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Comment by David B on October 1, 2013 at 9:46pm

my summer temp averages have been similar but the foam rafts keep my water temps in the similar mid 80s but without underground sumps. I am a life long yacht builder, very familiar with the highest quality paints costing hundreds of $s per gallon.  But have discovered purely by accident, and necessity, todays' high quality latex house paints have held up extremely well in the Florida sun for nearly two years now. I am amazed. 

Comment by Mathew Slattery on October 1, 2013 at 8:00pm

David- what are you using for your grow beds? what is the cost? Also what are you painting them with? All of our fish tanks are in full shade and we have our sump tanks buried in the ground and we have had temps over 95 but feels like well over 100 and water temps have never gone above 85. in the winter they are usually about 75. I worked and lived in SW Florida for year and It got down to freezing a few times. I hope your tilapia do well. Thanks for the quick update. Look forward to hearing about your move to the caribbean and your aquaponics progress.

Comment by David B on October 1, 2013 at 11:49am

I'm gearing up for a two month cold season here in SW Florida so I am experimenting with a Tilapia pool covered 75/80% with the 2" thick foam grow rafts to keep temperatures up. I'm working on solar pool heaters to provide a bit of warmth as it will get a bit chillier here than most of you guys further down in the islands will experience. But the foam is working fantastic even in 95 degree heat to keep things cool (nights in my summer are still in mid to high 80's). 

Comment by David B on October 1, 2013 at 11:34am

all my plant pools are made with 2" thick Styrofoam rafts. and I keep random islands of the same, cut from scrap, floating over maybe 50% of my tilapia pool surface.  Complete with plant roots hanging down the Tilapia also love eating. I believe I've stumbled on keeping even direct sunlit water temperatures down by floating these 2" thick insulating rafts over the pools. Attached are some photos of the systems I have begun to sell locally to raise money. Spent months figuring out how to build hot wire machines to quickly cut the foam. But it can be done with hand tools too.

Comment by David B on October 1, 2013 at 11:20am

I collect shrimp off my brackish water dock in my backyard. Right now we are at the tail end of the rainy season and the water is very fresh on top. These are regular saltwater juvenile shrimp. But apparently, just like the commercial salt water shrimp post larvae(PL)  that are sold to fresh water grow-out farmers these seem to do fine in with the fresh water tilapia... until they get eaten.

Comment by Mathew Slattery on October 1, 2013 at 7:54am

I have actually found that the Mosquito fish have kept my tilapia in check in terms of number. Te Mosquito fish are very predatory on the juvenile Tilapia. I am very interested in getting some sort of freshwater crayfish for my DWCs. When you say shrimp you are talking about crawdads right?

Comment by David B on October 1, 2013 at 7:45am

BTW especially for those of us in the tropics, I've found adding a healthy population of mosquito fish to the Tilapia tanks has been working really well. The mosquito fish keep my open air tanks free of future blood suckers. and provide an occasional 'steak dinner' feed supplement for the tilapia. I throw wild caught shrimp in with them occasionally too, but they're gone in a hurry.

Had been hoping the shrimp would stay around long enough to help clean up the bottom of the pool. Been vacuuming up with a pool vacuum.  I'll probably add a screen/cage above the shrimp later....saw a good video on YouTube showing an example of mixed shrimp/Tilapia polyculture.  And, I've been told mixed sex Tilapia will grow much faster and won't breed out of control if they cannot reach the bottom to lay&fertilize their eggs with a screen/cage above the pool floor.

I'll be building my pools out of fiberglass next to keep cage screen material from making any more holes in my pools.

Comment by David B on October 1, 2013 at 7:22am

Hello Stuart,

I'm not in the Bahamas, or Haiti yet, but plan to be one day. However, I am in South Florida and been doing backyard experiments for two years now. I hope to keep in touch.

My Pastor just offered me 8 acres on a lake with room to scale up to shipping container size units to test the systems design for sending down to Haiti... now just believing for the resources to do the scale up.

 

Just had a systems meltdown when my inflatable pool leaked and had to fill it back up again with river water from my backyard. It brought in a horrible bacterial infection that plugged everything up. Had to clear out a little 100gallon strawberry pool to nurse the fish back to health. It was the only place I had enough water for them ready to go. They are bouncing back quickly after nearly suffocating.

Cheers,

David B

Comment by Mathew Slattery on October 1, 2013 at 7:17am

Stuart I am very interested in your new breading tank as I have a few projects I am working on where I would liek to build a tank myself. What are you painting on the inside of your tank to seal it?

Comment by Mathew Slattery on October 1, 2013 at 7:12am

We are just beginning to expand our operation here in TCI. We have 3 300 gallon fish tanks and 2 150 Gallon tanks. Our grow area is much too small for the amount of fish/ water volume we have so we are adding 4 more 3'x10' gravel beds along with 3 more raft beds that are 4'x8'. Moving as fast as we can as the systems are getting a bit overwhelmed. All of our grow space is planted with Basil that will be ready to harvest in the next week or so and be replaced with other crops once it gets a bit cooler here. I will try and post some photos later. 

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