Trouts farm

[Valentin Grozdev]

Greetings! Nice forum you have! Found a lot of information here! but cant find  nothing about trouts!

 I want to make farm (closed type) for trouts, but don`t know nothing about trouts and farms (first project). Can trouts be raised in tanks (3,4 or 7000 gallons size)? or i do have to make channels with flow trying to imitate their natural surroundings? I know they are slow growing, but just how slow?

Good questions is why not more simple fish for first project? I`m last year student in business finance and know there is plenty of market for this fish here. Anyway i want to do it the right way, so we can achieve fast reproduction at good price, thanks!

[TCLynx]

My understanding is that trout actually grows quite fast if you can get fingerlings and have the appropriate temperatures for them.

Key to growing trout is to have very good water quality, aeration and some flow to provide a current for them along with cool temperatures.

However you mention reproduction, I don't know if it is likely to be able to breed trout in a backyard scale system.  Many of Our friends in OZ grow trout in aquaponic systems though, you might want to check out the BYAP forum.

[thomas gabhart]

I too would like to raise trout in tanks. I just had a 140ft well drilled that produces 20 gallons of fresh water per minute with no contaminates and 7 ph with neutral hardness.  The temperature coming out of the well is 59 degrees F.  I just need some advice on how to get information to get started on some fish or ? project. I also have a small pond that is 9ft to the overflow but leaches down and  stays about 4-5ft deep. Thought it might serve as a catch basin from overflow water from the tanks.  Winter temps here in Nashville TN are mild, dips down to 10  F a few nights in the winter. I have 5 acres of open lush meadows.  Thanks for any suggestions.

[Valentin Grozdev]

Thanks for info, glad to hear that trout can actually grow fast! :)

The farm won`t be backyard system, it will be financed part from EU and have to be made the right way with channels or pools! The problem is can`t find answer on my question about tanks/channels and can`t start the project even on sketch! If you know some book, will own you few trouts :D  

thanks

[matthew ferrell]

I grow them in both channels and tanks.  They do not grow slow, in fact they seem to grow like weeds.  Furthermore, in the US they are one of the higher off the farm priced fish.  Reproduction is seasonal, but requires human interaction.  We do not induce ours here, but rather take eggs when they are ready.  Last year all gave them up over 6 weeks.  Also there was no need for long nights, which was a big plus compared to some other spawning work I have done.

If you have specific questions let me know.

[Valentin Grozdev]

Thank you Matt! Trouts in EU are also one of the most expensive fish and they are damn tasty!

I did purchase 2 books so will do my homework, just 2 more question so i can get some conception of the whole process.

- What are the benefits or loses of tanks/channels for trouts? I mean which is more preferable for them and why?

- Do you use recycling system for water? If yes does it worth it?  At bird view i see the big quantity of water as the biggest problem which will cost much each month. So recycling system should pay it self fast.

[matthew ferrell]

That's awesome.  59 degrees is optimal temp for growing trout.   Figure you can make each raceway the size that will allow for 4 turnovers an hour, so you are talking 300 gallons.  But you can make it serial if can muster at least of 2 feet of drop between the tanks, so that you can add oxygen back.  You can do flow through aquaponics, but it will severally limit you plant choices.  I invite you out to our farm it check it out.

Best of all, it can be electric free!  Murray was always looking for a way to eliminate the pump.

thomas gabhart said:

I too would like to raise trout in tanks. I just had a 140ft well drilled that produces 20 gallons of fresh water per minute with no contaminates and 7 ph with neutral hardness.  The temperature coming out of the well is 59 degrees F.  I just need some advice on how to get information to get started on some fish or ? project. I also have a small pond that is 9ft to the overflow but leaches down and  stays about 4-5ft deep. Thought it might serve as a catch basin from overflow water from the tanks.  Winter temps here in Nashville TN are mild, dips down to 10  F a few nights in the winter. I have 5 acres of open lush meadows.  Thanks for any suggestions.

[matthew ferrell]

A book I recommend is Flowing Water Fish Culture by Soderberg. 

Each culture system has their own benefits.  The nice thing about raceways is that water flow causes the solids to move down stream.  Also if elevation allows, you can achieve good aeration for low/no cost allowing water to drop down through screens or something of the sort.  Tanks are good for systems in which require a pump.

We do not recycle our water because we have a 400 gallon a minute spring (we use 576,000 gallons a day, or 1,589,760L/day).  This is way cheaper because trout require cold water, in fact 59 degrees as stated above will yield best growth potential.  Heating and cooling water to this temperature will be very expensive, yet ours comes out of the ground near this temp year round.

Valentin Grozdev said:

Thank you Matt! Trouts in EU are also one of the most expensive fish and they are damn tasty!

I did purchase 2 books so will do my homework, just 2 more question so i can get some conception of the whole process.

- What are the benefits or loses of tanks/channels for trouts? I mean which is more preferable for them and why?

- Do you use recycling system for water? If yes does it worth it?  At bird view i see the big quantity of water as the biggest problem which will cost much each month. So recycling system should pay it self fast.

[thomas gabhart]

Thanks Matt... I would love to visit your operation..send me your contact info to [e-mail]

matthew ferrell said:

That's awesome.  59 degrees is optimal temp for growing trout.   Figure you can make each raceway the size that will allow for 4 turnovers an hour, so you are talking 300 gallons.  But you can make it serial if can muster at least of 2 feet of drop between the tanks, so that you can add oxygen back.  You can do flow through aquaponics, but it will severally limit you plant choices.  I invite you out to our farm it check it out.

Best of all, it can be electric free!  Murray was always looking for a way to eliminate the pump.



thomas gabhart said:

I too would like to raise trout in tanks. I just had a 140ft well drilled that produces 20 gallons of fresh water per minute with no contaminates and 7 ph with neutral hardness.  The temperature coming out of the well is 59 degrees F.  I just need some advice on how to get information to get started on some fish or ? project. I also have a small pond that is 9ft to the overflow but leaches down and  stays about 4-5ft deep. Thought it might serve as a catch basin from overflow water from the tanks.  Winter temps here in Nashville TN are mild, dips down to 10  F a few nights in the winter. I have 5 acres of open lush meadows.  Thanks for any suggestions.

[Valentin Grozdev]

Thanks again Matt, you are helping a lot! :) first trout will be for you when i come to my uncle in usa! :D

[Valentin Grozdev]

did half of my homework! the hard part left-harsh calculations, who has been a good listener in math class and is willing to help? :D

how to estimate how many fish can be kept in tank ? if we assume that the size of 1 year trout is 13 cm (5.1inch) and weights 1.4kg (3.1 pounds), how much L/gallons would need 1 fish? or how many fish would fit in tank 7760 L ( 1705gallons) ? what`s the equation?`

the other thing, how to calculate the water flow in circular tank (the above one with 2 drainers), if we assume that DO is 100% and all other water properties are optimum for trouts.

[matthew ferrell]

Bad assumption. 

Trout grow an inch a month, 2.54 cm/month.  Also your weight is WAY off.  A 13-14 inch fish is about 1 pound if body condition is good.  Also lets not assume your water will have 100% saturation, because why would you care then about water flow.  Unless of course you are talking incoming water, which is still hard to do without pure oxygen, and even then it will over shot 100. 

Lastly let's assume you want your fish to grow at optimum levels, that means the lowest your DO can go is 60% sat no matter the temp. 

After that its super easy.  I can safely grow about .3lbs/gallon with 2.5 exchanges an hour with FRESH flow through water in tanks with airstones.  In my raceways, which have 4 levels I can do better.  At 4 exchanges an hour I can grow about .5lbs/gallon.  My incoming water is spring fed, and never goes above 94% saturation even with 3hp of blowers.  Now when I turn the oxygen on then that's another story, I could do way better, but the density and disease becomes the limiting factor.  Lastly I could grow more fish per gallon if I didn't have so many raceways, but since each raceway pours into the one below them I managed for lowest oxygen in the system, which is at the bottom of raceway 4.  Now I add pure oxygen at level 3 so that carry capacity is equal in the first two and the last two, and so I do not waste oxygen on tanks that do not need it.

Simple right?

[thomas gabhart]

Matt, what is the difference in growing salmon as opposed to trout.