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Comment by David on October 27, 2015 at 2:31am

Hi,

I'm completely new in aquapony and also on this web site; I'm not sure that I use it properly, so I beg you to excuse me if I'm a bit wrong.

My name is Yves DAVID, I'm living in France at 150 km northeast of Bordeaux (temperature range along the year : -5 -> +35°C)

My system is composed with:

 

- 1fish tank 750 liters with 18 rainbow trouts since end of september with an air pump (720 l/h max). It is located in a barn without heating system.

- 2 growbeds (2.5 square meters,  700 liters approx of expanded clayballs) with one bell siphon each; I have planted : 12 salads, 6 cabbages + various others. They are located outside the barn, in a light plastic greenhouse.

- 1 pump (4500 l/h max) in a fourth tank (in the greenhouse) which receive the water of the 2 growbeds.

The 4 tanks comes from 2 IBC.

 

So far, everyboby is safe. The fishes are between 15 and 20 cm long; but I'm a bit afraid for the futur since the fishes will continue to grow and produce more and more polluants. I remove solides from the fish tank every 2 or 3 days with a siphon. Probably I 'll add a mechanic filter in a near futur.

I mesure (almost each day) pH / temperature and once, a week the nitrites and nitrates

Since you have large experiences in trouts and aquapony, I 'd like to have clues / informations about what I have to check or to take care.

Also, is the number of fishes too high compared to the substrat volume?

I thank you for any information you may send me, but please do not use too much acronyms which may be disturbing for me ( or add a lexicon).

Comment by Derrick Kerr on September 21, 2014 at 9:02pm

If anyone here is in Maryland, I just created a group Maryland Aquaponics for open discussion about the difficulties specific to our area. Please join me and lets talk aquaponics.

Comment by Jeremiah Robinson on April 23, 2014 at 9:11am

Wow Neal, you're raising all those fish together in the same tank?  I would have guessed they'd fight.  Are they all of a similar size?

Comment by Jim Fisk on April 23, 2014 at 8:52am

I came upon an old Trout raising book and thought this quote to be of interest. Source at the end.

I think it is safe to say that sluggish flat water at 70 is dangerous,
if not fatal, to trout ; while they will live in vigorous
rapid water which occasionally runs to 80. I have
found 85 to be fatal to them in all kinds of water.
Source:
JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, LATE TICKNOR & FIELDS, AND FIELDS, OSGOOD, & Co.1873

Good stuff. Keep your Trout water rolling!

@ Anthony: I never saw your post below before. I get only some notifications on here. Anyway, I knew the moment you joined this forum we had much in common. My brother-in-law lives in Seattle but alas we are a long ways off. Otherwise I would love to share labor on our mutual projects. Keep on trucken. Sounds like you have a great little oasis there.

Comment by Anthony Payne on January 1, 2014 at 9:47am

Jim sounds like a nice farm. We live in town, suburb of Seattle so this system will do fine. We can raise chickens but that's it as farm animals go from the city's stand point. My wife told me that we live to close to the places we don't want to be. I'm in the process of making our back yard our sanctuary so we have a place that we can shed the city off. The only hard part will be the sirens and cars sounds. It's not that bad. We will move but in-tel then I will grow what we need, well as much as I can. We are hunter gatherers so our freezer is full of fish, venison, elk, chantrells, and a few other mushrooms my wife hunts, not to mention the rough grouse. We are looking to bring down the amount of money we spend on produce that come from a far off land picked before it should. I don't understand how they can have cheep prices on foods that have flown from Mexico, I can't get a ticket that cheep to fly. We would like not to purchase produce. My wife is a meat cutter and we get deals on beef and pork. (Bob Campbell I did watch that video and it was boring) so between our occupations her in the meat and me in the kitchen we eat pretty dam good.

I will have to have some lighting in the winter as we get about 6 hours of light. I love pesto and want to have basil in the winter. Pesto on salmon is to die for!!!, but at what cost this will be looked into in more detail. I want to grow watercress this adds a nice peppery zing in the salads.

I want to make my backyard all edible plants. I just want to go out in the back and harvest our dinner. I know I can get this set up so it looks like a nice yard for entertaining and eating. I like to cook over fire. I made a fire pit and built into it a flat stone area for dutch ovens cooking fish over open fire or any meat brings the true taste of how should taste, that's just my mind set. I'm drawing up plans for a smoke house for smoke curing and bacon. We have a small pond I want to incorporate into the AP, but fear that may not be wise. It can be it's own system. I will have to build a bio-filter and water feature maybe NFT around the pond in the growing season. Maybe a wicking bed of some kind. I keep plugging away and all will soon come to light.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL  

Comment by Jim Fisk on December 31, 2013 at 8:32am

So many questions!

For my part I heat the GH and the AP water with Sun and well Sun in the form of the stored energy in wood. Most of you know by now that I heat everything here on the farm with wood stoves saving us probably 3000.00 to 5,000.00 a year in fuel costs, managing our wood lot, and getting great exercise. The GH heater is my own design that heats the air and the water. I am in the process of building a whole new design that I will add to my set of woodstove plans I sell on Ebay after much testing and refining. It is a combination of "rocket stove" (all of my designs already are wood gasifiers) but with the ability to load 24hrs worth of wood at a time rather than the rocket stove method of small but often loads of wood which I would never tolerate (I have a life). This one will be state of the art as home builts go and I am considering entering it in the national contest next year if time allows.

I try to never let the water drop below 50F in Winter and never over 73 in Summer. Takes a combination of methods from insulation, solar heat storage, wood heat, 55F well water. In other words what ever I have at hand that helps cut costs and saves the environment.

From all that I have read and witnessed 50F water temp is as low as the bacteria that run the AP system will tolerate before they go dormant. Probably 60F is the lowest things like tomatoes will tolerate before they go dormant so the peak of Winter (right now) I do not expect much from tomatoes, but Kale, Swiss Chard, Broccoli, Lettuce, Snow Peas, Cabbage, Spinach, need I go on? all do very well and I have not even insulated the GH one bit YET (FTs are insulated with foam sheets known as floor underlayment). That is coming as soon as I can get back to moving forward with my design and at that point the variety of Winter veggies will expand dramatically. So far no grow lights either. That may well be in the future plans however if Tomatoes and the like are to produce in Winter.

Yet at this primitive stage of our build 4 adults get to eat organic veggies and Trout numerous times a week. Of course we also raise chickens (about 35) sheep (4 to 6) and soon goats milk (2 bred at the moment). I would guess that we raise just above 50% of our food ourselves and the goal is around 98%. Some things just aren't worth raising at home but not much. We also make beer and wine whenever possible and have planted everything from Mulberry Trees (best wine ever) to Apple and Pears, and nuts, etc. We strive to be self sufficient and planned our AP system to be as little work as possible while contributing the max it can produce. It is and will always be a work in progress just like the rest of our homestead.

And Anthony, we feel your Payne

We have all been bitten. AP is a way of life for many of us. Can't wait to see you up and running. AP is for do'ers and I got the impression from the get go that you are just that. Don't let anyone stand in your way. They will come around. My wife has watched me do so many things in the 30+ years we have been together that she knows there is no point in holding me back. She lends a hand whenever asked and hangs on for the ride.

Wow 2014 tomorrow. Yikes! Happy New Year! I wish a bunch of us could get together and talk shop, well AP anyway.

Comment by Jeremiah Robinson on December 31, 2013 at 8:06am

Just greens in winter for me, here in zone 5.  Spinach and winter greens do ok.  Last night was 15 in the greenhouse and they survived.  They don't really grow much in Dec-Feb, but I think that has at least as much to do with lack of light as it does cold.

Comment by Bob Campbell on December 31, 2013 at 7:32am

I've been wondering how well vegetables grow in the cool water required by trout.  Are you limited to lettuce and other cool weather crops or are you also able to grow tomatoes?

Comment by Anthony Payne on December 30, 2013 at 6:49pm

Well Glenn I don't have a system up and running at this time. I'm in the process of making my first system. I have been doing much research on this awesome thing of aquaponics. I have been bitten bad! Just got three barrels free (score) today. I have drawn out plans on my drafting board for the gh and have rearranged them a few times. Looking into pumps lights. The fish have, from the get go going to be trout as we are salmon trout people. All of my info has come from the nice people on this site and others and the book by Sylvia. I had a dream last night that my whole back yard was old hot tubs filled with trout and my house had veggies growing on all the walls inside. The family thinks I have lost it, but they will see and eat the smoked trout salads and eat there words. So for the info on the keeping the gh heated ask more people, I'm the greenhorn here.

Comment by Jeremiah Robinson on December 30, 2013 at 5:59pm

The only solution is heavy insulation around the tanks and grow beds (including above), and  thermal mass in the greenhouse.  You can epoxy a bucket heater so it'll heat the water (not sure if you were trying to heat the greenhouse - that would get expensive).  Heating my tanks to 50 costs about 50 bucks a month in winter, in my crappy hoop house with a well insulated system.  Low tunnels over your grow beds can help too.

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