Aquaponics

[hoosierdoc]

I bought a six-pack of red leaf lettuce and a six-pack of romaine. They have been in about 10 days and both seem to be growing well. I put an oregano plant in there for good luck.

My water is tanking due to an algae bloom. I was in a hurry and didn't spray paint the tank, then probably overfed the tiny little fish. I made a filter with burlap and landscape fabric I'm running the water through before the grow bed, hoping that will help. I'm going to add some algae control stuff tonight though.

I'll try to get some pics up this week. Just a standard IBC tote thing, nothing fancy (yet )

 

[edwea]

Have you considered algae eaters or plecos? We have several in each tank and they are serious dinos. I dropped one one the floor one time and it walked around grunting! It almost took my foot off!

 

[hoosierdoc]

This cold snap got my water down to 57

i put put together a quick heater with 1400w element and now it's 75

the bucket up top is an algae scraper

http://i1048.photobucket.com/albums...F-4B2C-42A1-99DF-AF75F05DCFEF_zpsb4gp1afw.jpg

 

[edwea]

Very cool!

 

[hoosierdoc]

The fish REALLY loved the warmer water and less algae. I saw them eating the bubbles by the heater, probably grabbing some of the algae suspended there. they ate well today, first time in three days. Hoping the water continues to clear. I'm surprised none of them died as out of whack as it got. My nitrites are going up but I couldn't do water changes because my well water is cold and the tank was cold already. I added some of the quick-start bacteria the other day which hopefully will help get things up and running again.

I should have slowly started but really I cannon-balled right into this

 

[edwea]

I've had wild temp swings, crazy ammonia levels, ph readings too high and low for the fish or plants to possibly survive. But the only time I've really lost any fish was when they were fed when the temp was down in the 50's. It wasn't me and I'm not going to name names. Of all the things I was sure would kill them, eating in low temps was the only thing that did.

 

[nate77]

I bought about 100 tilapia today

I'm hoping they survive :-)

Where did you get your tilapia? How big are they, and what did they cost?

I'd love to get some to clean up my pond.

 

[hoosierdoc]

From a guy on Craigslist. I paid $60 for about 120 1" ones. He was in terre haute

someone else is selling larger ones on Craigslist south side of Indy

 

[dudley0]

Would they make it thru the winter in a pond?

 

[nate77]

Thanks Hoosierdoc, I've bought them off of Craigslist before, guess I'll check again.

Dudley, they die when the water temperature gets below 50 degrees, that is why they aren't highly regulated, like grass carp; they die every year

 

[hoosierdoc]

Guy's name I used was "mike", he is selling the blue tilapia fingerlings. Not sure if he'll ship them. I have been texting with him regarding the tank setup, nice guy. Very much a prepper

 

[hoosierdoc]

Backyard Aquaponics ? View topic - Mick's Twin IBC System in Brisbane

My nitrites/nitrates are building up. I added two tomato plants and a jalepeno plant to try to help with nitrates. I'm going to add the second IBC tote in a configuration like the above link which should give me closer to 250 gallons of water. For the 125 fish that should be a better ratio but I'm still light on the grow bed surface area with only two 4'x4'x12" beds. Will probably need water changes to keep that all at bay.

Going to have to buy another IBC tote (or two ) for my garage to over-winter the fish

 

[edwea]

Why water changes? High nitrates are a good thing and the nitrites will level off as the biofilter matures. That water is the life blood of your system. I say top off only as needed to account for loss but keep those water changes to a minimum. Just my Glad to see it going well.

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

It takes time for those nitrifiers to grow in your system. And, they grow best when you build up a certain level of biological oxygen demand in the water.
Tilapia will do fine, even in water that looks a little stanky.

 

[hoosierdoc]

They had stopped eating and were all in a corner sucking air from the surface. I did about a 15% change and they stopped that and started eating again.

 

[BigBoxaJunk]

Then you probably did the right thing. I have no experience with aquaponics, but I kept and spawned aquarium fish for years in my younger days. I never had tilapia, but I raised lots of different African cichlids. I would think that if your fish were sucking air, then your D.O. was low. I thought tilapia were tolerant of a relatively low D.O., so either the D.O. was really low, or it was something else (or in addition to) low D.O. Either way, problem solved.

It's always dicey during the "start-up" period, right after you introduce your fish, while your micro-organisms are getting established. I always tried to start with relatively few fish and slowly build up. If I had more fish during start-up I would also usually feed sparingly in the beginning to minimize excess food and fish waste. At some point, you'll hit the groove.

 

[hoosierdoc]

I have an air pump with a few small stones. I need to add more stones and weights to get the stones to the bottom of the tank.

 

[hoosierdoc]

https://indianapolis.craigslist.org/grd/6140815633.html

going to buy a few of these. One will be a radial flow filter and the other two just to have on hand.

I'll be cutting my second tank in half vertically and making it into two grow beds. Will make platforms to hold them and my RFF. This should let me have higher fish density in the single tank

 

[edwea]

Looks like you're finding out how easy it is to go from "trying this out" to a 10,000 gallon system. Like ar's and cz's, they tend to multiply .

 

[hoosierdoc]

Haha, exactly. I found a local teacher on Craigslist who will be taking the fish to get me down to a more normal stocking density. He does aquaponics in a greenhouse at the school.