Tank Ratio enhancement through carnivorous fish

[William J Silverthorn]

I'm trying to understand this concept thoroughly before designing my first Aquaponic system. I'm finding plenty of advice to say "stick to the recommended ratios" or else bad things will happen...

so if you have too many fish and not enough media space or growbed or biofilter to take care of the waste, then the fish poison themselves and die... I get that part and I dont intend to stress my fish out.

I'm wondering about the alternative deviation with too much growspace and not enough fish, would not harm the fish at all, but instead result in possibly slower growing conditions for the plants who dont have enough Nitrates to keep up with optimized growing speeds.

I was thinking of using a single IBC tote fishtank combined with 4 growbeds with autosiphons and a single continuous pump through a sequencing valve into those 4 growbeds. my first concern was the obvious straying from recommended 1 to 1 ratio, however I wonder if using higher protein feed with carnivorous breeds would provide an elevated output of more potent fertilizer that could fuel the needs of extra growbeds?

I have not found a great deal of warning in this area, since most immediate danger lies with the fish and not with the plants... so... has anyone experienced this first hand or should I experiment with it myself?

[Leo White Bear]

Jim, William

  I agree with you totally.  Get started with your aquaponics system, William.  Start doing and learn as you go.  It is a good thing to get information from others but, what you get is their experiences, not what they learned.  Hands on is the best way to learn anything.  Yes, you will make mistakes, yes, you will have some dead fish.  Once you gain this experience it will motivate you to find out WHY.  I raise local yellow perch, bluegills and bullheads, this is what I enjoy eating.  All commercial set ups around here are raising tilapia, this is what works for them but they must heat their water in our -20°F winters.  When you do have your system up and running and THEN run into difficulties, ask your questions but BE SPECIFIC with as much info pertaining to your system and what's happening.

 

@Jim-  I am sorry that I haven't answered you question but as of now, I haven't been a member of the trout group so I wasn't getting your questions.  Please re-post or send it to me, or tell me where/when you posted it and I will try to answer specifically.  As far as I know a mono-feed is not the best thing for any animal.  This is why I have been researching various fish feed and the ingredients that makes it up.  There must be a ratio of protien, fats and aminoacids to balance the nutrition that fish need.  Along with vitamins and minerals need for health and growth.

  Growing trout in an aquaponics system is challenging to say the least.  Trout are cold water fish and you need warmth for propigating the bacteria in your aquaponics system that convert the amonia to nitrates and cold water will hinder or even prevent this.  I'm still figuring out how my system will work design wise, so until I actually build it I won't have the knowledge to say much of anything about it. Let me do some more research on their feeding habits and I promise to get back to you.
 
Jim Fisk said:

William,

Stop over thinking and start building: a basic flood and drain system with reliable "Affnan style" bell siphons and get that working like a pro BEFORE you attempt to reinvent the wheel. Save the rocket science for after you have a clue and that only comes with experience (at least 1 year in). Having said that it certainly has been fun following this thread. Build that 4 gb and 1 ft system and start the real learning. Do not mix methods until you understand them. KISS. Harsh, I know but I have the same tendencies and have to fight the urges constantly. It can be a curse.

@ Leo, I posted a question on the Trout group but have heard nothing. Do you have any info on just how much earth worms to feed trout and is there any truth to a local rumor that too much worms can negatively effect flavor. My wife was told that by another customer buying trout fingerlings at our local trout farm. I too would like to get off the commercial feeds as much as possible and go on farm sustainable feeds. Worms are so plentiful around here they are almost out of control and the Trout are ravenous for them. Off topic I know but Leo did bring it up

[TCLynx]

Leo,

While growing Trout may be a bit more challenging in some respects, I know plenty of people who have been very successful growing trout in backyard aquaponics systems so I wouldn't discount them.  While going by the books it may seem like the bacteria are not going to thrive, I tell ya in real life, as long as you have ample filtration, flow and aeration for the amount of fish.  Well lets just say I'm not going to argue that it won't work when I know plenty of people doing it quite successfully.  (Many of our friends in OZ grow trout in their systems far more successfully than they manage to grow silver perch or warm water fish.)

Now where I live, trout would be very difficult and costly since it would mean chilling my system for at least 8 months of the year.  But then Tilapia can be a challenge here too since they would require heating my system for a few months to keep them eating and growing so I prefer the flexible fish like catfish and bluegill or Koi.

Leo White Bear said:

  Growing trout in an aquaponics system is challenging to say the least.  Trout are cold water fish and you need warmth for propigating the bacteria in your aquaponics system that convert the amonia to nitrates and cold water will hinder or even prevent this.  I'm still figuring out how my system will work design wise, so until I actually build it I won't have the knowledge to say much of anything about it. Let me do some more research on their feeding habits and I promise to get back to you.

[Leo White Bear]

TC-

  Depending on where you are growing the trout, AND the species, they can run into difficulties.  I didn't say that it couldn't be done.  With the cold water needed for SOME species, the bacteria will be challenged to grow optimally.  I haven't tried trout as of yet but my research seem to denote that they CAN BE CHALLENGING.  My hat's off to those that succeed, and I would love to pick their brains just to see what their experiences are.
 
TCLynx said:

Leo,

While growing Trout may be a bit more challenging in some respects, I know plenty of people who have been very successful growing trout in backyard aquaponics systems so I wouldn't discount them.  While going by the books it may seem like the bacteria are not going to thrive, I tell ya in real life, as long as you have ample filtration, flow and aeration for the amount of fish.  Well lets just say I'm not going to argue that it won't work when I know plenty of people doing it quite successfully.  (Many of our friends in OZ grow trout in their systems far more successfully than they manage to grow silver perch or warm water fish.)

Now where I live, trout would be very difficult and costly since it would mean chilling my system for at least 8 months of the year.  But then Tilapia can be a challenge here too since they would require heating my system for a few months to keep them eating and growing so I prefer the flexible fish like catfish and bluegill or Koi.

Leo White Bear said:

  Growing trout in an aquaponics system is challenging to say the least.  Trout are cold water fish and you need warmth for propigating the bacteria in your aquaponics system that convert the amonia to nitrates and cold water will hinder or even prevent this.  I'm still figuring out how my system will work design wise, so until I actually build it I won't have the knowledge to say much of anything about it. Let me do some more research on their feeding habits and I promise to get back to you.

[TCLynx]

as to trout.

Just go by the backyard aquaponics forum and ask around there, many people in OZ do it with little to no terrible difficulty (except when weather warms up and they have big trout in a system that they are just about to harvest and the power goes out or something like that.  but that could be a disaster with most any type of fish.)

[Leo White Bear]

Thank you I'll do that

[Jim Fisk]

Hey guys, Funny that so far trout have been my best success with fish by a long shot. There could be so many reasons that I have not come to any definitive conclusions why in my case. Could be a pollution I missed in a tank, water temps, feed too old, etc., etc. Time will tell. I have lost so many cats and gave up on the BGs that the trout are a real stand out. Now if I can just find a good source of Char I am encouraged. The 275 ibc in the ground (sump) certainly helps regulate temps on the cool side.

@Leo, I don't expect you to do my homework for me. I was just asking in case you had run into anything. TC really gave me the head start in the right direction I needed as usual as she has had trout experience and soo much AP experience in general.

I have taken to giving them fresh worms every other day and today was there treat day and boy did they have fun as usual. When I find my underwater camera I will take some great vids. So much is still packed on our two 50' trailers that I am still hunting for many items including our never used Ultra Violet pond algae filter which I really want to play with to help with water clarity. For now I have my bio-filter on one trout tank recirculating on an external pump and soon I will do the other tank with my Wally World Poly filter the same way to see which does a better job of handling all the waste the trout are generating. One being bio and the other mechanical should be interesting. Of course the Bio takes time, a week now, and the Poly should start immediately upon start up.

Thanks as always. Will keep you posted.

[TCLynx]

actually I don't have any personal experience with trout (too hot where I live.)

But the guys in OZ use them lots and I know of some people here in North America who have raised them too.

Your best bet is to raise fish appropriate to the temperatures your system is likely to maintain rather than struggling to adjust your system temperature to suit a fish that isn't appropriate.

If you design a system with only enough circulation and filtration for tilapia, and then stock it with a similar quantity of trout, you are likely to have a problem since people tend to grossly over stock tilapia and not provide enough filtration, or circulation but they get away with it since tilapia can survive such terrible conditions.

Stocking levels appropriate for trout would be something like, in a system with 500 liters of grow bed, stock only 20-25 trout; assuming you will harvest at 500 grams and that you are adding supplemental aeration and pumping the volume of your fish tank each hour and you have at lest 1000 liters of fish tank and you are not stocking more than 20-25 fish per 500 liters of fish tank (so if you had 1000 liters of grow bed and 1000 liters of fish tank you could stock 40-60 fish.)

To translate that into imperial.  1 fish per cubic foot of media, at least 300 gallons of fish tank, fish growing out to 1 lb.

These are very rough rules of thumb (or toe) for those who are asking about how many fish you can stock or how many grow beds you can support.  Truth is, you don't need that many fish.  I know of set ups that are running with far fewer fish than these recommendations.  And yes the higher protein feeds will tend to cause more nitrates so you may get away with fewer fish or more grow beds especially if you are growing primarily heavy nitrogen feeding plants and leafy green stuff.

[Jim Fisk]

Sorry TC. I thought I remembered you had a foray into Trout. My bad. I agree on fish #'s. No need to push the limits on a home system. Commercial is another story.

[TCLynx]

Even on commercial, it shouldn't be about pushing the fish numbers unless you are actually doing aquaculture with just some plants on the side, in which case you are likely to have all the normal aquaculture filtration, solids removal etc bla bla...... and simply adding some plants to help mitigate the nutrient run off  to make your permitting/licensing less expensive as the regulations get stricter.

Most people doing aquaponics commercially have found that at the scale/quantity of fish in a system that has less than an acre of plant beds means you don't have the quantities of fish to make wholesale processing of fish all that cost effective and therefore the veggies are the primary income producing product.  Especially seeing as you can direct sell produce to customers without a whole lot of processing/regulations involved and far fewer people want to buy live whole unprocessed fish so they are a heck of a lot more difficult to sell as food.

[William J Silverthorn]

Thanks for the advice everyone.
I'm definitely over-thinking this design and needed to hear that blunt force wisdom.
I'll save the rocket science for after I have a bit of experience.
I was hoping to use a smaller sump (1/4) with a few sensors in place, but with so many points of potential mechanical failure, that would require significantly more hands on experience.

so then, to build this 4 GB CHOP system off of one fish tank... I guess I will need to just connect them all together and fill/drain as one large growbed... so I'm going to need a larger sump set up, and just one autosiphon.

Jim Fisk said:

William,

Stop over thinking and start building: a basic flood and drain system with reliable "Affnan style" bell siphons and get that working like a pro BEFORE you attempt to reinvent the wheel. Save the rocket science for after you have a clue and that only comes with experience (at least 1 year in). Having said that it certainly has been fun following this thread. Build that 4 gb and 1 ft system and start the real learning. Do not mix methods until you understand them. KISS. Harsh, I know but I have the same tendencies and have to fight the urges constantly. It can be a curse.

...

[TCLynx]

You can still let the beds flood and drain separately, you don't need to do a mega autosiphon or connect the beds all together.

The sump tank only needs to be about 60% the size of all your growbeds combined.  so if you had 4, 100 gallon grow beds, you should probably try to have about 240 gallons of sump tank.

Or you set up a chop 2 system and use an indexing valve but then you are turning your pump on/off and need a much stronger pump to operate the indexing valve but you could get away with a 100-110 gallon sump.

(that is just using the assumption of 100 gallon grow beds as an example.)

[William J Silverthorn]

Thanks for the ratio.

so, worst case scenario being all 4 bell siphons fire at once, my sump tank would be at its lowest possible volume anyway, and then refilled to max again. since this cant really be ruled out, I'm just going to do the mega autosiphon. I think its a simpler design. possibly creating a single point of failure with more destructive potential than either of the 4 bell siphons I am not using, but as long as I make it right... I wont kill everything, and my sump is the same size regardless.

I'm thinking of using a U siphon, instead of a bell siphon.

I want to connect all 4 GB with a leveling pipe underneath, to equalize the water level in all 4 tanks... and extend that pipe out to become the U siphon into the big sump tank.

sort of like this rough drawing:

I've never made a U or a Bell siphon, but from what I understand the difficult part is getting the waterflow to start the siphon, and to stop the siphon, leaving little room for error. so with this setup, I am thinking the 4 inputs would create enough water flow to easily start the siphon, and possibly have some turbulence or water friction in the pipe under the GBs closer to the U siphon... so with all that sucking I'm thinking slip fittings are out of the question. I'm shopping around for GB's and a FT or else I would have sizes in mind, and a scaled drawing. This set up makes sense to me but again I've got no experience. please criticize. where would this design be most likely to fail?

TCLynx said:

...The sump tank only needs to be about 60% the size of all your growbeds combined.  so if you had 4, 100 gallon grow beds, you should probably try to have about 240 gallons of sump tank...