I'd like to start a thread with the intention to stimulate a little discussion in regards to the indoor overwintering of some redear sunfish.

The water obviously will be a little chilly. I have purchased a stock tank heater that is safe for use in plastic tanks.

My plastic tank is about 225 gallons, and has been surrounded with R-10 insulation.

The tank will house about about 200 redear sunfish, and about 200 bluegill, all about 2-3 inches, that weigh a total of about 20 pounds. There will also be a few feed trained adult redear sunfish.

So far the project has gone well. The fish are aclimated with no mortalities, and the water is crystal clear (I won't share all of my secrets so far)

In the next few months I will meet a few challenges, including fighting cold water effect on RES, and water quality stress.

I'll be discussing methods of feeding the fish, minimizing stress and disease, and hopefully end up with a group of fish that exit the winter safely, and with a little good fortune, in good body condition.

The general idea of the article is to talk about how I used the products and expertise of vendors at the Pond Boss Conference V in order to create this system on a very reasonable budget. Ultimately I would like the article to persuade more people to attend the conference when they realize what a diverse and talented group of vendors are present.

First of all, are there any forum members who are familiar with maintaining water quality in intensive aquarium systems? I'd like to know about O2, bacteria, nitrates, nitrites, etc.

Sounds interesting, I promise not to bring anything up about metric. Didnt mean to kill your last post.

Bruce, what vendors have auto feeders for such a system?

What kinda stuff did the vendors have to offer?

Just because your water is crystal clear, doesn't mean it is not lethal to fish.

Sounds interesting tho!

AES has an excellent selection of feeders.

Strongly agree with your statement JKB. That's why I need to know what sort of parameters I should be checking regularly and how to do so.

Ammonia rings a bell...

I know there's guys on here who know this for you Bruce I by no means am one of them.. Cecil only one I can think of off the top of my head..

Sounds interesting. I will see what I can find.

Start with this one. Most of this you know but there is some good data.

https://srac.tamu.edu/index.cfm/event/getFactSheet/whichfactsheet/103/

Here is the whole list fyi

https://srac.tamu.edu/index.cfm/event/CategoryDetails/whichcategory/24/

For my overloaded aquariums I simply used a vastly over-sized filter system. This prevents me from having to service them too often (throwing water quality into fits), and allows them to digest events like a dead fish that you cannot service in time.

The best filters are the muti-stage canister filters, where they have ceramic media, foam layers, activated charcoal and so on.

I have made my own very effective filter out of a 20-gallon long aquarium and installing dividers to support an overloaded 150 gallon tropical aquarium. Pump in one end, intake from an overflow chamber in the other (it was a marine plexi aquarium). Start with coarse material such as foam or craft stuffing on the intake and work your way to fine stuff such as ceramic media on the pump end. The best part of the aquarium filter is the water level in the "filter" varies, but the main aquarium stays the same. Fill in the bottom aquarium.

I would recommend doubling the size of the filter from what you already think is large if you are filtering cold water. I would suspect, though I cannot confirm, that cold-water slows the filter's effectiveness.

Size the filter according to load, but the fish load has to be consistent to feed the filter so it can do its job properly. Big changes in feeding or fish load will send the aquarium water into water quality swings as the bacteria stabilize for the change.

Other helpers are live plants with bright lighting, and a good PH buffer in the water during water changes. You can purchase PH buffers for marine aquariums such as Calcium Chloride and other materials. Just have to keep tabs on the PH as adding it will effect it. I add the buffer to the change water and test before dumping it in. Also use good aquarium salt to lower fish stress levels.

I am no expert, just roughly 37 years of aquarium malpractice (5yo with first one).

-Mark

Mark! What is your preferred way of monitoring pH?

Also, how do I acquire the right type of aquarium salt, and how do I know how much to add?

I plan on replacing all of the water at least twice/month (incrementally, of course).

ewest, the charts in those links are awesome! I'm going to learn on the crash course.

Usually I get the aquarium salt in 1/2 gallon cardboard milk containers from the fish store. That lasts for a few years in my smaller 30-gal aquariums, but instructions are on the side. Something like a tablespoon per gallon, but it depends on the fish. Example: guppies can take more and prefer more. You may be able to source larger quantities on-line for reasonable prices.

The Calcium Carbonate I got in a 5lb container for marine use. I am sure you can find it much cheaper than I paid for it. The advantage is it is purified so it wont cloud the water with impurities. I haven't used it in a long time since my tap water already is well buffered.

I use the paper strips for PH, since it is cheap, quick, and they store well. The same is true with alkalinity. You can purchase a big honking box of 100 or more online for cheap, though lately the pool stores have been a good supply simply out of convenience. I figure the accuracy is more than enough for fish.

BTW most of my fish die from old age. Rarely from introduction, disease, or water quality. Just lost my first fish in more than a few months from getting stuck in a decoration yesterday, I couldn't get it out. Its out now, but got a swirly.

My big problem right now is my tetras are breeding, and starting to overcrowd. I have a lot of plants and cover, so many make it to adulthood. They are Emperor Tetras, not the fragile little Neons. I had to stop raising angelfish for the same reason.

I used to be a big discus guy, I love those fish! But when I moved to the house I live in now, my transfer was a disaster. The power company turned off the power before we moved in, but the fish were already there. It was winter, and they don't take kindly to being chilled. So mad! Expensive loss, so I never started back up.

Caution: Not an attempt to derail, just some personal stuff that i enjoy sharing:

I did too well with my son's aquarium once ;-)


The little aquarium which is raising tetras:
https://picasaweb.google.com/101078073330424712743/NewAquarium
Oh and with fish, many of these are still allive and flourishing!
https://picasaweb.google.com/101078073330424712743/Aquarium

I have downsized recently due to a child that requires more attention than most. What is fun is he is asking Santa for an aquarium of his own. Got him hooked!

Wow!!! Very cool!

Can we start with a short list of the parameters I'll need to watch? I have a DO meter, and my water is testing at saturation right now. I am also working with Shawn Banks on a backup pure O2 system in case my power goes out this winter.

I have very little control over temperature, and to be honest I'm kind of compelled to find out what the redears do in temps at around 40 degrees F. (Bing) since that will most closely mimic the natural conditions after release next fall.

So here's what I control so far.

Temps to fluctuate between 40 and 55 degrees over the next three months.

Oxygen hopefully near saturation.

Feeding, minimal...hopefully enough to maintain body condition.

So would pH be the next most logical parameter to watch? I'll go get pH strips tomorrow. How accurate do they have to be. Will they just tell me .5 pH increments...or .1 pH increments. I'd assume that plummeting pH is my biggest concern, right? Add carbonate as needed?

Carbonates should buffer the water against large ph swings.

I have not yet found a formula for O2 (BOD) use by sunfish other than the general info in that link ( max O2 saturation).

Once the filter/system is stabilized and you have proper buffering the PH will only change under the following:

1. Major water change (keep it to a max of 1/3 the water per day)
2. Fish croaked
3. Filter crash due to water flow stopping.
4. Minor amounts may be due to dissolved CO2, but in this fish density I am assuming you will be circulating a lot of water, no plants, and bubbling air. The CO2 wont last long.

I only test PH when I am about to change water to make sure my change water is within 0.5PH of the aquarium. I only change water about once a month since my filter is over-sized. If PH doesn't match, I have an opportunity to adjust before the change. I could alter the aquarium, but it is better to alter the change water unless the aquarium is not near where you want it. So far for the past two years, my aquarium water and tap water have been exactly the same without need for adjustment.

That last PH problem is a stinker. If power goes out, it is time to service the filter getting rid of as much organics as possible, but DO NOT STERILIZE. This is critical because without water flow, your filter will become anaerobic very quickly and kill beneficial bacteria. Some people make the mistake of using chlorinated tap water to clean up, which can kill a lot of the bacteria. The filter bacteria colony is more important than the fish when it comes to an easy to maintain system. It is also why if you ever need to medicate, it is best to take the filter out of the system for a while, just relying on water changes to see the fish through.

BTW it can take a few weeks for a filter to stabilize, and in the case of a heavy load, you start a filter this way:
1. Set up aquarium with new filter, etc. salt, buffering, and so on.Get it running.
2. See if you can grab a little used filter media from someone else to seed the filter. You may be able to simply swish you filter media around in some pond water to pick up some pond flora. Stuff it somewhere into your filter.
3. Let settle for a couple of days with everything running. This is the time to monitor PH, Nitrates and Nitrites if any are present. It is this time period where there will be wild swings in almost all parameters, and where most people fail at starting a new aquarium since they don't want to wait for things to settle.
4. Start adding fish, just a few hardy "break-in" fish. These guys will feed the filter. Feed them as much as they are willing to eat. You want them to "do their business" Wait a couple more days.
5. Check your PH, and nitrogen compounds for a little while longer until they stay the same and your "toughies" seem to be happy.
6. Start adding your desired fish. Preferable a few at a time to let the filter catch up.

I am unsure how to accelerate this process, maybe have the filter running water from an already established aquarium in tandem with the existing filter, and use some existing water as well in the new setup, but then you tend to run a higher risk of disease transferal.

As far as power outages, use a computer UPS to keep the filter and any aeration systems running. Don't bother with a heater from the UPS, they take too much power. The problem with congested aquariums is that without power, you are done on only a day or two. A UPS may give you enough time to get through to when the power is back on. An aquarium that size with a lid will stay fairly warm for quite a long time, and even more if it is insulated.

You probably want an "emergency heater" just to keep the temperature from going below 39 degrees. Any old 100W heater will do if you can set it that low. You may need 2 of them, but to raise the temp only a few degrees wont take much. The circulation pump may be enough already as that will add heat to the system, especially if it is a submerged pump.

Bruce - IMO try to keep the water above 50F for decent functioning of the denitrifying bacteria. Kevin Ripp at the PBV might be able to help with some ammonia reducing bacteria for your situation. Ask how salt and lower temps will affect denitrifying bacteria. contact him:
http://www.teamaquafix.com/ask-the-bugman/

Bruce:

If you could put a heater in the system and could keep the water at warmer temp, would you?

I know the risk of disease is there when using water from a pond, but if the fish will be released into that BOW, then if you used water from that BOW to fill your RAS at the start (if using a filter system rather than a flow thru system) wouldn't that jump start the filter system?

Even with a flow thru system I think I have a way so you could heat the water..........

Here's how I've done the filter--and I promise to post pictures later.

The fish are in 225 gallons of water, which was put in the tank and treated with heavy doses of chlorine four months before the project started, in order to sterilize.

About three weeks before fish introduction the water was treated for any residual chlorine/chloramines, and then two weeks before introduction, a pump was set up to bring water up above the tank, and the end of the hose was covered with five tube socks. Five sentinal fish were put in the tank, and the pump ran continuously for ten days without any mortalities. Twice during this time, the tube socks were turned inside out, and rinsed of solids in the wastewater tank (125 gallons) that sits below the main fish holding tank. The tube socks were also filled on the end with several bio-balls.

When the 420 new fish were introduced, they were handled carefully. The water clouded up with an organic/protein looking particulate that lasted about six hours.

I just now tested the pH with some strips I found from my old fish farm, and the pH is straight-up 7.0.

The fish are feeding like crazy in the tank, which concerns me a little bit, because I'm likely to "push the envelope" when given a chance. I'll try to be careful.

Essup...very interested in your ideas. I would ideally like the water temperature to be around 60-70 all winter, but my initial calculations were that this was going to cost a fortune. I think I can keep the ambient air temperature above 32 F., but anything above that is unlikely.

Liquidsquid, is your pH usually around 7.0? I'm just wondering how I'm going to respond if the pH starts to crash. Should I have the calcium chloride on hand? Could this happen quickly?

Here is a pretty decent test kit. If you have DO, PH and Temp meters, you can get the other kit that excludes these tests.

LaMotte Test Kit

AES sells these.

Spend a few bucks (20.00 or so) and get a TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) meter. This is a good indication of when your water is "tired" and needs to be changed. High dissolved solids can also kill your fish.

A Refractometer or salinity meter for measuring salinity or salt concentration. I like Conductivity myself. A Salinity meter is basically a Conductivity meter with the appropriate Algorithm applied.

If you are going down to 40F with your biofilter, careful consideration is due here. Your two best bet's for going that low are going to be an RBC (Rotating Biological Contactor), or an MBBR (Moving Bed Biofilm Reactor).

You'll need some methodology of removing solids. Many ways to do this.

Expect water changes with prepared water (if you are adding salt and need to adjust PH and such) to be a bit more than previously stated. The less water you have to exchange, the greater the equipment cost will be.

JKB, I'm removing solids with a big siphon I've rigged up. I'm planning on removing about ten gallons/day from the bottom of the tank with the siphon as I target visible solids--then I replace with ten gallons from the pre-treatment tank, which has about 400 gallons in reserve. This is filled with our rural water--which I just found out has no chlorine or chloramine according to the website.

I'm still looking to figure out how much salt to add. Seems like a great idea, but also a great opportunity to screw things up.

2-4PPT (parts per thousand) on your salt. You can add too much. If you are using a biofilter, that will take the first hit with too much salt.

Double check on the municipal water. If they are pumping it to your house, it is required by law that they disinfect it. There are other chemicals in use now.

Sounds like a lot of work with the siphons and all.

Should I just start at 1-2 ppt on the salt and work up from there? Stupid question perhaps, but is there a "brand" of salt I should be using? Where would you look to acquire the right kind of salt?

1-2ppt to start OK. If it fluctuates a bit, that's OK. You can gradually increase/decrease. Won't hurt your fish, but your biofilter may have a WT? moment if it get's a radical spike. Did that oops, but it was only baitfish.

I like Kosher salt (I make pickles) without additives. You can use "non iodized" table salt. Many others out there as well.

The only two I have used were Kosher and Sea Salt. Sea Salt is expensive.

I'm working on a WE rig right now for next spring. I'll probably end up with 5000 dead 2-3" WE

That makes total sense, but given my luck, I might miscalculate 2ppt by a factor of ten....or one hundred.

So 225 gallons would equal how much kosher salt?

See if this link works.

Salt

Better for reference, and you'll have a copy.

It may sound like a lot of salt, but it is only initial. And you'll only do gradual additions.

None of the other links work that I wanted to put up.

Some use salt, and others don't. Each have their own success.

Bruce:

Here's my idea on water heating. Buy a whole house instant water heater that runs on natural gas or propane. There's a thermostat in the unit that will allow you to adjust the water temp from 100 to 140 degrees. Yes, that's too hot for the fish, but bear with me.

It is turned on by water flow thru the heater. So, I was thinking of putting a thermostat in the tank that would turn on or off a submerged pump that would push water thru the heater, effectively turning it on and off. It doesn't have to be much of a flow, I believe the new heaters will turn on at as little as 1/2 gpm. That way the thermostat in the tank governs how long the water heater will run due to the water flow thru the heater. The water going into the tank will be too hot, but it will mix with the tank water prety quickly. Inject the water at the bottom of the tank and it'll rise. If you have the warm water discharge going the same way as the water flow going into the tank it should help dissipate the warm water thru the tank even quicker.

That's my thoughts on it anyway. Todd Overton is using a wood fired boiler to keep the Tilapia water warm during the Texas winter, but you won't have to keep them that warm.

Insulate the top of the tank or at least the majority of the top. Less heat loss that way. Good idea on insulating the sides. Cecil did that to his tank in the basement (sides) and that helped keep heat in the water. Don't forget to insulate ALL the water holding tanks/barrels/buckets in the system, and the pipes connecting them together. Heat escapes everywhere, and the less you let escape, the less $ spent on heating.

Bruce, regarding salt. I use non-iodized table salt. Cheep stuff from whatever big box store has a sale. Buy a Hanna pocket salinity meter # HI98203. Add the salt slowly, it's better to dissolve it in a bucket and slowly add it to the water over a day or so. Don't put it in the filter to dissolve and go into the tank - you'll kill the filter

While not exactly what you are doing, some interesting reading.
using salt to transport fish

This set-up under the garage?

Ok this may be towards essup or whom ever. I tried 4 CC and 2 albino CC last spring. I got the water from the pond and filtered with a wisper cartridge filter. They all got a fungus looked like white fuzz. I bought a fungus killer not ick but something else and it was too late. I was able to keep one albino for a weed but it soon went belly up. I have had a couple of tanks and have done good with tropical fish but these pond fish are a little different. I kept the water temp a little cooler too. probably 60 degrees.

Raw effluent thru an instant house water heater will probably cause some issues.

The more control you have over something, the better you will maintain/manage it.

Heating and cooling still require the same BTU's from point A to B. Between point A and B is where hard stuff like insulation comes into play. It is a fixed part, but an essential part.

Bruce the colder the water the fish are in,, the less solids they will produce due to eating less food thus water changes would not have to be as frequent nor as much. As mentioned earlier I would try to have the water mostly above 50F-55F which will keep the biofilter active and the fish will feed a little better and that may result in a little fish growth or at least they will maintain good body condition over the winter.

You will want to add the Calcium Chloride to the change water before adding it to the aquarium, and it should already be added to the aquarium water if you need it. The goal is to keep the buffering agent the same. Don't use it to rescue a crashing system (too late), but use it as a preventative measure. You may find your tap water already is "hard" and don't need to do a thing. Test your tap water for hardness, and if it is rated "moderately hard" you are good to go. If soft, you will need to add CaCL.

Note that I was using CaCL when I was using rainwater for aquarium changes. Before I got my well-water treatment system I could not figure our why my fish went nuts during water changes. Turns out they did not like the natural gas in the water (probably tough to breath that stuff). I added CaCL to the rainwater since you cannot get much softer than that. When I tried adding CaCL to my well water, I found it forced the natural gas out so I was able to back to tap water. Now my water treatment has a de-gasser built in.

My PH from my well is around 8.0, and will vary between 7.9 and 8.2. Stinky for most aquarium plants, but my fish love it.

I did not know that nitrogen fixing bacteria retire under 50F, I learn something new every day.

I would like to understand what you are doing with a filter better, tube socks... that's a new one! I hope your fish like cheese.

I've been using this salt in my RAS.

I don't know if it's as good as the other stuff, but it says it's all natural, derived from salt water and has no additives. You can get it at WalMart for about the same price as softener salt. It hasn't killed my fish.....yet.

Bruce something like this in the 1800 watt range would be good investment if this is a longterm project for mutiple year use.
http://www.aquaticeco.com/subcategories/3033/Process-Tech-Heaters-Single-Phase

For fish oxygen demands for emrgency with pure DO. We selected this to sell. We sell a bunch of these for transportation of fish. It is kinda like George system but ready to go. I suggest you purchase form local weldign shop your oxygen cylinder. http://lakework.com/cart/index.php?p=product&id=181&parent=16

Bruce I know you wanted to keep the water cool but if you wanted too keep a steady cool temp I know hot tub companies make in-line heaters that have a winter mode to keep above freezing and some have adjustable thermostats..

1800W is a helluva lot of heater for 240 gallons. In my 150 to keep a 20F rise I used 2 100W heaters. One in the filter tank, one in the main tank. Of course the tank was plastic, so it already had some insulation value.

Not to scare you, but don't buy cheap water heaters. I have had two Chinese-made aquarium water heaters stick with the thermostat on, roasting all of my son's fish. Hard to explain to him when he was 4 that that awful smell was his aquarium cooking his fish.

Keeping it warmer will certainly be beneficial.

Certain types of biofilters, like fixed film, will run to about freezing, just that they can get very large. My cutoff is 55F for practical purposes.

The biofilter was originally developed for municipal waste water treatment in all climates. They make some pretty big ones. The use for fish came a bit later.

I'll bet that someone about 2000 BC had one tho.

Just gotta crunch the numbers for the application and see where the watts fall.

If you are going to have valuable fish. It pays to get good stuff.

I never looked into water softener salt. I guess I thought it had some crazy stuff in it.

I have seen where a salmon hatchery trucks in rock salt and uses a front end loader to fill up a channel that supplies the raceways from a river.

Another benefit of maintaining 2-3 ppt salt, is your fish will show better/stronger growth.

I don't think the heater is too big if there isn't an insulated top on it, and it's kept in a cold ambient environment.

Even if the heater was too large for the application, it's all about control of said heater.

I wish...

I'll pre-mix the salt in a separate tank, then add in increments. And good link, thanks!

Yes, the setup is under the garage.

I concur with the possible use of water heaters, and also the possibility of heating the entire basement. I'll be doing this eventually...but at this point I have to weigh the value of the fish (about $500) vs. the cost of the heating system. The fish also hold an emotional/psychological value, as they're my hobby, but I still have to be careful what I spend. My wife is a financial analyst and an accountant. She already rolls her eyes a little at what I do, but if I'm purchasing water heaters she might get a little "concerned". LOL.

I am installing an insulated hood or cover for this system this weekend. Hopefully this will allow me to gain an extra ten degrees to get into the fifties. I really hope I can achieve this, because I agree that this will allow for some real growth. It's easier to justify an entire winter's work if you can see at least a tiny bit of growth. It just "feels" better.

Liquidsquid. What form is the calcium chloride in? Is it a powder? liquid? crystal? Where do you get it? A pet store?

Bullhead, I actually think I have a bag of that salt sitting around. It says "all natural", so it has to be good, right?

The price on that is better than I anticipated when I looked it up, Greg. I may see how successful my current heaters are first. 1800W will add up a little on monthly energy bills, I'd think. Does anybody know how to calculate the monthly cost of running an 1800W heater?

Interesting you should say that. I was just wondering if you could put a heater in line with the hose that's circulating the water. I'm almost thinking I dreamt this, but I'd swear that my old hot tub heated the water on friction. Is that weird?

Definitely putting a top on that sucker.

Cost of running that heater will depend on how long it has to runs per day or month to keep the water at the desired temp. The colder the ambient temp and the more you warm the water the more it will cost. The more insulation on the tank bottom sides and top the better it will be and the less the heater will operate.

Well, I cannot seem to find the original stuff:

Big containers for the aquarium nut:
http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/brs-bulk-calcium-chloride-aquarium-supplement.html

For water heaters, if they are too large or too slow to respond, the heater will be unable to maintain a consistent temperature. The key is the thermostat must respond to measured temperature of the water in a faster time than it takes to heat the water. An over-large heater can warm water very quickly, but you want tom maintain heat once there and rise slowly.

Think of power outtage scenarios: The water cools down while power is out, then the power comes back on and the heater has to raise the temp 20 degrees. Do you want an 1800W heater raising the temp 20 degrees in an hour? Fish wont be happy. If the heater is too large, the temperature will overshoot before it settles.

Here is a hell of a heater series. Now I may have to go buy one.
http://www.marinedepot.com/JBJ_True_Temp...-FIHTTH-vi.html
They say 800W is about right, 1000W even better. Remote temperature sensor is PERFECT as it can respond quickly. Put that upstream of water flow or at halfway point.

Note I was reading the reviews on this and a lot of folks are having failures. Sounds to me like they are susceptible to surges. Use a surge suppressor to your equipment. Again a computer UPS will have protected if not backed-up outlets.

There relatively cheap and it's only weird if it was you making the friction

Check eBay hottub heater popped up many for under $100

Do you think it would be better to keep the tank up off the floor?

It is about 18 inches off the floor. I definitely need to post photos! :-)

Smart man.. I kinda figured/hoped you did

Good point liquidsquid, Thanks!

I can easily program that scenario for a safe temperature rise after a power failure in my system restart sequence.

I'll just add a maintained button to the screen that says "Fish Present" and put a password on it, just in case. Otherwise the heater will operate under normal control.

I have some stuff here that is very impractical for most, and keep forgetting this when I reply

JKB, keep posting the impractical stuff. It helps me think outside the box.

Yes, please!

Sorry didn't read the entire thread as it's a lot of pages but...

Here are some things I've learned about temperature and heaters with small scale systems.

I've had great luck with a 1000 watt stainless steel aquarium heater I bought from Amazon.com for about $100.00 for my 500 gallon systems. If your system is smaller you can get by with less watts.

Without heat my water gets down to 62 F. in the basement in the winter, which would be great for trout but not optimum bluegill, smallmouth bass and yellow perch growth.

With the aquarium heater I can jump water temps to 80 F. if I want to, but usually keep the water in the mid to upper 70's. It comes with a thermostat and if it's de-watered it automatically shuts off. Two seasons now with no problems. I do get scale build up on them ever few months, which I remove with vinegar to get optimum performance.

One of the two schools I've supplied Recirculating systems to, the teacher bought one of those expensive AES commercial aquaculture heaters. She had nothing but trouble with it and it's now a piece of junk that doesn't work. She bought it without asking me, and is now out of over $300.00 bucks for the related equipment and the wiring. Of course the system now has one of the stainless steel aquarium heaters in it I added.

I'm leaning toward a bioreactor biofilter for my next biofilter and will be putting it together in the next day or two. Lower footprint than the RBC and easier and cheaper to build.

I'm a keep it simple stupid kind of guy and I'm always looking to make things simpler. I find many people make things too complicated! And I'm too dumb to understand advanced electronics. Kudos to JKB and others here but it's beyond my grasp.

The bioreactor biofilter is simply a 55 gallon drum filled half way with slightly buoyant specialized plastic media and then filled close to the top with water. A line comes into the bottom from the top of the clarifer drum via a small mag drive pump (sits on top of the filter material under water in the clarifier drum) and the water goes up through the media and overflows back to the fish tank via gravity. A membrane diffuser is is mounted to the bottom of the drum below the media to tumble it.

Detoxifying bacteria grows on the media but the tumbling action scours off old dead bacteria. Of course the diffuser also aerates the water which is a plus for aerobic bacteria which is what you want.

This is not an original idea of mine. I can't remember his name but someone from Ohio here has already done it and sent me the plans to build one a few years ago. They are also sold in the AES catalog at unGodly inflated prices.

As far as a device to clean the water of solids, I haven't found anything better than the clarifer drum and u tube siphon for small scale systems (see Small Scale Aquaculture- Steven VanGorder.) I've added a vertical and horizontal axis spray bar to create the tea cup effect for self cleaning of settleable solids and exercise for the fish, and a center drain where the settleable solids go. All simple and out of PVC and a Uniseal for the center drain.

For those of you that are not familiar with them you owe to to yourself to order Small Scale Aquaculture by Steven Van Gorder. I think it sales for $22.00 on Amazon.com. Easy to read and full of good info.

Bruce you could always use a smaller heater and see what it does for you. I ordered from a hydroponics source so sure ATF has me on the watched list now.

Can this be mounted in an all plastic/poly tank?

If the heater is at least a half inch away from the side with some moving water, you should be fine. Think the plastic wouldn't have a problem until far beyond boiling temps.

You think that's bad? Try ordering fluorescent grow lights.....

(No, they were for tomato and pepper seedlings)

My dad who grows orchids as a hobby in his greenhouse was "raided" several years ago for ordering fish fertilizer combined with some lighting. Apparently, according to the police, these two when ordered together, they are almost 100% guaranteed to be by someone growing pot. They conceded that he was not the only orchid grower that got a surprise.

They were good to him when they realized almost immediately the mistake.

The question is how did the police know what your dad was ordering ?

Big brothers always watching

Yes, just hang it on the side (inside) and you'll have no problems. One of my tanks is plastic and I've also hung it on the inside of my plastic stock tank that holds the RBC with no problem. No melting or damage.

Eric,

My local hardware has a list of things meth makers use to produce meth. If someone buys all the items on the list they have the option to contact local law enforcement. It's such a big problem here it's sad.

What's crazy is all of those items I use in my taxidermy business! Fortunately everyone knows me and my best taxidermy customers are cops...

Very true. I've even had my heater make contact with no problems. Apparently the water keeps the heater cool enough not to melt the plastic. However if one has doubts it's easy to hang the heater away from the plastic.

Cecil, you said you water without heat was 62°F. What was ambient temp in the room?

He ordered the equipment through a mail order company. Apparently they release customers who meet a certain set of criteria for law enforcement. Not sure if some Judge someplace ordered it after a few raids saw the same equipment from the same place. Seems like a pretty bad thing to do to your customer base to me, so I am sure it was an unwilling participant.

Enough thread side-tracking for now...

Most water heaters come with suction-cup holders to the side of the glass or plastic. These loose suction over time, so I found it is best to spin my own, usually pretty cheesy bu effective.

I am currently using this heater in my 300gal Tilapia tank and the water has been staying around 80-85.

http://www.amazon.com/Farm-Innovators-Su...farm+innovators

If you can figure out how to rig up some sort of thermostat I think you would be fine. That is the only issue I have.

I used it in my 100gal grow out tank as well when we had those early cold days but the water would get close to 100 in it.

Everyone on vacation or something?

I made a couple refinements based on this thread.

Temp is handled quite nicely. Only thing left to do is dry cycle with the data logger and possibly some minor tweaking.

Retired my old coffee maker yesterday. It's been acting up a bit. Fill it full of water, and when it is finally done, I get just over half a pot of some really concentrated stuff.

What am I talking about

More coming!!!

About 64 F. in the dead of winter. I was told by a very knowledgeable person that it's typical to have unheated water about 2 degrees below ambient temp. Don't ask me why but I have some guesses.

Right not it's sitting at 67 without a heater. I have a 1000 watt heater on order.

Back to the illegal plants... One of my board of directors who is big into aquaponics was asked if he'd be interested in consulting in Columbia. When he found out what they wanted to grow and who the client was he said, "Hell no!"

Hey I wonder if you could grow pot aquaponically now in Colorado and Washington state legally? If so it's time to be one of the first and get a brand name going. LOL

My money is on evaporative cooling.........

That's what I was guessing.

If I ever need to bring trout inside from fall to spring not heating the water would definitely make it feasible. Of course the biofilter would have to be oversized due to the cooler water.

Just waiting on my O.K. from the INDNR to make arrangements to pick up the trout from Nelski. I hit the well tank pit hard with PP and will also do so with the trout pond tomorrow (it's at full pool now). Then once the water goes from pink to brown I will flush it into my big pond and keep the well running to top off the big pond.

Allegedly the PP does a great job of abolishing parasites and also does some oxidizing of the organic material on the pond bottom.

I'm also going to salt dip the brookies in saltwater strength water before putting them into the pond.

The following may or may not have been parasites the last time I had brookies. It could have also been fighting. All I know was I was losing a few trout every week.

That 2nd pic looks like a parasite to me. If they were fighting, I think the lines would be straighter.

That's what I as thinking but couldn't get anyone to verify - even a fish pathologist. I was told to take a swab and get a microscope which I don't have. I was going to take a few to Purdue for testing and but that's a whole nother story.

I'm going to start another post in regarding that and the PP treatment today. I've already hijacked Bruce's thread enough.

The coffee pot thing was in reference to evaporation of water. Heat is one thing that increases evaporation rate. Coffee pot was not pumping enough water to keep some of the water from going to steam, which was why I ended up with some really strong coffee. Leave a coffee pot on for a while, even if it works good, the water will still evaporate, leaving you with some potentially, not so nice stuff.

We don't really care about the flavor of coffee at this point, just that things can get nasty due to heat.

Salt don't evaporate!
So what I did was purchase an ultrasonic level sensor. Level Sensor
It's repeatable to within 0.019", and that should give me a pretty decent rate of evaporation. I'll also have thermocouples that will measure ambient and water temperature. Analog input was another 280 bucks.

Sounds like a bit much, but I could potentially be away for several days at a time. Automation is a reasonable answer for me.

The reason I mentioned impractical, is it could get expensive to control things in a decent form.

Been looking at the Arduino stuff. Pretty reasonable for what it is. Pretty sure you can use this as the controller and beef it up for outputs with hardened devices.

Got my EchoPod today. Pretty cute little gizmo

Dwight could put one of these on Bremmer Pond and forgo the pvc pipe with the drilled holes and the magic marker stuff. Pretty sure he could fit it on one of his FIVE screens

You can run current signals about 1000 feet. Good practice would be to keep it about a foot away from current carrying conductors, if running parallel.
They make direct bury wire for this, which ain't very expensive.

Got a couple going in at a farm up north from here.

I am addicted to gizmos

Just remember Phil: the more gizmos you have the more that can go wrong!

Cecil, you should be able to get a used dissecting microscope for cheap ($50-$100 on eBay). Spend a little bit of money and you can get one with a digital camera port.

Not really Cecil. Need to get the good stuff!

If you know what you are doing, you won't have any issues, and if you do, ya know what you are doing and have a backup!

Perhaps. Too much calibration for me.If you don't regularly calibrate that stuff it can really be off.

I'm a kiss principal guy cause I'm stupid. LOL

I notice the successful PHD down the road that grows out hybrid striped bass for the gourmet market in Chicago prefers to keep it simple too. And he has a BIG operation!

One time setup Cecil. No other calibration required. These are considered Absolute Scales. Quite a few gizmos out there today do not need calibration.

Since 2005 there has been one of these measuring the level of an 8600 lake. Works like a charm. This is the feedback device for controlling the dam. Quite reliable!

I know a couple PHD's, and PE's that are absolutely great in their respective lines of work. They walk into my world, or any other world for that matter, and they can be totally lost. I walk into their world, the same could easily happen.

Anyway, just a fun hobby!

Hmmmmm... How do I convince 5000 2" WE that I am just messing with them and they need to cooperate on my terms?

I am in deep, you know what!

Bill Cody, Your PM box work???

Bill doesn't look at his PM's much. You need to email him. :-)

I now, as in the last year, look at my PMs daily and I have no new messages today Nov 17. If I'm not answering, I'm not getting the PMs.
WE fingerlings like darkened conditions with a very faint light near one end or corner for seeing feed and feeding. Feed training WE are difficult which is why feed trained WE are rare and few if any do it. YOY walleye 2" long in November. Are they stunted? 2012 year class WE should be 5"-9" long. I got some last month that were 7"-10", very nice fish.

Raised at a fish farm in the UP.

I won't bug you with PM's.

No bother - we are here to help with information if we have the information to provide. Sometimes there is no good reliable information about how to do some 'out of the box' ideas and some new endeavers or plans. Everyone here basically provides opinions.
So the WE fertilized eggs were held 'suspended' to not develop or the eggs were held then fertilized later?

Maybe they were spawned late as in the water of Lake Superior!

Sorry Phil couldn't help myself.

These will be 2013 hatch and will be 2" the first week of July.(what the gal told me) That's when they start selling them. I know it is a big risk, but something I wanted to try. This farm supplies the vast majority of WE in MI. I don't think it would be a good idea to wait till they are larger in the fall. I've talked to a few people and am going to try something similar to a hatchery in Canada. I have a lot of work to do before then. Minimum order was way more than I want, but that's what I have to deal with. Ever have something bugging ya that ya just have to try, even tho it might not work?

Looks like they shut their website down for the season.

Bill- They have both Lake Michigan and Superior/Huron strains. I am not finding any info that differentiates one from the other as far as one being more suitable. Any thoughts, or not really an issue?

Bruce's thread got hijacked pretty bad

I'll start a new thread on this subject at a later date.

Don't worry...I'll just hijack it right back later.

I'm working on posting pictures.

I was hoping that pictures were in the works!

I would have done it earlier, but photobucket has decided to make everybody's life miserable!

Mine works fine, even with the new format.



Can't believe that it's been almost 2 years since I buried Luna. She is the gal up front.

Luna was 7 when she contracted a quite rare form of cancer. Specialist knew very little about it, and not much could be done.
The other dog, Oreo, is about 12-13 now, and still going. We are buddies!

Mini Hijack

A little over two weeks ago, I brought some bluegill and redear sunfish indoors. In my best dreams, I would get some growth, but my minimum goal was to ensure some survival of redear sunfish, because they are hard to acquire in good shape around here during the spring.

So far I have 100% survival! My water has remained clear, and my pH strips have indicated consistantly good water quality and stability.

I've been replacing about 50 gallons of water each week. I do not have a true "biofilter" yet, but the four tube socks that the water flows through appear to be doing the job of keeping the water clean. The "sniff test" of the socks when I'm rinsing them indicates nitrifying bacterial colonies within the socks. They smell just like every biofilter I've ever been around. I'm also using chemicals I buy at the pet store to make certain that the incoming water is conducive to good slime layer, and not high in iron and other metals and chemicals.

I am wildly excited about the fact that my fish are going ballistic over the frozen krill and bloodworm cubes I'm dropping in daily. I'm getting them on sale at PetSmart, and they are only costing me 10 cents per cube. Using four cubes a day, and even if I eventually get up to ten, I'm at $1/day which I'd be very pleased with over the next 3-4 months. Here are some pictures...

Upper right corner is water conditioning tank. Water comes in from the rural water district through a garden hose. I add a very inexpensive liquid to condition the water. There is also another tank just like it that is not in the picture, so one of these may give me another option to add fish for the winter.

The tank that is housing the fish is about 225 gallons and the water is crystal clear. The pump is something I got at the Pond Boss conference, and it is running water vertically through a hose that dribbles through a quadruple tube sock filter. The O2 tank is there for emergency backup. The tank in the lower right is where I siphon the solid waste to. Then I have the local kid, who helps me, take the water out of the tank and waters my trees with it. Ironically, I treat the water in the waste tank with Pond Zingers that I got at the Pond Boss conference and it turns so clear that I have some fish that live right underneath the zinger. They just nestle up to it. My thought is that in the summer I will put tilapia in the waste tank. They'll probably grow in it!

Tube sock filter.

Brand new sock after one day showing debris filtering. Bought the socks at 6 pair for $9.99.

Just about to siphon the solid waste!! You can see sunfish between 3 and 8 inches in the photo. You can also see the pump inlet filter that I got from vendor at PB5.

Snack time!! Everybody's favorite!

What's your timeline on switching to sinking pellets then floating?

Great question! I will start throwing in individual pellets next week. Yes, sinking for sure.

I will soften the pellets initially, and I will throw in a single pellet at a time until the first pellet hits the bottom uneaten--even if it's the first pellet. I think in a system like this you just can't afford to have pellets sitting on the bottom. I'll also use the Cargill product to test for palatability.

Interesting Bruce!

I looked up pond zingers and found no data on this product being safe for fish intended for potential human consumption. Maybe it's out there, but not on their web site.

Keep in mind, that the pet store supplies you are adding for conditioning water and such, may not be safe either.

Just a couple thoughts!

The conditioners are designed for turning tap water into usable aquarium water. What might not be safe about them? Very curious.

I guess at the very least, I'm not intending on eating any of these fish.

There are virtually no aquarium supplies available that have passed FDA scrutiny.

You may not eat them, but someone else might!

Just tossing out some stuff to think about.

Actually Phil just because something has not been approved by the FDA doesn't mean it's not food safe. It could just mean the manufacturer didn't spend the big bucks to get it lab tested.

Really want to risk sucking down a bunch of chemicals? If the manufacturer had any integrity, they would get it approved, but aquariums don't fall into food fish concerns, nor the chemicals used.

Anyway, not going to argue about anything, just pointing a few things out and see what happens.

Up to Bruce!

I would definitely never eat any of these fish, but intuitively it seems to me that like most chemicals, would be a matter of volume and frequency. I'll confirm with Pond Zinger folks what's in their product.

No argument necessary Phil. Just saying just because something is not approved by the FDA doesn't mean it's not safe. It costs thousands of dollars to have the testing done(sometimes even more), and there is no reason for an aquarium supplier to do so.

Bruce - I assume the fish are eating the blood worm and brine shrimp stuff. When you make some soft pellets mash a little blood worm or shrimp stuff and mold-knead it into the soft pellets. Pinch off pellet sized pieces, roll it and drop them into the tank. This will enhance the pellets and get the fish used to eating softened pellets. Then over a few days gradually reduce the worm and shrimp stuff that is kneaded into the pellets.

Let us know what you do about a heater Bruce. The RES I seined out of my pond in August really slowed down eating bloodworms once the water temps dropped down to 55 degrees. They ate fairly well at 59-60 degrees but that 55 degree mark was where the feeding off dropped significantly.

That's exactly what I'm going to do!! I call it the "Cody Plan"!

Shorty, my water temps are about 49-52 the last few days and the fish are rapidly training. Wish I would have started a few weeks earlier though. Not sure what the fish will do when temps drop into the low forties.

Bruce, the 22 small RES I had out in my shop were eating close to an ounce of bloodworms/small pellets a day until the water temp dropped to 55 degrees, then feeding dropped in half. At that point I decided it was time for them to go back into the pond. The RES were 1-2" when I seined them at the begining of August, 8 weeks later they were 2-3"+. Here is one of the bigger ones I turned loose.

Bruce are you using a heater yet?

I just bought another 1000 watt heater and theromostat/controller for around $90.00 on Amazon.com for one of my high school systems. I can easily get the water in a 500 gallon system up to 80 F. if i want to and keep it that way.

You could set it much lower if you wanted to.

So Shorty, where were you getting your bloodworms? How much were you paying for them? Were they frozen?

I got the bloodworms at Petsmart, Sally's frozen bloodworms in 4 oz block. I used a serated knife to cut the block into smaller pieces and then thawed the smaller chunks in shot glass. Once thawed I mixed in some smallet pellets and let the pellets soak for 15-20 minutes before feeding.

Bruce-Shorty - try using cooked or raw shrimp; mashed or chopped. Save the water that you cook them in and use the water to soften the pellets; works great. Shrimp work good for me, are found easily and probably cheaper ounce for ounce than blood worms. For budget minded with time, trap crayfish and use the shelled tails. Chopped or pieces of nightcrawlers work good too.

Never had a project like this, but I have done aquariums with native species and echo Bill's comment above about the shrimp. Every fish LOVED them.

Shots of bloodworms - brilliant! Josh would have been all over those at Big Cedar.

And ask the following day if I enjoyed them.

What brand did you get? Got a link?

I have the control system, just need some inexpensive elements. Some of the industrial ones are pretty expensive. I have AC Current Transducers to determine if a heating element craps out, so I can use the cheap ones.

Thanks

Been browsing around looking at aquarium dechlorination stuff. I see that Sodium Thiosulfate is the primary in a few of these now. That's cool!

The two chemical dechlorinators one would want to look for if you planned on having fish-n-chips would be sodium thiosulfate, and even a better one, Sodium Ascorbate (Vitamin C) PH Neutral version.

Could be many reasons that a product is labeled "not safe to use with fish intended for human consumption". A big one could be that their manufacturing process can not meet the stringent requirements that are required for a product that could be potentially incorporated onto ones dinner plate. Also could be that they don't want to deal with the regulations. Who knows for sure!

Just thought I would kick that out for thought.

This is pretty cool!

Aquarium Controller

Not too expensive for what it is either.

More often that not the reason it would not be FDA approved is because the company had no interest in doing a clinical trial to determine the meat withdraw time, or how long any of the chemical derivatives would persist in the meat. The cost of this kind of research is very high.

In vet medicine, just about every medication or treatment that is approved for use in food animals has a meat or milk withdraw time, where the animal can not be harvested until that period has passed.

Just like I said in a previous post it all comes down to money. Of course if the product is primarily used in the pet trade there isn't a good reason to even bother spending the money.

http://www.amazon.com/Catalina-RF-1200-C...aquarium+heater

Thanks Cecil. Many options out there in the aquarium world.

Been reading aquarium sites about heater malfunctions. Many have happened.

One guy had a 1000 watt heater. He went to bed and everything was fine. Woke up the next morning, and his tank was 120 degrees. Needless to say, the fish were all dead. Controller fried and got stuck on.

I have three built in methods of dealing with this scenario. Wont bore you with the details.

A number of people recommend to use multiple smaller heaters, so if one croaks, the others are there for backup.

Another recommendation I have seen several times is to replace your heaters every 2-3 years. As they get older, they are more prone to malfunction. (all about cycle life)

I'm looking at one of my 10 amp solid state relays for firing the heating element and wondering how they crammed that into one of those aquarium controllers?

The main advantages of using industrial elements are, they will last a bunch longer, and in 15 years, I can easily get a drop in replacement. Bad thing is that a reasonably priced 1000 watt element could set ya back 300-400 bucks.

I had one stick, and when I came back after being out of town for 2 days the house stunk pretty bad........

I had a baby softshell turtle in the tank, and that's the only thing that stayed alive.

It would be interesting to see the circuitry in these aquarium controllers.

Heaters are resistive loads and generally are not prone to "frying outputs on" (welding contacts) as inductive loads with high inrush current are. (motors, solenoids...) It could happen tho if the contacting mechanism is of poor quality.

I have seen many, many times where an inductive load has fried the output on. With proper surge suppression of the inrush current, this is greatly reduced or eliminated.

If one were going to build a heater control unit. I would think an Opto-Coupler would be employed, at the very least. A solid state relay is an Opto-Coupler, and generally last forever, if properly applied. Opto-Couplers have no moving parts.

Another method is to use a mechanical relay. Same principle as a light switch or circuit breaker with a mechanical contacting mechanism. These are limited to X-amount of cycles tho. A decent mechanical relay may have a usable life of about 100,000 cycles with a resistive load. With an inductive load, that is seriously reduced.

Another resistive load you are all familiar with are lights. I have never had a light switch "fry on", but then again, never sat there and flipped it on-off a hundred thousand times. Had a couple physically break in my lifetime. Not saying you should use a light switch for turning on a heater, because it could possibly melt and cause a fire hazard.

One place I get called in from time to time to chase gremlins, is a plastic extrusion company. One particular machine has a 12 zone barrel. The heating zones range from 7,000 watts to 16,000 watts. Yeah, this thing sucks some juice! Anyway, this uses Opto-Couplers (Solid State Relays) to fire the elements, and the control method is a PID Loop. (Proportional-Integral-Derivative) (If interested look it up. Wikipedia has a decent explanation) The machine is about 12 years old now, runs 21/7 (couple hours a day for maintenance) The PID fires the elements thru the SSR's on average of every 5 seconds, and never once have they ever replaced a SSR! Never once have they replaced an output firing the SSR! Pretty good odds I would say! They have a couple more lines there that use mechanical relays and they are constantly being replaced due to failure.

BTW, the only gremlin I ever found in all my dealings, had a name tag sewn on their uniform

Just thinking out loud here!

Any updates?

I haven't had any problems yet but I do check several parameters on a regular basis including temp.

Like I said one of the high school's bought one of AES's "industrial quality" heaters and they even had to hire someone to wire the heater to the controller. It's worthless now. $300.00 + for nothing.

Which model did they get?

It would be proper protocol to have a licensed electrician hook it up. An electricians job ends after all the wires are landed in the proper place, and are of appropriate size. Don't expect an electrician to deal on the technical control side of things. Some do, some don't.

AES carries one manufacturers brand that has a pretty neat unit out now. AES doesn't have them on their web site.

One of the units that AES sells has an over temperature protection device. This is a one shot device meaning it will blow, similar to a fuse, and needs to be replaced. It was the model that Greg Grimes posted earlier in this thread.

I looked at that one (1000 watt model) because it is reasonably priced.
This would be the only offering from AES that I would be interested in.


It's on my list of possibilities. I'll just bypass the over temperature device, should I go that rout. I have other methods of dealing with over temp. that don't require replacing parts.

One thing I am finding out on some of the aquarium heaters is that the actual elements are made from Aluminum mesh. From what I have found out, Aluminum mesh elements can not handle too many on-off cycles before they are toast. A PID Loop would probably kill one in short order. I'll try one tho. Whats the difference in melting temperature between Aluminum mesh and Tungsten?

If you did not know. The elements are inside the sheath material. In the pic. you see the long tube. That is the external sheath. They make them from various materials like Stainless Steel, Monel, Titanium... The heating elements are inside the sheath. You can get heaters that look like a bunch of skinny rods all formed up (bent) in many patterns. These also have an element encased in a sheath. Big problem with these is that if there is any organic build up, the build up will insulate it from the water, requiring more power to do the job. Not intended at all for this type of service. Clean Fluids!!!

Still have to clean any type of heater in an RAS on a regular basis. I'll know when it's time by monitoring current and temperature.

Still trying to figure out the best place for the heaters. It will be after the primary filter, but thinking before the biofilter. That way I can probably keep the biofilter a bit warmer than the tank. Defiantly don't want it in the tank.

Biggest problem on the consumer side of things, is there are really no technical specifications one can reference. About all they have are buzz words and marketing glitz!

I just got a Chromalox catalog, but haven't had the time to open it up. Another brand I am looking at is Watlow. These companies have been in the biz for many, many years. Omega Engineering is another one, but they are a bit ridiculous on price.

Cheap Aquarium heaters have been the cause of house fires and a few electrocutions. One well known company recalled everything they ever manufactured on one model of heater they produced. Think it was like 1.2 million units. Kinda scary!

Bruce - How well are the fish eating pellets? Update?

It would be a monster fish to eat a pallet, or add the 's on for multiple pallets.

Just kidding!

Phil,

I don't know what model they got but I can take a look next time I'm over there.

My thinking is if the aquarium heater is not over sized, as in just sufficient, how could it overheat several hundred gallons if was stuck on? Maybe in an aquarium, but in a system with several hundred gallons or more I think it would be tough to really heat up the water to lethal range. Seems to me the most likely thing for it to do is to stop functioning, which is much less life threatening.

Phil,

Maybe Bruce has big enough fish to eat pallets now!

"Pallets" you guys are funny!!
You know he really meant pullets...

How disappointing if they are only big enough to eat pullets. I thought Dr. Frankenstein Condello was past that point!

--- --- ----

You are correct in thinking that Cecil.

In a perfect scenario, and there was absolutely no heat loss. You have 300 gallons of water and the temp is 80F. Let's say that 100F is lethal. With a 1000 watt(100% efficient) heater, your fish would be dead just on the inside of 15 hours. 30 hours with a 500 watt heater and 60 hours with a 250 watt heater.

The planets would have to pretty much line up for this to happen tho.

So if I wanted to make a cage out of PVC, and this stuff..



(which is listed as non-flammable by the way)

...how would I heat the inside of the cage, in the presence of an oxygen tank, without risking explosion?

Oxygen is a what? In the presence of what? Non flammable materials are a what? What's in them?

Don't confuse all these what's with watts

I must be a little slow today, but I'm not sure what you're getting at.

Bruce - by cage do you mean tank? To me a cage has a mesh as walls. Would the foam be on the inside or outside of the tank?

Cage, in this case would be like a housing for the tanks--a mini room so that I could heat the air.

I think JKB is talking about a flammable gas in the presence of heat.

I assume the nonflammables are not carbon based.

I should know this stuff but I'm off the fire clock now a days, so these are only guesses.

OK, so if I don't include O2, then I could just make a structure with 1" PVC that is 8 feet cubed. I could then use ten sheets of R-10 2" insulation to enclose it. Then I could equip each of four 110 gallon cylindrical tanks with it's own pump/filter like I have in my original tank. Here's an image of the tanks I want to use.



This leaves me with the issue of heating the air. I'd like to run all four tanks at 75 degrees or greater.

ewest, I've looked now for two hours trying to find literature that would teach me how to strip female redears and male bluegill for tank culture. I need a new hobby.

Actually here's a small excerpt from Morris' white paper.

Would it be possible to take four tank, and have one for fry raising, one for brine shrimp raising (to feed the fry, and the other two tanks for further advanced redear or redear/bluegill hybrid to raise? That would be my ultimate goal for this whole project would be to create thousands of redear/bluegill hybrids that were feed trained.

Even though past production of sunfish has been mostly extensive production in ponds, there
has been success with some intensive laboratory culture methods. Childers and Bennett (1961)
hand spawned mature gametes from fish into petri dishes. Eggs from one or more mature
females were stripped into damp petri dishes followed by stripping of milt from one or more
males onto the eggs. After mixing milt and eggs, water was added and 2 min were allowed for
fertilization to take place. The fertilized eggs were then placed into clean petri dishes containing
aged tap water and allowed to become water hardened. After being rinsed with water, the petri
dishes of fertilized eggs were then placed into aerated aquaria. They reported that fertilization
occurred with several thousand eggs from various intergeneric crosses of sunfish. However, no
hatching rates were given. When larvae became free-swimming fry, they were transferred to
rearing ponds.
Mischke and Morris (1998) developed a protocol for out-of-season spawning of sunfish in
the laboratory. They placed artificial nests in indoor bluegill tanks and manipulated temperature
and photoperiod. Initial temperature and photoperiod were established to mimic summer
conditions (i.e., 72°F [22°C] and 16-h light/8-h dark). Over 2 weeks, the temperature was
lowered to 59°F (15°C) and photoperiod was lowered to 8 hours of light/day. The fish were
maintained at the winter conditions for 4 weeks and then returned to summer conditions over
another 2-week interval. One month after the temperature and photoperiod manipulation, fish
began spawning. By this method, they obtained 41 spawns, averaging 20,000 larvae each, from
24 female bluegill. The spawns were obtained over the winter months (December through May),
and the same protocol was successful for production of hybrid sunfish (BG × GS) (Mischke et al.
In preparation).
Mischke (1995) and Mischke and Morris (1998) reported that larval bluegill did not digest
commercial feeds at the onset of exogenous feeding. An initial period of feeding newly-hatched
brine shrimp (Artemia franciscana) nauplii was necessary for survival. They found, after feeding
brine shrimp to larval bluegill for 7 days, that survival was greatest (about 23%) among larvae
fed Fry Feed Kyowa7 B-250 (>55% protein, >10% fat, <3% fiber, <13% ash) (Biokyowa,
Incorporated, Tokyo, Japan). They also found that feeding larval bluegill brine shrimp for 14
days before offering Fry Feed Kyowa7 B-250 produced about 43% survival.

Extruded polystyrene insulation?

http://www.dyplastproducts.com/newsletter/more_xpseps.htm

Bruce - Instead of trying to produce sunfish hybrids "inside" why not try and rent one of your old small ponds and naturally spawn some RESXBG hybrids? I'm thinking of using your old small liner pond or the small leaky pond on the hillside.

Bruce has a very good idea, and is most certainly attainable.

I am a bit confused on the cone bottom tanks tho.

Cecil brought this up a while back and we were discussing the use of cheap swimming pools:


I have been looking for negatives about utilizing these and really have not found any. Many people do use them right out of the box, even a shrimp farmer. Some rinse them out, while others just fill them up and put their fish in. The material is quite durable, and some have reported 5 years of use, and still like new. Pretty cheap way to go. A couple of these in a Shelterlogic round top, if you don't have a building, or a huge wad of cash burning a hole in your pocket, would be quite reasonable.

Heating/cooling a room is probably a better way to go, with electric heaters for fine tuning. Keep in mind that you will need to ventilate any room on a regular basis because of C02. Water is a natural sink for C02 so if you gas it out, it can easily find it's way back in. Water also retains it's temp quite well, so an evacuation wont hurt much in energy. If this room is in a building that is not being heated, and is on a concrete floor, it will require more energy to heat/cool the room due to the surrounding concrete.

My starter plan is to build a couple small 12' x 16' buildings, well insulated, even the floor. Small vent fan, infrared or propane heat, air conditioner, all metal tanks, and a heating element before the biofilter. Looking into led lighting, but will probably go with fluorescent because I can get analog ballasts. And a few other gizmos and gadgets. Pretty much have everything now, just waiting till spring to build it. No, I am not using round tanks in this.

Reason for the small buildings is they are pretty much an environmental chamber, I can easily move them, and I do not need building permits.

Brilliant. Definitely the best $/gallon ratio for water containment.

If you follow through with the buildings, I have a potential business proposal for you that I'm working on right now. I need a couple of like minded people (hopefully that's not code for "crazy") that want to do some out of the box projects with me.

Just for the record with two tanks in my basement C02 wasn't an issue. I bought an expensive C02 meter and it showed just slightly more than normal. Of course that can change with larger systems and more tanks.

Here's some video of my tank residents going nuts over some bloodworms!

Bruce, how many tenants per abode? Either the fish are pretty small, or those bloodworms are HUGE!

2-3 inches. . 500 tenants in ~200 gallons.

Too bad. I was looking for something crazy to get involved in.

This guy's been working different angles to get some poly totes together. Going to take a small investment from us, but could easily make it happen.

On board to expand this crazy talk.

Omaha, please help me!!

Bruce, you had me at whiskey. I'm all in. Just bark the orders. Or text. Text is fine too.

When this all gets sorted out, I think me and you should get an apartment together.

You killed a man with a trident.

I love lamp.

Do you really love the lamp, Josh, or are you just saying you love it because you see a lamp?

Want to go to my Pants Party?


Thread officially hijacked.

Did someone mention crazy

What's this out "of the box" thing ya talking about?

The article I'm writing is evolving into a summary of how you can use outdoor cages and indoor tanks to actually reduce your cost of altering your fishery in ways that might be impractical with traditional "stocking" strategies.

Out of the box means some specialty hybrids. More later....

Kinda like taking an Aquaculture approach to ponds!

Control is Key!

Bruce great video ! ! ! What is the water temp at worm gulch where all those blood worms were massacred and which tribe did the massacring ?

Water temperature at Worm Gulch has been ranging from 41-44 degrees.

I wish I lived closer to Bruce. So many questions......

The answers are only very, very slowly starting to come, my friend.

...call me anytime.

Take a notebook when you do. Maybe two.

Finding something RES will readily eat at that those water temps is significant.

It don't hurt to ask questions.

Look at this tank.

http://www.plastic-mart.com/product/5816/110-gallon-cone-inductor-tank-fully-draining-infd110-30

Does it look like the entire top screws off, or does just that little mini lid screw off?

Here's the drawing...still can't tell if that's two separate lids (small lid on top plus full diameter lid) or not..

http://www.plastic-mart.com/tech_drawings/ace/INFD110-30.pdf

I realize I could just cut off the lid, but that seems like a waste. The cone bottom on these things is absolutely crucial for draining off solid waste, especially if you're feed training..i.e. the feed sinks to the bottom uneaten.

I'm betting that the 12" vented lid is what's removeable, vs. the entire top.

Solid tank with the screw off access.

In feed training, you will want to keep as many particles of food suspended, and not flushed down the toilet.

You can use it, but doubt you will have much success.

I'll help anyway I can, but the choice is yours.

...I'm not sure I getcha, JKB.

When I feed train sunfish, usually pellets do one of two things--they float, or they sink. True, some sink more slowly than others, but if they don't float, they end up on the bottom. Hungry lepomids like bluegill and redear sunfish will hit the pellets off the top if there's a good enough combination of hunger and temperature, but they will sip, spit and re-sip pellets on the way down. However, once the pellet's on the bottom, they won't ever pick it up. Ever.

Therefore, the conical tank is preferred so you can offload the uneaten pellet ASAP so it doesn't start to degrade and affect your water quality.

This would be a 2-4 times daily regimen until the sunfish have figured out the pellets so there is 100% consumption.

The other major factor is solid waste. Suspended wastes will be eliminated by filtering, biofiltering, and water replacement, but solid wastes will settle to the bottom, and can be easily removed with a cone-botomed tank. That's why it's an aquaculture standard. Usually these things are so labor intensive that you need quick ways to treat water.

Here's a link to some further explanation.

http://www.underwaterwarehouse.com/PolyTanks/Round-Nestable-Conical-Bottom-Tanks-p-4117.html

My vote is non-removable top, but a 12" dia screw off access lid.

I'd bet that if you made a cut *just* above the band, and made another cut *just* below the cut that you made, at the very top of the 2.25" dimension, you would be able to slip the top back over the top of the tank.

I would like to see where the cone bottom tanks you posted are an Aquaculture Standard, and please explain it!

Here's another link

http://www.aquaculture-tanks.com/aquaculture-tank-sizes.html

LOL.

Evidently I didn't do a very good job of explaining it the first time.

I'll try again to explain the value of an cone shaped aquaculture tank...

When I feed train sunfish, usually pellets do one of two things--they float, or they sink. True, some sink more slowly than others, but if they don't float, they end up on the bottom. Hungry lepomids like bluegill and redear sunfish will hit the pellets off the top if there's a good enough combination of hunger and temperature, but they will sip, spit and re-sip pellets on the way down. However, once the pellet's on the bottom, they won't ever pick it up. Ever.

Therefore, the conical tank is preferred so you can offload the uneaten pellet ASAP so it doesn't start to degrade and affect your water quality.

This would be a 2-4 times daily regimen until the sunfish have figured out the pellets so there is 100% consumption.

The other major factor is solid waste. Suspended wastes will be eliminated by filtering, biofiltering, and water replacement, but solid wastes will settle to the bottom, and can be easily removed with a cone-botomed tank. That's why it's an aquaculture standard. Usually these things are so labor intensive that you need quick ways to treat water.

Excellent idea! I actually get it.

You are not really serious about this. Kinda like a joke, eh!

No, I'm dead serious.

Do you think I'm botching it that badly that you think it's a joke?

YES! and for fear of getting booted of the site, I will still say YES!

You won't get booted from the site! That's one of the reasons this is such a great place. Plenty of room for disagreement. You're not the first person to think I'm an idiot.

So..what would be your approach to raising redear sunfish indoors? And how would you fix some of my screwups?

Bruce, I like the sound of this. Any new ideas concerning water circulation and filtration?
I think I'll try something like that this year...

I have to constantly remind myself the importance of acknowledging that we have very few answers and a whole lot to learn. An open mind is essential. That means thinking outside the box that is created in ones mind. Go for it Bruce - I bet the pics will tell the story.

Bruce, IMO what you are doing with the conical bottom makes all the sense in the world.

I currently have an aquarium with pellet trained WE in it. I wish the bottom was conical, and had a drain in it, as it would save me from siphoning debris from the bottom and hauling buckets of water to the aquarium a few times a week.

Go with your hunch, and dont let others cause you to second guess yourself!

You did not become "MR. BLUGILL" from listening to people say "That wont work"!

My only input, is if you do buy the taller tank with the screw off lid and you cut the top off of it, I would use strapping of sorts around the tank to stabilize rigidity.

Popping popcorn and watching closely!

I just re=read what Esshup said about cutting the top....THUMBS UP!

I don't know the first thing about cleaning pellets from a tank, but I keep envisioning a system where there's a cone at the bottom of the tank, which then transitions into a vertical piece of pipe.... say 4" dia. x 12' long. This pipe contains two sliding valves, similar to the type that are used on RV septic tanks. These two valves are separated by about 6" within the 12" piece of pipe.

During normal operation, the upper valve is open, while the bottom is closed. When you want to remove the sunken pellets, you would close the upper valve, and open the lower, thereby draining the pellets with very little water loss.

Is this a crazy idea, or is this how it's done and It's been obvious to everyone but me all along....I'm kinda' slow....

Wouldn't you need some kind of vent for that too work sprkplug..?

Going "by the book", I think you would see a vent, or check valve between the two valves...the tank body itself is vented on top of course. However, I have a hard time believing, once the upper valve was closed and the bottom opened.....that the water/spent pellets wouldn't drain out on their own, without a vent present.

sprkplug, perhaps we're overthinking this. I could be wrong. Regardless of where the waste sits, it's gradually fouling the water...so it might as well be in the base of the cone. One quick turn of the valve, and "whooosh" the waste is out. Losing some of the water that's in the general vicinity is fine because we're exchanging some of the water anyway. Hence, it's ok to lose a little of the nearly invisible semi-buoyant waste in the bottom few inches of the cone. If I have the tank enclosed in a small heated chamber...perhaps 8 feet cubed, along with two or three other tanks...the base of the tank could be discharged, by hose from the outside of the heated chamber right into a five gallon bucket. The fresh exchange water could already be sitting in the enclosure, ready to replace the vented water. Five new gallons/day, in each of say, three tanks could take just a minute or two.

You're right...siphoning is a huge pain in the butt. Often it will freak out the fish, which in turn resuspends the semi-buoyant solids--defeating the purpose. Very inefficient and labor intensive. I know exactly what you mean. Currently in my cubic tank, I'm siphoning on a daily basis. My biggest enemy is fish-spooking. My second biggest enemy is that in a tank that big, I have to roll up my sleeves because they get wet each time.

I laughed at the popping popcorn metaphor. I'm hoping to avoid a bowl full of old maids.

I'm still only doing a mechanical filtration with tube socks. It works marvelously. The water clears quickly, and the socks stink royally, but at least I don't have to rely on nitrifying bacteria. 42 degree water apparently makes for tenuous and unpredictable bacterial colonies. Water replacement is the key. I'm replacing about 5-10 percent of my water each day. The ammonia strips I bought keep telling me that my ammonia levels are in the "safe" range.

Thanks, ewest. The number one reason I love this site is so many people willing to think of new ideas.

Essentially I'm working off of this premise...

IT IS IMPRACTICAL TO BUY ENOUGH ADULT FISH TO SIGNIFICANTLY ALTER EXISTING PONDS WITH ESTABLISHED APEX PREDATORS.

i.e. If you have a six acre pond with lots of largemouth, and you want to introduce redears, it's expensive to buy enough adults to avoid predation and establish new populations. So we can benefit from creating methodology to raise some of our own "on site". That's where the outdoor cage production, and indoor tank culture become potential tools. My goal is to find ways to make this economical, both in terms of time and money. It's a long process, but I think I'm onto some possibilities. This will make for a good story, I think.

I love it.. I couldn't think of a better reason to raise fish..

Well Bruce,
After waking up this morning, I realized that you really do not have many options available. A cone bottom tank may be your best choice, given the circumstances.

The short ones without the lid would be a better choice.

If you can, try rig up a delicate water jet system to keep the feed suspended. This would be an upflow device. Will it really make a difference with sunfish?

Cone bottom tanks were dismissed many years ago. The initial thought was the conical shape would be an aid in self cleaning. This was proven not to be the case in standard recycle systems. But for feed training in your situation, it makes sense.

I don't know anything about hatching sunfish, and never looked into it.

Would anyone know if it would be beneficial to keep them crowded? keep the tank covered? and with an internal submerged light? Any other beneficial insight?

The coolest feed training rig I saw was from a fish hatchery in Canada. Very successful, but very expensive.

I forgot that you are not going the full blown recycle rout, which makes it a different animal. Not as complicated. Maybe it's just me, but I would rather toss a few bucks at it, rather than a whole bunch of hours.

Bruce, not sure I understand your straight forward, easily understood, comment/observation about the fish NEVER picking up food that sinks to the bottom. It has been my understanding for a long time that hatcheries generally raise fry on sinking feed. Thus they would be creating a mess and losing $.

I have not reread all 9 pages of this thread to see if you are doing something different.

What am I missing?

The way I understand it now is the tanks are static, not being recycled in a conventional sense. The feed is fed and whatever get's hit on the way down is it. The rest is flushed down the drain with daily water changes.

Seems reasonable to me now. I would think that hatcheries would try to maximize their inputs by different methodologies.

I don't want to sidetrack this conversation by asking dumb questions, but here goes: If it's a bottom dump system into a bucket, what prevents the sheer force of water exiting the bottom drain from making a huge splashing mess? Perhaps I'm overestimating the force with which the water will exit?

And, since RES are primarily considered bottom feeding sunfish, at what point will they demonstrate this behaviour and eat the feed off the floor of the tank? Or will they ever, in this environment? If they transition to bottom feeding at some time, would a sloped tank make it harder for them to feed?

Sorry for interrupting, please continue knowledgeable participants...I'm learning a lot.

The RES I had in my tank this summer would eat bloodwroms off the bottom of the tank but not pellets. Eating bloodworms off the bottom of the tank noticibly slowed down once the water temps dropped below 55 degrees.

Identical to my observations as well. Not sure why, but blooworms will get scavenged, but never pellets. For a decade I had bluegill in a tank, and the pellets that sank to the bottoom would sit forever--even if the fish were starving. I don't understand this, but have observed. Odd.

Perhaps, but keep in mind that I'm hoping to complete my training of young RES in only 2-4 weeks. After that, it's just a matter of feeding just below what they'll consume. Then the problem is solved. Many fish figure pellets out almost as if by intuition--but redears are much more challenging. Bill Cody has come up with some innovative methods of transitioning the fish to pellets, but I'm not sure I have the time to mash up up bloodworms and mix them with Aquamax.

That's exactly what I'm hoping to do, but haven't discussed yet. By fooling the fish into thinking day and night are inverted, you can get them to eat when you're home from work, and (shhhh, don't tell anybody) you can get them to spawn.

Good question. I was thinking a plumbing valve. I've used these before at the base of 400 gallon tanks and they worked fine.

I thought you were having a hose to the outside of the building. If thats the case there is no mess under the tank. And you might be closing the valve by the time the water is even getting to the outside bucket.

Great question. The point of aquaculture systems is to be able to feed as quickly and predictably as possible. Pelleted feed that is eaten quickly, and either on the surface or during a slow sink is best. That's the behavior you're trying to encourage.

That being said, I thought it was really strange that a redear won't pluck a pellet off the bottom. Weird, but true. I can't even get them to look at it..but if they see a bloodworm, they'll swim nearby, and the localized currents get the bloodworm to sort of "hop" off the bottom because of it's curly shape. Maybe that's a factor, but they will very, very gradually clean the bloodworms off the bottom.

Definitely a good thought.

Ok. I'll ask a dumb question too. What about a shelf that is half way down in the tank where feed will sit on? Would the fish still see this as bottom and not take from it?

A ball valve or such at the bottom with a hose attached would do the truck. You can easily throttle a ball valve. Or even a ball valve at the end of the hose. Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

Possibly, but keep in mind that in small semi-closed systems, even a few minutes that feed remains uneaten will start to shift your ammonia levels. Especially if the water is warmer.

We have to differentiate between what fish WILL do, and what we WANT them to do. If a fish can poke around in the tank anytime he wants for a meal, he may be less inclined to agressively take the feed when dropped in the tank. This makes it harder for you to ascertain how much feed is necessary to keep fish growing by observing how much they eat and how agressively they eat it right at the time of introduction.

Agreed. I think a ball valve is the ticket.

Have I got the gadget for you. My PLC (programmable logic controller) has 0-10V analog inputs and outputs. With a photocell, I can record a day from outside via analog signals. Phillips makes an analog ballast for fluorescent lights. I can play that back inside any time I want. I can record the entire year if I want. Photoperiod manipulation We've done similar things in office buildings.

So you would flush it each time right after feeding so it will not sit on the bottom for very long?

Also, maybe someone with water flow knowledge could answer this, but when you open the valve, would the sediment there get stirred upward because of turbid water. I would opt for that short pipe extension before the valve to help keep the stuff down.

Fascinating!!

Some species, when being induced to spawn need a gradual photoperiod increase to tease them into doing their thing. Really cool!

Agreed! Makes perfect sense. From what I understand. In a conical based tank, the water right above the solid waste is also pretty toxic as well, so it would be nice to get the water out of the tank with as little stirring as possible.

Depends on the included angle of the tank bottom. I would think a straight section of pipe at the bottom would be beneficial as sort of sediment trap. We have a 500 gallon cone bottom tank collecting industrial process waste water. The tank never really comes clean when you drain it. IIRC it is a 60 degree bottom. Industrial metal fines and carbon waste, not fish poo.

I just got an email from a patient of mine who used to be involved in aquaculture, and he confirmed that conical tanks are not as widely used as I thought. He did however say that for my particular application it seems like a good idea. (So JKB was right about cone tanks not really being a "standard") My bad.

Bloodworms are like crack cocaine to fish, they seem to be highly addicted to them, not sure why but they are. Even my SMB showed a strong preference for bloodworms over pellets in my tank when they were fed a mix of both. I did have a 2-3 SMB that would scavenge a few pellets of the bottom but majority of the pellets that hit the bottom of the tank went ignored.

Just an idea, I might have to try chumming an ice fishing hole with some thawed bloodworms slowly sinking down the hole past my waxworm.

Bruce, I think for your application the conical tank is the best option.

1) concentrate the sediment to the bottom.

2) quick flush of the sediment.

The only thing that will be proven by testing with the actual tank is whether the sediment will have enough weight to it so it falls all the way to the bottom of the cone, rather than get hung up on the sloped sides. That's why a circular current is so desirable in aquaculture tanks with a center drain. No siphoning of solids - the current does the work.

Maybe with the sloped sides less current would be required to get the sediment to the center of the cone?

I don't think you'll have an issue with stirring up the sediment when the valve is opened. I'd want the cone to dump directly into the valve and not have a short standpipe in the tank - more crevices for the solids to hang up.

That will be the million dollar question is how well the solids flow down the sloped side walls.

Esshup, The short pipe would be under the tank, and not in it.

Time to go.

Just a quick thought.

If you were to use one of those adjustable speed aquarium circulators, you might be able to put just the right spin in the tank that will move the solids more toward the center. help keep the cone clean.

Could you put some large snails (too big for RES to eat) in there to help clean the sides?

How about those crazy little aquarium catfish? Tilapia would work, except they'd figure out the pellets and devour those before the RES got to them.

I think that since RES tend to be a more bottom oriented species the near-bottom activity will help sweep settled solids downward in the cone. Time and experience will add more information to the story. Consider a form of mini-polyculture and adding 1-3 small (3"-5") bottom active koi or common suckers to the tank to help stir and move settled solids downward.

I love the idea.

Do you believe there is a risk involved in bringing in another species, like a pathogen that might be harmful to the RES. I could get catfish from the petstore that have been quarantined, but I don't know if that's enough.

Definitely use fish that you have quarantined and or treated for external parasites. Fish from a pet shop have usually been exposed to many stressors and can be infected with more things than some wild fish. It depends.

At the risk of repeating myself I like to dip my fish from the ponds that come inside to an RAS into a 3 percent saltwater dip. However this year I skipped my basement system (yellow perch) and two high school systems (bluegills) and haven't seen any problems. I skipped this year due to moving them from very cold water and acclimating them rapidly ( a few hours from 39 F. to 75 F) and felt the added stress may not be worth it.

Due to circumstances out of my control the systems were set up late. (Schools had to install water lines, alarm system, and back up power.Which took some time).

Edit: Be aware some catfish are more sensitive to salt than other species!

Just a reminder to all about the appearance of the fish involved.

Bluegill (top)
Bluegill X redear sunfish hybrid (middle)
Redear sunfish (bottom)

Does the redear X Bg hybrid always get bigger than the other varieties as a "normal trait"?

The "top end" of hybrids is typically right in between the parents top end.

In this case, BG and RES being the two largest lepomids, makes for the largest hybrid.

BG top end around 3 lbs.
RES top end around 5 lbs.
I've seen Lake Havasu BG X RES that were in the 4 lb range.

Hmmmmm... That may explain why the CC freaked out. I just thought they did not like white suckers OOPS!

That RES x BG hybrid is an unusual looking fish. I have read studies that claim 90% or more of the F1's are males.... the hybrid pictured in the middle seems to display some female characteristics, to me anyway.

I have one pond that produces a lot of RES x BG hybrids naturally, but they appear different from the one Bruce shows. I'll look for a pic.

Here we go.... perhaps a MBG x FRES cross? Whatever they are, I have observed them readily taking pellets from the surface this past year.

To this untrained eye the RESxBG Hyb in Bruces picture looks female and the RES looks male.

Bruce, I'd stay away from pet store fish and source the bottom fish from the same source as the RES if at all possible.

If that's not an option, I'd look into collecting what I needed myself.

I veiw pet stores just like hospitals. With the sheer volume of visitors and revolving door residents I believe the chance of bringing a pathogen home is much greater.

Sprkplug, I'd say those are BGxRES crosses. I don't see any colored margins on any of those fins like you do with GSF genetics.

I think you're right about the hybrid being a female.

It's also a late age-1 hyper-grower that has spent every moment of his life eating.

No GSF genetics in any BOW here other than the HBG pond.... I wonder if these fish might be a reciprocal cross.... MBG x FRES

That'd be my guess.

I know this much. I do well taking them on the color red, and they fight like demons.

Nice fish!

Not many options available up here with sunfish.

Nice fish Bruce and sprkplug. sprkplug what types of fish are in that pond ? Any PS ?


Here are the sex ratios (percent male) that Childers got with various hybrid crosses. The male parent is listed first. There is some variation in the numbers from other studies

Redear X Bluegill 97 (3)
Bluegill X Redear 97
Redear X Green 69
Green X Redear 48
Bluegill X Green 97
Green X Bluegill 68 (2)
Redear X Warmouth 55
Bluegill X Warmouth 69 (2)
Green X Warmouth 16
Warmouth X Green 84

See this thread fyi

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.ph...true#Post150932

No PS ewest. BG, RES, LMB, CC, and a few old GC.

Eric, what does the number in (*) represent?

Misread the post, I am not sure. It may be number of studies.

I will check. IIRC it is the number of studies.

Hey Bruce,
What you got planned for your feed delivery system?

I bought two automatic feeders. Should I post pictures?

Nah, mfg and model numbers will work.

Quite a few things are rebranded, IE, coming from the same source manufacturer. Not uncommon at all, and is most prevalent.

Put's it on the fuzzy side of things when you need reliable info. on the product.

I wanna see pictures.....

I also say please do. The ones I'm seeing the AES catalog are pricey once you include the controllers. Hopefully you found something more reasonable.

OTH I've been thinking of trying a pendulum feeder I have on hand. If there are enough fish in the tank it should work. I saw somewhere on the net where a guy showed how to build one.

OK, pic's would be really good!

I kinda like the auger feeders.

About 2005,
I bought a belt feeder on ebay from a fish farm in WI that went belly up. The pic of the unit looked good, but when I got it, well, I was afraid to plug it in! It was in bad shape!

Theirs was a failed attempt at YP. They also had several large, cone bottom tanks for sale with home made frames.

4 YP start ups, that I know of, never really got too far along. 2 in MI, 1 in OH and 1 in WI. 3 of these were recycle systems and 1 utilized the discharge water from a power plant. That one got accidentally overdosed with Chlorine.

Boy, Google fish feeders, and a whole bunch of stuff comes up. A lot of them look identical with different brand names

Couldn't find a particular Auger Feeder that was especially developed for feed training. I'll have to keep looking, but it's been a few years since I saw it.


Bruces Future Fish Feeder:


Actually, that is at the Platte River State Hatchery in MI. I stopped by a couple months ago. Really cool place!
These are all automated.

Yeah those government fish farms don't have to worry about making a profit.

Nor Security, as what recently happened!

Well Bruce,

What about pic's???

I promise not to laugh, unless it is a re-branded AquaChef from mainland China

Three redear sunfish from the tank.

Top fish is early age-1 (8 mo. old) fish that is not currently feed training.

Middle fish is early age-1 (8 mo. old) fish that is successfully converting to pelleted feed.

Bottom fish is early age-2 (approximately 20 mo. old) that has been eating pellets since June of last year.

Highest relative weight age-1 RES thriving in indoor tank and on pelleted feed. This fish was seen actively eating pellets.

Feed that is being used to feed train RES. This product was featured at Pond Boss conference by Cargill, and is being enhusiastically received by the baby RES!

Pond Zinger product, also featured at the Pond Boss conference. I am currently using these Pond Zingers to clarify my waste tank. It's hard to quantify the result, but it very much appears that the water becomes clarified, and it is a fact that bluegill live and feed in the waste water tank after the Zinger has been applied.

My feeders, which I got from Aquatic EcoSystems. Unfortunately, I haven't been ambitious enough to get them in full use to adequately assess their effectiveness.

My pump and filter from Matala, who was represented at the conferencce. So far, flawless operation.

No fish dead at this point. All babies look happy!

Bruce, knowing your history with BG, it's weird seeing long lepomis from your tanks instead of ones that are just about as tall as long. That's a dramatic representation of what pellet training will do for growth tho!

Amazing results! Nice work, Bruce.

Bruce - Thanks for all the pictures and info. Great fish raising as usual.

What's the scoop here Bruce?

Fill us in!

Great time to ask.

I lost 180 fish in the last five weeks. Examination of all the dead fish strongly suggested starvation.

Evidently you either learn to eat bits of pellets and bloodworms, or you perish.

I cleaned the tank one last time this morning, and began the process of emigration to the outdoor tanks.

I moved out all of the adult fish. We had 100% success keeping the big ones alive. They ate half and whole nightcrawlers all winter.

I moved out 210 of the little bluegill and redears that survived. They seemed to be in fair condition, but I believe that they maybe, at most, grew 2-4 mm, and barely maintained body condition. The remaining fish in the tank (maybe 150?) all seem healthy and happy, and are already back on the feed.

I took out the heater because the ambient air temperature is now above what the heater kicks on at.

I'll get some pictures eventually.

Well, here we go again. I'd like to restart this thread. Later today I'll post some photos.

Question #1 for winter 2013/2014.

I've been trying a variety of live foods for my redear sunfish. Pelleted feed is limiting, as far as number of fish because of it's tendency to cloud the water and degrade the quality.

By far, the best thing I've found so far is red wigglers!

I ordered 5,000, and the fish are going through them like crazy. It had crossed my mind to culture them a little bit. I think I would need to produce about 50 pounds of them each year to make it worth my effort.

Is this an unrealistic goal? I know I have the space to do it. And I also have the ability to modify temperatures in that space. Any ideas if there is a temperature range that would be best for this sort of endeavor? Thanks in advance!

By the way, last winter I was only able to maintain water temperatures in the very low 40's. This year I'll be in the upper 60's.

How about hooking up a flood and drain tank (aquaponics) with your fish tank with redworms in the media? Although my aquaponic tanks are raft tanks and I don't use redworms, I've been told the redworms flourish in the media and reproduce.

It's a win win as if you do it right. You won't even have to do water changes in your fish tank as your plants will consume the nitrates and your media will do your biological and mechanical filtration. And you can produce fresh produce.

A few on here can verify if you can produce enough redworms and how much media you would need.

Maybe Leo could weigh in on this.

I was having some trouble selecting tank heating.

Didn't want to spend the big bucks on a reliable industrial rig, nor did I want to get a failure prone piece off the internet.

Maybe a week or so ago, an old brain cell, which has an electric wheel chair, buzzed up front.

Said, Hey dude! Remember that life cycle rig from back in the 90's?
Yep!
What did you use to heat the water?
Electric hot water heater elements. (domestic)
How long did it run?
24/365 for eight years before they shipped the system off to China.
Well, there ya go! Don't make me take this trip again! Do you know how dangerous it is navigating this scrambled egg?

Seriously tho, they will work in my application, and not too expensive for the good ones.

I am looking forward to seeing some pictures.

I am feeding five RES that I moved indoors into a 75 gallon aquarium small fathead minnows, nightcrawlers, and bloodworms.

Your RES should do very well with red wigglers.

Bruce, I've done that and have some doubts as to the viability of the idea. 50 pounds of worms would be an astounding amount.

My biggest concern would be the dirt that I would have to sift through to clean the worms for consumption. It needs to be something sort of "clean" and easy to rinse. I'll send pictures of what the worms were delivered in.

But yeah, you're right. Sounds like a LOT of worms. That would be a pound of overall growth a week. It would need to be a big bin. Maybe I can come up with a link to what this particular company suggests.

Pictures coming soon.

50 pounds would be a bunch. Maybe be about 1300.00 bucks from a distributor if you bought them.

Feed training and feeding in a tank that is not intended for said purpose will result in very poor water quality.

Tossing a sock with a few bio-balls stuffed in the toe part is not an effective solids filter, nor an effective bio-filter.

Sure am glad I don't jump anymore when the twitch hit's me

I'm actually controlling the water quality by simple 20 gallon daily water replacement. So far, my ammonia test strips indicate no spike in unionized ammonia.

Here's photo #1.

Here's photo #2, showing some of the redear sunfish that are anxiously awaiting their next meal.

Current food item of choice. 1 3/4 cents each including delivery.

The company and delivery method for 5,000 red wigglies!

...and they were delivered in fabulous shape!

How many gallons are the tanks?

I use simple aquarium heaters with sensors for for my tanks that run from 250 to 300 gallons plus. Biggest heater I use is 1000 watts and it's not on all the time. One of the high schools I set up bought an AES industrial heater and thermostat and it fried in no time. My aquarium heaters have been going strong for 2 years now.

I bought my heaters on Amazon for under $100.00 like this one:

http://www.amazon.com/1000-WATT-TITANIUM...ater+1000+watts

What is your total ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates in your system? I wasn't aware you could measure un-ionized ammmonia with a test strip. Really?

Even below lethal levels of all of the above will stress your fish and produce lousy growth rates. Test strips suck IMHO. You really need to invest in something like this:

http://www.amazon.com/API-Freshwater-Master-Test-Kit/dp/B000255NCI

Here's a look inside the bag.

Cecil, I promise I will look into that stuff, but I think I'm under a little less pressure as far as water quality, given the fact that I'm replacing water at such a high rate. The tanks are 300G and 400G. I hope to have total water replacement every 2 weeks.

No worries Bruce and I'm sure you have a lot on your plate as far as running a dental business. Just seems like some minor changes to your system could up your carrying capacity and reduce your water changes. I.e., a self cleaning center drain and side drain run to some kind of diy filter would remove your solids for you. Then a dedicated biofilter (also diy) would keep all your nitrogen parameters except nitrates at zero. And of course keeping your water temp in optimum range. Once you do that you would be amazed at the growth rates of panfish in a tank.

My 200 YP YOY in less than 200 gallons of water are now pushing 10 inches. Not sure one would even get that in a pond.

Higher water temps also make the fish hungrier and more apt to feed train.

As far as aquaponics and the redworms I'm not sure that is a viable option especially indoors. Just thought I'd throw it out there for the other aquaponic people to chime in on.

Cecil post pics of those YP if possible.

Each fish species has a temp range from low terminal to high terminal. Within that range feeding and growth max at different points but not anywhere near either lethal extreme. To a point within that optimum range feeding activity is usually a little higher just below the max growth rate point which is well below thermal max. So higher water temps are good but only so far.

Cecil I know you know the above so it is intended for others who may not know about fish being cold blooded and how their growth , feeding and metabolism work.

Great post.

Bruce, BSF would probably work for about 4 months a year. Will RES eat them?

I'm using freeze-dried BSF currently. Once hydrated, the redears will bang away at them, but spit a lot out. I'm determined to incorporate BSF, but evidently the dried ones are an acquired taste.

Will they eat waxworms?

Are we talking Black Soldier Flies???

Yes

...and yes.

So your point is Bruce is trying to grow his redears in lower water temps to outlive us all?

Sorry couldn't resist.

My perch are grown out in 75 to 77 F. water btw.

Bruce,

Keep tabs on what's happening between the two tanks. One being plastic and the other being galvanized.



Generally, one would want to coat the inside of a galvanized tank with an epoxy, or like material, to avoid the potential for Zinc poisoning.

If all you're doing is changing out a bit of water every day, with no real filtration, get a cheap TDS meter.

From what I have read galvanized may not be a problem in medium ph water that is not too acidic or alkaline but it's said not to take a chance.

Come to think of it the fish do seem to have a shinny galvanized sheen to them.

From my experience with galvanized tanks and epoxy though (even with acid etching etc.) the epoxy eventually deteriorates somewhere and allows water underneath it. You're better off sticking with plastic or fiberglass if you have a choice.

Do you guys really think the zinc could kill my fish? Do you think my water exchange rate affects that? How would I know if problems are developing?

I could have no effect, slowly leech and be a stressor, or kill them. Hard do to say as it depends on your water chemistry. Most aquaculture sources say to stay away from it or coat it with something. Many sources say not to even use zinc in small fittings.

What is your PH?

Crap. Well, so far, after about five weeks the fish are feeding VERY vigorously. I hope that's a good indicator.

I know next to nothing about aquaculture, but I think your stated goal of total water replacement every two weeks would surely help reduce, if not eliminate, any potential health issues due to exposure to zinc?

That's what I'm hoping, but it's sure got me on guard looking for signs of toxicity.

Hard to tell from the pics, but your tank may have oxidized a bit, thus creating a patina on the surface. Don't brush that off!!!

The main reason that Aquaculturalist don't use galvanized tanks, is because ya should be cleaning them from time to time to get results, and a scrubbing could easily release the oxidized material into the water that your filtration could never eliminate.

You don't have a filtration system, but you would have to be on the fine micron level and hope it hasn't gone dissolved.

Just don't disrupt the inside tank surface, like you would do a root scaling, or even brushing your teeth.

Difficult to post stuff sometimes.

I'm going to Walmart and watch the people

You're probably fine then.

Phil,

Ya know there is no cleaning from time to time with dual flow bottom and side drain self cleaning circular tanks.

Have fun at Wally World. I stopped shopping there after my sibling started working there. The Walmart family owns 40 percent of the nation's wealth but employees can't get more than 32 hours a week and qualify for food stamps.

There is always cleaning, and that crap your talking about ain't worth 2 cent's

I need to get to Walmart before all the electric rigs are taken up! My neighbor said, all ya have to do to get one of the fancy rigs is to just jump on one and take off. No need for handicapped credentials

Just kidding tho. I do have to pick up something they have a good sale on.

Here's my current assessment of the palatability of various items.

On a 1 to 10 scale based on how agressively the fish eat.

Nightcrawlers: 9
Red wigglers: 9
Dried black soldier fly larvae: 2
Frozen blood worms: 10+++
Pellets: 5 (but better as the water warms)
Fathead minnows: 1

Riiiiight.

Actually you do know all the surfaces in a recirc system are places for autothropic bacteria to grow on right? I saw one figure that said up to 30 percent of the surface area for it to grow on is on tank surfaces. So you don't want to clean too well. That's a common mistake for aquarium newbies.

I also find messing with the tanks stresses the fish.

It's amazing how clean my circular tanks are with the bottom drain and fish swimming around to move solids to the bottom drain. One pull of the slide valve on the external stand pipe and it's out of there! Just like a toilet! Of course my trout tanks will have continuous flow out of the bottom drain.

My trout large trout tanks will have a bottom center drain that will flow via gravity continuously about 10 to 20 percent of the flow to a parabolic sieve filter to get the larger solids out of the system almost immediately, instead of sitting their polluting the water. The side drain will also go to the parabolic sieve filter. Then the flow will to a rotary drum filter and on to my low head rbc's. After that it's a sump tank with airlift tubes and a foam fractionator and back to the tanks via tpr's (tangential point returns).

All DIY except for the rotary drum filter and sieve filter. Tanks will be low cost Intex pools.

Yeah keep that water warm. That's one of the secrets of feed training fish.

Wow those bloodworms must be something else!

Just got back and all the electric rigs were spoken for, crap!

Neighbor was outside and said my timing was way off

I did pick up some Bacon Flavored Spam that was on sale tho. The gal at the register wondered if I like that stuff? Said, don't know? We'll find out when there's no food left

RES absolutly love freshly thawed bloodworms!

Likeabilty with fathead minnows is all about size, the smaller "pet shop" minnows are much more likeable than the slightly larger small "bait shop" minnows. My 7" aquarium RES show a very strong preference for minnows under 1-3/4" in length.

You're absolutely right about the size of the fathead minnows being the primary factor. Redears will not beat up a minnow to eat it. It has to be quick and easy. Bluegill will just pound them into submission.

Bruce, from the look of all the psychedelic lights in your fish room, I think it may be a good idea to do a random drug testing also! Please don't tell me you have continuous Hendrix and Joplin playing in the background!

I wonder if the last thing a fhm hears before being eaten is Morrison singing the end. Great song. All bruces fish need is a lava lamp and a little wacky tabbaci and they'll be hungry in no time

Bruce, the four 3" RES I have in our aquarium love TetraBetta food. It is 43% protein and has fish meal and shrimp meal as part of the ingredients. Realizing buying it in 1oz containers of feed at WalMart is not going to make your wife happy with the cost side of the ledger, I do not know if one of the commercial feed makers make something similar in suitable size bags at a reasonable price for your purposes.

They also take floating 32% generic catfish pellets crushed up with pliers but they sure do not like it as well as tiny Tetra pellets.

I trapped some FHM out of the pond and put in with the RES and they seem to keep the feed in the bottom of the tank that the RES missed cleaned up. It had become a problem before starting to feed the Tetra food. Your FHM's could serve a dual purpose if you could put a bunch of medium sized ones in. Clean up the missed feed to help with the water quality and become a snack to the RES as they got big enough to consume them. Just an idea from someone who has zero experience with what you are doing.

What my RES really love is when my wife and I put on the boots, wade a few inches out in the pond that we have the edge lined with 2-3" rocks, turn some rocks over and bring them some tasty snails (under fallen leaves is a good place to look too). They start out will the small ones and work their way up in size till they cant get them in their mouth or can't crush them and will spit them back out. The big snails lay eggs and then when the snail eggs start looking like they are growing and turning colors, they mysteriously disappear.

Let's see. For you to feed your amount of fish snails..........looks like you should set aside lots of time for feeding fish. :-)

Great post! What does one ounce cost? I wonder if it's available in 8 or 16 ounce quantities on the internet. Hmm.

Remember that dry food converts to about 6:1 in wet or frozen weight. Meaning I would have to compare 1 ounce cost for flakes vs. 8 ounce cost for frozen bloodworms. The converstion might not be as bad as you'd think.

Bruce,

O.K stupid question: what are your goals with putting the redear in the tanks? And forgive if that's been covered and I missed it.

Feed training? Growth over winter and feed training is not the primary goal? Seems if it's the former, feeding live or expensive frozen feeds is counterproductive. Or perhaps you are working toward training on artificial feed by feeding the live feed, then frozen, then freezedried, then pellets?

???

The goal is to get these fish big enough to release in the Quarry as soon as possible. I've got a few five to seven pound bass in the quarry that would love to make these redears into a snack. The quarry, evidently because of the limestone induced water chemistry, is a haven for snails. I'd like to maintain a decent population of redears to keep the snails in check. The redears stocked over the last three years have thrived and grown into beautiful 1+ pound specimens. Interestingly, I've never seen a single redear come up to pellets in my lake, so regardless of their feed-training status, they convert entirely to natural feed. It's really fun to watch. The pellet training is just a temporary tool that hopefully allows me to get these fish to a size that allows them a chance around those goofball largemouth.

I just ordered 10 1KG flat-packs of bloodworms to feed to the little guys over the next few weeks. It was actually really cheap on a per unit basis. 22 pounds for $125. Shorty, if you need some more bloodworms I'll happily trade for some YOY's next year.

Here's our buddy Alex Gonzales from Recycled Fish with one of the beautiful quarry redears. It was his personal best. This fish would have been stocked when it was about 3 ounces, and now probably weighs about 22 ounces.

Picture doesn't even do that fish justice. It was impressive to say the least!

I should be good on bloodworms, I am only overwintering 5 RES, thank you for the offer.

My five RES are just as enthusiastic about night crawlers as they are bloodworms so long as the night crawlers are sliced into pieces less than a 1/2" in length.

Thanks to you monkeys, I just spent four hours reconfiguring my entire fish room. I had one dead RES in the zinc coated metal tank and I about lost my mind. The metal tank is now the waste tank.

Good move! Us monkeys work for free some times

For feed training, check into Otohime fish diets.

O.K. makes sense to me. However keep those temps up in the upper 70's, ammonia, and nitrites basicially zip and you should have some fastest growth rates on natural feed. Keep the tank as clean as you can since your tank isn't self cleaning. For the best growth rates possible you need to not only feed quality feed and keep temps optimum but you need to keep any stressors low which included no ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates below a certain level by doing water changes. It's too bad you don't have one of these for a biofilter. Really easy to build.

http://www.koiphen.com/forums/showthread.php?69028-Birdman-s-Fluid-Bed-Filter

You can downsize the outlet to 2 inches if your flow is under 20 gpm and 40 lpm (40 watts) should be enough for the filter itself. I use a 60 lpm for both the filter and a diffuser in the center of a 300 gallon fish tank.

Here's where I get my linear air pumps at:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Air-Pump-40w-New...=item25826bed90

They are so quiet you can hardly hear them and very efficient.

And here is the plastic media for about 26.00 per cubic feet. You would probably only need a couple of cubic feet.

http://www.w-m-t.com/Products/WaterTek_MB3_Moving_Bed_Media.php

The above filter is really easy to build although I use Uniseals to put all my fittings in. You can forgo the hamster ball by using some plastic mesh. My water inlet is only 3/4 inch so the media is to big to fit into it.

I use a small 600 gph mag drive pump to run water into the bottom from the top of another drum filled with plastic deer fench mesh as a mechanical filter. Put a drain in the bottom and you can hose off the filter material ever few days or once a week and drain the solids down the drain. I use a pve siphon tube to run the tank water to the bottom of this barrel to trap solids. Very simple but yet very very effective.

"Keep the tank as clean as you can."

Of settleable solids and and suspended solids which is easiest to do with a dual drain system. As far as other surfaces no big deal.

Cecil, what would it cost me to have you come out and build it?

I make a list of materials, you get them together, you pay for round trip flight and meals while I'm there and we'd be good.

Can the same filter service both tanks?

Wife says she does not remember on the TetraBetta food but thought around a couple bucks. She got it at Wal-Mart.

It is actually a very small round floating pellet. Smaller than a BB. When I first tried it the RES were not hitting anything on the surface yet so I dropped it into the filter water flow stream so it would drive the pellets down to their depth and they took it right away. Once they got a taste of it they now will hit it anywhere and look for it on the surface. Sometimes it floats against the glass and they hit it so hard you can hear them hitting the glass. They definitely like it.

She did a quick search on line and found it priced anywhere from $1.28 to about $2.75.

Here is the exact bottle we have but she bought it at Wal-Mart
TetraBetta floating mini pellets

Here is a big container but it says "Plus" on it. Did not read to see what the "Plus" means. Looks like it is 12 oz for $22 so may be as cheap to buy small containers if found at the right place.

12 oz container

Hope this helps.

Here is a 50% protein floating pellet.

50% floating pellet

snrub, what's the water temps that those fish are in?

Bruce, the amount of headaches and time saved screwing around that Cecil would save you would be well worth having him come out and get you up and running. Very well worth it!!

If I ever decide to go the tank route for ANY fish, Cecil would be my paid on-site conusltant.

Yeah, probably setting up a basic system wouldn't hurt.

Yes but you would still want a clarfier barrel and siphon for each tank to remove both suspended solids and some settleable solids before thet reach the bottom of the tank. The external standpipe for each tank removes the settleable solids.

If you go with a biofilter barrel for each fish tank you could handle more fish in the long run.

One problem I see with trying to change things midstream is you have to have a place to put the fish while you retrofit the tanks. And it will take about three weeks to get the biofilter cycled. If it seems to be working now perhaps no major changes should be done before the next season? On the other hand I hope you don't run into problems before then. If you increase water temps your percentage of un-ionized ammonia will go up.

Room temp so probably around 72 I would guess. No thermometer in tank.

Bruce,

There is a way to reduce the amount of un-ionized ammonia, which is by lowering the Ph. If you do it slowly and your alkalinity is not low it's pretty safe. I did this during the summer in my aqaponics system outdoors to allow maximum uptake of nutrients to my tomatoe plants. My Ph is normally in the mid 8 range and by adding small amounts of muriatic acid to a five gallon bucket, and then my clarifier tank, I was able to drop my Ph in the 6.8 to 7.0 range.

Since Bruce is doing frequent water changes pH would have to be lowered each time. That could become time consuming.

CB1 do you know how a lowered pH affects the denitrifying bacteria?

The lower you go, the less effective they are. A PH, generally around 6.0 or below will kill your biofilter.

You didn't get what I told you to get.

The epoxy I pointed out is commonly used at waste water treatment facilities submerged in the poo poo tanks, and is guaranteed for 20 years in such service if properly applied and cured.

It's best if ya don't have to mess with the stuff tho. A novice can screw it up pretty bad!

That's the kicker. It's not easy getting something to stick to galvanizing, not easy at all.

Very common and durable practice. It's called a duplex system. Follow ASTM D6386 for preparing the galvanized surface.

First of all it's not that big of a deal as you just add a little acid for every water change. Muriatic acid is cheap and a gallon lasts weeks in a system the size of Bruce's. We do this all the time in aquaponic set ups.

As far as lowered ph effecting nitrifying bacteria as long as the ph is dropped gradually the bacteria will adapt. In aquaponics 6.8 to 7.0 is a compromise as the plants like it even lower, but you don't want to go lower than 6.8 for the bacteria.

I agree that it is a common and durable practice. Just not one that a hobby aquaculturist could easily do in their basement or workshop. Key word being easy.

For arguments sake, say you had a 300 gallon galvanized stock tank that was previously in use for 10 months, and you needed to epoxy paint the inside for use for aquaculture. What would it cost to prep the tank according to ASTM D6386? Once the tank was prepped, how long of an interval would be acceptable before the epoxy was painted on? For instance, could Cecil do the prep work correctly at his house?

No need to go that low. Even the fish won't like it that low.

All it takes is a pin hole. Even the best epoxy isn't 100 percent over time. That comes from an expert.

It's really irrelavent from my personal experience. Even though I got two 300 gallon tanks via bartering, by the time i bought the epoxy and did the acid etching and applied the epoxy,it would have been cheaper to just purchase a plastic stock tank. In my case I located a supplier of plastic tanks with minor defects and got by even cheaper.

Another downside to galvanized stock tanks was the ribbing tends to collect solids.

That wasn't the point I was making, but no, he could not prep a new or even 10 month old tank properly in his basement.

That's why the new stock tank I bought a few years ago is outside getting aged. Just a simple cleaning, let it dry thoroughly and shoot it.

I doubt I'll ever use it tho. Too much of a PITA.
I think I'll get a couple cows

I was pointing out Death!!!

For what the fish or the bacteria?

Bacteria. Pretty much gonna be toast about then.