pump" the heat into the house. hard to achieve in my condition

an additiona heating could be provided from solar heating with black (polyester?)pipes exposed to sun--> much better

about the biofilter, you were talking about an additional lighted tank that would have a lot of underwater vegetation right?

i'm getting chills janet, reading about crayfish, a second tank with them would be awsome along with trout....mmmmmm. wish i had a mouth full of them not just saliva

maybe u'r missing out something with tilapia, have u tried to bring new couples or something like that? have u checked all the enviromental values? maybe double or triple checking things and testing would give u more answears.

I'm thinking I may net out some new breeder candidates from the main tank and see if they would get along better. Certainly will give that some thought before I fillet the next batch.

i just remembered something, maybe it's nothing

some guy that works with aquarium fish once told me that if fish quarrel, it sometimes helps to put the most annoying fish out of the tank for a minute and then put it back
that shocks the fish and she acts really modestly after treating her like that. i tried and it works, on my scallare

so maybe you have to put the couple in the breeding tank simultaneously to create a joint adventure for them, you know what i mean?

I have a 1.8M long aquarium in out dining room with a herb garden as a bio-filter. The aquarium is my breeding tank for Tilapia.

Water from the aquarium is pumped to the herb garden and drains to a sump, from whence it is pumped back to the aquarium.
We had three 2 litre containers and one 4 litre container (fry tanks) with Tilapia fry ranging from 3 mm to 15 mm long.

As there were in excess of 100 fry in the aquarium fry tanks, I had segregated all of the males from the aquarium and banished then to the Fish Pond. In the aquarium were only the females and fry.

Yesterday morning, my Dear Wife (DW) came from our bedroom and found the floor wet. Needless to say, I was summonsed by DW to remedy the situation. The aquarium was half empty and one of the 2 litre fry tanks was full of dead fry (possibly an oxygen thing). :SHOCK: HSM :SHOCK:

I found that the hose from the sump tank, for returning water to the aquarium has separated from the pump, so that despite the pump working as expected, the water remained in the sump until it overflowed.

I reconnected the hose to the pump and started mopping about 150 Litres of water out of the house.
I had used reticulation polyethylene pipe for the sump pump hose and it had come off the outlet of the pump. I replaced this hose with the corrugated hose which I had on another pump. I am confident that I will not have a repeat performance of this incident.

I used warm water from our water service (stand-alone rainwater system - not mains water) to refill the aquarium. All the survivors are well.

The fatalities were about 30 fry which had been "spat out" during a previous segregation attempt. At the time, they were hatchlings, most of whom still had the egg attached. They survived 2 weeks and were as active and hungry as the other, more mature fry which had been 'spat out' by their mother in the normal course of events.

EEEEEP

at least you stil have some fry tony

what a bummer

Yep, would not like to have to catch the males to get them to mate again. It was hard enough in the 6' aquarium, but in the 5KL fish pond it would be impossible.

Still have enough to give some away if certain people want to have a go with Tilapia.

hello tony,

thank you for your input, most appriciated!
i know about spills in an appartment, learned a lot from them hehe

may i ask how much gallons does your main fish tank hold?and how do you keep the water warm during winter?

Sorry to hear of your probs Tony...any way of baiting a trap with a couple of females to lure the males into a net...surprising how stupid males act around females at times

hehe, good one, here fishy fishy