Fish types

[Sylvia Bernstein]

What are your favorite fish types? What are you growing with now?  What are the pros and cons you've discovered in working with different fish?

[Max Butler]

for one hello, this is my first post on this forum. I breed fish, and to do that alot of the time I have to have very good quality water, so I used grow beds on several tanks and it works very well. I use lava rock for media and I grew kale which was just awesome. I just used a window for there light sorse and they seemed to thrive.

[Rebecca Nelson]

I have raised blue gill, crappie, catfish, fancy goldfish, koi and tilapia in aquaponic systems. The tilapia are by far the easiest and fastest growing. When raised in a controlled environment with good water quality and a proper final purge prior to harvest, they are a great tasting fish with firm white meat.

[Sylvia Bernstein]

I'm with Rebecca. Tilapia are the original "can't kill them" fish, although god knows I've tried. Made a ton of mistakes early on (fast pH swings, electrocution, forgot to turn off the water so replaced all their water with chlorinated water), but most survived. I've also grown goldfish and trout. Oddly I have a hard time keeping the goldfish alive, even after switching from the "feeders" to the "fancy" type. Since I'm now growing in a greenhouse trout were a real pain. Constantly worried about the water temp getting too high and not enough O2. Gave them to my buddy JT, whose bigger trout just ate them for a snack. Cycle of life. Big fan of tilapia.

[Sylvia Bernstein]

Hi Matt. What kind of fish do you breed? How big are your lava rock?

Max Butler said:

for one hello, this is my first post on this forum. I breed fish, and to do that alot of the time I have to have very good quality water, so I used grow beds on several tanks and it works very well. I use lava rock for media and I grew kale which was just awesome. I just used a window for there light sorse and they seemed to thrive.

[Emma Lysyk]

I'm a fish hobbyist moving into aquaponics. I've had bettas, black neon tetras, clown loaches, and otocincluses. I've had a lot of trouble keeping loaches as most of them have come with outbreaks of ich. I've found it to be important to carefully inspect pet store and fish store fish as well as inquire about their shipment dates because of this.

I'm getting my new 55 gallon tank on Saturday. It's an established tank with 4 silver dollars, a clown loach, a panda barb, a pleco, an African leaf fish, a kissing gourami, and 3 cory catfish. I'll be putting my current 3 black neons and 2 otos in the larger tank, and eventually I'll add some small koi, depending on how well the plants do (or just because I think they're pretty. My current 5 are enough to keep my well-planted 20 gallon aquascape alive).

The bottom feeders are great for keeping the particle waste under control, so I love having them around. I'm hoping that I won't have to worry as much about particle contamination with them around.

I'll keep you posted on how they work :)

[Sylvia Bernstein]

Wow, Emma! That's some amazing variety of fish you are going to have in there! Can't wait to see the photos!

[David S.]

Hello,
I am thinking about raising catfish in 300 gallon tanks. Is this a bad idea since catfish are bottom dwellers and there simply won't be enough room in the bottom of the tank since the tanks are cubes? I was also thinking about raising perch with the catfish if the swimming zone issue turned into a real problem.

Also, does anybody have some brilliant ideas on how to keep the water temp down? I live in the Austin area, and during the summers it can get pretty hot...

David

[Emma Lysyk]

Hi, David,

You might want to check out this school's aquaponics system: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IveNGoi5Vk4&feature=player_embedded They use only catfish in their system. Catfish have been known to sleep in puppy piles, so it shouldn't be as much of an issue. I haven't known them to be territorial.

Water temperature can be kept down naturally by setting the pool deep enough in the ground. I live in Arizona and have seen koi and goldfish survive in outdoor ponds that are less than 5 feet in the ground with ample shade and no direct sunlight - the shade being the key feature. There are water coolers available for ponds and aquariums if you can't get the temperature down. I know Lowe's carries them for ponds if you can't find a pond fish store. Catfish should be fine in Texas summers, though. My summer camp in Tyler (I grew up in Dallas) had a pond full of them and they had no problems flourishing.

[Karen Swanberg]

I would add that catfish like places to hide. I've thrown my scrap 3" PVC bits in there, and they spend most of their time hanging out in there. I have 8 or 9 bullhead catfish, the biggest maybe 5-6" long, in a 55gal drum. They don't seem overly crowded.

[David S.]

Hmm... I was planning on putting the tanks above ground because this is supposed to be a trial run. I was planning on running this for a year or more and then building a larger ferrocement tank. It is going to be a relatively big system to start though. My coworker, who I am planning this for, might find out that this system will be as big as he wants. We were planning on having 600 gallons for this fish, with a planned stocking density of .25 lb/gallon.

I was also thinking about installing a network of pipes underground that could be used to cool the water. That would probably be the same amount of work though as putting the entire tank underground.

Thanks for your input!
David

[Caroline]

Hi, Emma!
I'm also from Arizona! We're buying a home in northern Glendale (Phoenix metro), and I can't wait to get started gardening. We do have an HOA, so they could be sticky about a greenhouse in my backyard... From this post I believe you would recommend putting the greenhouse on the east side of the house. Is that right? What else would you recommend to keep the fish and plants cool?

Hopefully I can convince the HOA board that it will be a small greenhouse with a roof only 2 feet or less above the retaining wall...

Emma Lysyk said:

Hi, David,

You might want to check out this school's aquaponics system: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IveNGoi5Vk4&feature=player_embedded They use only catfish in their system. Catfish have been known to sleep in puppy piles, so it shouldn't be as much of an issue. I haven't known them to be territorial.

Water temperature can be kept down naturally by setting the pool deep enough in the ground. I live in Arizona and have seen koi and goldfish survive in outdoor ponds that are less than 5 feet in the ground with ample shade and no direct sunlight - the shade being the key feature. There are water coolers available for ponds and aquariums if you can't get the temperature down. I know Lowe's carries them for ponds if you can't find a pond fish store. Catfish should be fine in Texas summers, though. My summer camp in Tyler (I grew up in Dallas) had a pond full of them and they had no problems flourishing.

[Emma Lysyk]

Hi, Caroline!
Yay, another Arizonan!

The fish ponds I've seen in Arizona usually are on the south side of the house. This could just be because of the way the houses face, though. The really important thing is making sure that the direct sunlight is blocked. I know a guy in Union Hills who planted a bunch of papyrus in with his koi, and utilized a tree to block most of the sunlight. Phoenix Tropical had about 10 ponds outside that were also on the south side (it's a house converted into a fish store), and they had one of those slatted overhangs that are popular around here, but also lots of lily pads for the fish to hide under. Phoenix Zoo also has a koi flowing pond. I don't remember where it is cardinally, but I think they use moving water to help keep them cool. I should note that all of these places had their ponds in the ground.

On a side note, my great uncle in Dallas had a goldfish pond in his greenhouse. The things I remember him telling me were that he made it hard to see his fish so they wouldn't become "fish soup" (a term I learned later in life), and that the only way he could keep his greenhouse humid was to have those fish in there. Maybe it was preliminary aquaponics, I have no idea (this was 20 years ago).

Hopefully your HOA only has restrictions on the front of the house! I would suggest visiting the hydroponics store called Sea of Green for a lot of your supplies. I found their prices to be very easy on the wallet and their employees knowledgeable and very helpful. There's one in Glendale, but I have one closer to me in Tempe that has a mini aquaponics set-up with a bunch of goldfish. It's worth a look-see if nothing else.