Aquaponics Digest - Sat 03/27/99
Message 1: Re: Aquaponics Start - up
from KLOTTTRUE
Message 2: Re: Busted
from KLOTTTRUE
Message 3: Re: Busted
from Gordon Watkins
Message 4: Re: silt clogging water lines
from james.rakocy@uvi.edu (James Rakocy, Ph.D.)
Message 5: Re: silt clogging water lines
from "TGTX"
Message 6: Re: Filleting fish
from "TGTX"
Message 7: Re: silt clogging water lines
from "vpage"
Message 8: Re: worm production from fish wastes
from "vpage"
Message 9: Re: worm production from fish wastes
from Michael Strates
Message 10: Re: Filleting fish
from "vpage"
Message 11: Aquaponic Farm Chronicle Essay Number 9
from "TGTX"
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Subject: Re: Aquaponics Start - up
From: KLOTTTRUE
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 04:21:53 EST
In a message dated 3/25/99 11:19:40 PM Eastern Standard Time,
orchid@kellnet.com writes:
<< Not sure without seeing the fish . Someone else might know for sure.
But I wanted to point out that with water temps at 78 you are at the upper
limit on water temps for crappie . My books say 55 - 78 high stress and
death over 78 and no growth under 55
Ron >>
Thanks Ron, The temp has actually gotten over 82,it was 78 at the time I
posted the question.
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Subject: Re: Busted
From: KLOTTTRUE
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 04:49:46 EST
I'm embarassed to say this,but Lawyers have wiped me out! I don't have enough
money to enroll in courses,buy books,subscribe to magazines,and I'm probably
going to drop Internet service,I don't have the money to purchase Tilapia
fingerlings,I have two tanks,and I can buy a few liveTilapia at a market near
me. Can anyone Please tell me what to do,to set up a brood tank? Please
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Subject: Re: Busted
From: Gordon Watkins
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 10:59:25 -0600
Ken,
Sorry to hear about your difficulties.
For a cheap breeding setup, find a watertight vessel that will hold at least
50-70 gallons, the bigger the better. Plastic water troughs will work and can
sometimes be found cheaply at farm auctions. Old refrigerator linings can
also be
made to work with a little silicone to plug holes. Go to a scrap yard that
recycles metals and look around. Sometimes you can find old boilers that can be
cut in half longitudinally. Just be sure to seal any metal surfaces with a
suitable epoxy paint or more cheaply with a plastic liner. Look around yard
sales
for used aquariums, filters, heaters, etc. Mostly you'll find small tanks but
you'll need a few for raising fry. Housing the broodstock is one thing but you
need to have plenty of tanks to house each hatch of fry. I keep them in 10 to50
gallon tanks for 2-3 months before moving them to my aquaponic tank.
As for broodstock, purchase at least 5 of the smallest you can find (<3"),
depending on the size of your brood tank. If you're buying from a live market,
look for fish carrying eggs and dominant males and you'll probably be able
to get
a pair. Buy 1 male for every 5 females. You may have to rig up some sort of
divider, particularly if the tank is small, to prevent the male from beating up
on the females. Usually the females are smaller and you can install a grid with
an opening large enough for the females to pass through but too small for the
male. Watch for egg carrying females and be prepared to house the fry within
7-10
after spawning.
Good luck,
Gordon
KLOTTTRUE wrote:
> I'm embarassed to say this,but Lawyers have wiped me out! I don't have enough
> money to enroll in courses,buy books,subscribe to magazines,and I'm probably
> going to drop Internet service,I don't have the money to purchase Tilapia
> fingerlings,I have two tanks,and I can buy a few liveTilapia at a market near
> me. Can anyone Please tell me what to do,to set up a brood tank? Please
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Subject: Re: silt clogging water lines
From: james.rakocy@uvi.edu (James Rakocy, Ph.D.)
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 14:19:19 -0400 (AST)
Inclined plate settlers are somewhat controversial. Yes they can take out
very fine solids. I don't even doubt that 1.5 micron solids will come out,
because they impinge and stick to the biological growth on the plates. The
problem with plate settlers is cleaning them. The tank must be drained, the
media has to be hosed down the a high pressure spray, and, I've been told,
that the media even has to be removed from the tank and banged on the floor
to remove the biological growth. There are better ways. Jim R.
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Subject: Re: silt clogging water lines
From: "TGTX"
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 13:49:58 -0600
Jim,
I think you and I might be referring to quite different angled plate
settlers.
I think the type you are referring to might be like those bioblocks or
biocubes that have extensive corrugations- high surface areas, and are
quite a bear to disassemble and wash every nook and cranny out...
The plate settlers I am referring to really dont possess high surface area
media
per se. The kind I am referring to simply have smooth plates set at an
angle. The plates can be made of PVC or other plastic, or
fiberglass...etc. sort of like this
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ >>>
//////////////
>>> ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
Boy I hope that little keyboard diagram came out right ;)?
Anyway, water flows across the bottom and up in a laminar flow across the
parallel plates and over the top. The plates are rigid enough to withstand
some water flow without buckling or bending.
If you plumb the settling basin tank properly, you can halt or bypass the
flow temporarily, and simply drain, vacuum or pressure spray the
accumulated sediments on the bottom out of the tank into a holding or
transfer container. If the sludge is not too viscous, it can simply be
flushed out like a, uh, toilet, if you will forgive the use of that
example....Removable plates can slide out and can be sprayed if necessary,
but a smooth inclined plate should stay fairly clean because they
automatically slough off. If sloughed off biofilm is lighter that water,
due to blue green algae or other biomass which is lighter than water, then
you can have a problem...Therefore, it might be advisable to keep a lid or
shade over the tank...This all depends on the size and accessibility of the
tank..and what might grow on the plates...
A variation on this concept is the tube settler, where the plates are
replaced by vertical tubes. Variations on these type of settlers are used
in water treatment plants and aquaculture facilities around the world.
Cheers
Ted
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Subject: Re: Filleting fish
From: "TGTX"
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 13:55:32 -0600
Hi folks,
I apologize for this request, but I had a major loss of email files which I
archived, consequently, I am hoping someone saved the file sent by Ken from
Georgia about the perfect filleting technique....and I dont have the heart
to ask you to retype that, Ken. So, if anyone can find that and forward it
to me either on the list or privately, I would greatly appreciate it..The
family and I are going to eat some fine Tilapia tonight....Any recipes out
there?
Thanks
Ted.
ground@thrifty.net
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Subject: Re: silt clogging water lines
From: "vpage"
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 14:22:36 -0700
We have done some work with hydrogen peroxide and with ozone to clear up
organics but to leave nutrients.
We have used these to keeplines clear butnever i anything as small as drip
irrigation. I believe that either of these in combination with excellent
settling pond suggestions might work.
VPAGE
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Subject: Re: worm production from fish wastes
From: "vpage"
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 14:24:31 -0700
Here Iam again.
I fed concentrated tilapia waste to red wrigglers with success. It must be
fed to a place they can reach and get away form in case of over heating. I
combined this with newspaper which they love and it worked!
VPAGE
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Subject: Re: worm production from fish wastes
From: Michael Strates
Date: Sun, 28 Mar 1999 18:53:52 +1000 (EST)
On Fri, 26 Mar 1999, M. Brody wrote:
MB> Does anyone have experience or information on growing red worms
MB> from biological filter waste [sediments] from a fish pond [and
Yes, sir! I have a fully functional system operating in my backyard.
Red worms are simply placed into the growing beds, and live a happy and
full life in the oxygenated aquatic environment.
For the uninitiated, worms can survive in water, as long as its oxygen
content is sufficient. A dO2 similar to fish is required.
--
e-mail: mstrates@croftj.net www: http://www.croftj.net/~mstrates
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Subject: Re: Filleting fish
From: "vpage"
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 14:53:02 -0700
This is how we do it!
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Subject: Aquaponic Farm Chronicle Essay Number 9
From: "TGTX"
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 20:38:34 -0600
Aquaponic Farm Chronicle Essay Number 9:
The worms in my gravel bed are abundant.
They are, in their own way, a thing to behold and a wonder of biological
design...
Today began early with a heathy harvest of squirming worm biomass straight
into a rusty tin can. Added some moist peat moss for good measure.
Went fishing today in a canoe out on the creek with my son.
Yes indeed, we finally put a use to those worms grown in the gravel
aquaponics bed by taking them on a journey to our favorite little creek...
The worms... did not squeal much as we punctured their blood rich Annelid
bodies with fish hooks...they danced the big worm Watusi...and we blessed
them on their way down into the still creek water...
We didn't catch any fish out on the creek this morning. But, it was no
fault of the wigglers...we just weren't all that serious or prepared. I was
enamored and enraptured by water fowl foraging, song bird serenading,
raptors spiraling overhead, new greenery on every tree and shrub by the
creek and layered up the cliff like verdant Lasagna...then came the distant
sound of the train on the tressle.
Great drafts of silence mingled with canoe paddles slipping through the
water, squirrel chatter, intoxicating flowers and tree blossoms, algae and
mud scents on the creekbank..taking me back in time...We came upon a dead
raccoon floating by a dead tree branch just emersed by the bank, in the
water, chronicled the memory and kept moving on...
When we returned home, we had a plan. My young son netted up some nice
Tilapia from the aquaponics tank in the greenhouse. We collaborated on
filleting them...mapped it out....executed the whole dinner plan (not quite
perfectly, but I am only an apprentice).
We proceeded to bake the fish...a pat of butter here, a sprinkel of lemon
pepper-salt there... and we sat down and said grace and we ate a wonderful
meal.
Accompanied by salad greens from our aquaponics system.
And yellow tear drop tomatoes in the salad from our greenhouse.
And Instant Mash Potatoes from a tin can....but it came from our pantry...
And the spuds came from Idaho...I think...which is still a part of our
country...last time I checked. So it seemed it belonged to all of us and
we to it....
New chicks arrived from Iowa this week...a couple of dozen of the heavy
breed birds and a champ thrown in for the sake of interest and
conversation... a strange, exotic sport of a bird...no one knows what it
might grow up into...delighting kids and grownups with the
uncertainty....Gotta build a pen to house these hansome hens outdoors in a
few weeks or so, but for now the chicks are peeping and scurrying about in
a small corral on the floor prepared in a small area of the greenhouse. It
is strange and novel, for a while, to walk around their chicken crib in the
morning, when I first arrive in the greenhouse, to find this unusal gaggle
of baby birds, counting each of them, before beginning the routine duties
of the morning.
Four of the six puppies from our 2 dogs, Newton and Nova, have to be doled
out to the local community...Mysteriously and tragically... for our kids
especially....Nova, the momma dog, just passed away, back into the dust of
the earth, perhaps from the stress of too much life demanding life from her
breasts, or perhaps from a brief night time encounter defending the
perimeter of the farm from a pack of coyotes or an invading raccoon...The
pups that we named Gonzo and Newman may stay with us...but we will probably
have to change Newmans name to Isaac, Waldo, Razmuson, or Sydney....because
Newton and Newman sound too much alike..
Gotta sign off now from our aquaponics farm..where all the moms are strong,
the dads get better looking every day, the fish are also strikingly
handsome, and the salad, children, and puppies are all above average...
Ted
S&S Aqua Farm, 8386 County Road 8820, West Plains, MO 65775 417-256-5124
Web page http://www.townsqr.com/snsaqua/
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