Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Tilapitopia 3.0

I honestly don't know about outside longevity but you could ask the company. I did have one outside in the shade for one summer with no issues. Now I use an 8 foot blue plastic stock tank for outside as I needed a larger tank. I've had that one for four years now with no issues. Even store it outside upside down for the winter. (Won't fit through a doorway).

As far as a bottom flush system you can't go wrong with a 3 inch unseal, short section of 3 inch PVC pushed through it with a shower drain glued in. If you glue an end cap on to a section of PVC and then cut most of it off you will have a lip to keep the shower drain from pulling through the Uniseal.

Then an elbow and 3 inch pipe parallel to the floor or ground, culminating to a knife gate valve and an external stand pipe. On the other side of stand pipe (T with vertical pipe fitted in) is a barb fitting and a water line to direct waste water flow. Awesome stuff for a garden or your lawn!

Pull the knife gate valve and the water around the drain in the fish tank rushes to the top of the stand pipe with enough force to really suck out any solids in the drain and around it. Amazing how dark it is if the fish are tilapia!

I use fernco couplers to put sections of it together to make disassembly easier. You can set the whole thing on one or two rows of blocks to get the blue tanks even with the fish tank. You can use less blocks if you have piece of plywood under the tank between the blocks.

Remember how many blocks it took at the Aquaculture convention in Shipshewanna? Don't do that anymore! Crazy times!

Edit: Just realized you said flow through. In that case just dig a trench under your tank to fit the bottom drain and you are good to go.

Do I remember? Who helped move them inside?

The flow thru system would be screened, so fish couldn't flow from one tank to another. I'd open the bottom drain once a day to get all the nasty's out.

Heck, I could go with 8' dia tanks too - just couldn't move more than one at a time with the trailer that I have.

And I appreciated it!

I loaded them back up by myself when everything was over. I didn't think it would ever end!

Some of those blocks when to school systems and two rows were just used on top of a poured footer under my addition that will house our swim spa.

More good ideas Cecil, I'll have to look into those types of tanks around here.

Now back to the freak show...

Here are a few pictures of some of the solar setup.

This one is the panels, the front three are for electricity, ie this is the power for the batteries, air pumps and lights. The back four are for heat, I expect to add four more panels into the system later this year, and during the cold, miserable part of the winter, there may be even more panels than that!!



This is a picture of the charge controller refilling the batteries after a night of draining due to electric loads.



After the batteries are full, you should see something like this.



All this means is that the batteries are full and system is not using much power. If I turned something "on" as a load, the charge controller would output the needed power if available.

Finally, here is a picture of the temporary setup. It shows the battery box, the load sensing Wizbang Jr on the deltec bus bar, the charge controller, and a sine wave inverter. With this setup, we have 230 Amp-hours of DC power at 24 volts. and we can make up to 1500 watts of 120V AC as needed. The current set of solar panels can produce around 700 watts of power in full sun. Of course, we can add more panels to generate more power if needed.

Cool stuff!

Brian, is your inverter putting out a true, or modified sine wave?

Rex,
its a true sine wave. I paid a little more for it, but I like the cleaner power.

I would be nervous mowing around those panels!

I know what you mean! I have a business sign near the highway in the front yard and over the years it looks like someone has shot at it a couple of times with birdshot. But I know it's the mower.

Thanks for the info and link Cecil. Those would be quite reasonable compared to others selling tanks for an Aquaculture purpose. I'll check it out.

Supposed to go to Chicago next month for Rockwell's Automation Fair, but think I'll accidentally hit Grovertown on my GPS

When I get home tonight I'm gonna measure to see about putting a 15' dia Intex pool in the basement. I'm sure it will go easy, but can't remember where the support columns are. If all is well, I'll stop at Sears on the way to work in the morning and order one. Only $220.00 plus free ship to store. It's the 15' dia x 42" deep model.

Dave hasn't picked up the WE from Chippewa yet, but said if I want to play with some to let him know by the 26th. They are up to 8" right now, which on their own will not be feed trainable, but, If I only put 10-20 in a tank of YP that are feed trained, will they catch on???

No clue, but winter is approaching and I need something to do.

Just a thought on the Intex pools. I have seen koi folks put center drains in them using a bulkhead fitting and elevating them with high density foam board. They were using them as quarantine tanks or to bring their fish in for the winter.

When I finally get my coldwater partial recir going I will elevate the pools with a low level plywood platform and a couple 4 X 4's on top of each other spaced apart under plywood to support the tank. Probably two 4x4's every couple of feet. Or one layer of cinder blocks. The plywood will have a cutout in the center to provide rigid support to the center drain. My side drains will be 4 inch PVC siphons and the pools will work like a Cornell dual drain but on a shoestring budget. Mechanical filtrstion will either be a sieve filter or a rotary drum filter. There's an affordable European RDF now on the market for large koi ponds that would be perfect for all my tanks. I believe it's called profidrum. There's couple of distributers in the US now on the Koiphen site. There was another imported one from Indonesia that had a lot of mechanical issues.

Check Amazon and Ebay for Intex pools. They usually have the best prices and the shipping may be free. I got a 12 foot a couple of years ago for $108.00 with free shipping.

Tony,

There will be no mowing around those panels!! I have seen them hit by hail and they seem to do very well. I have been impressed, but I am not going to test them....

Looks so dry the grass hardly grows there! Tony would go out of business down there!

I have to admit I thought the same thing. "That will work great as long as you don't need to mow the lawn!"

I have a question as far as the IBCs go. I am planning on setting up a tank for a research project for school. There are a few IBCs laying around my farm and I was hoping to use one as my tank. The problem is they were not used for holding foodstuff, but instead for fertilizer. I was planning on scrubbing with dish soap, then pressure washing it. I don't want to go through all of this trouble if there will still be any harmful chemical remaining that will hurt my fish. If adequately cleaned, will this plan work?

Derek,
I only use food grade IBC's. That does not mean your totes won't work, but I would not use them unless I was sure its was no harm.

Just my two cents.

I am sold on the DD1 test method to be sure anything is safe for the pond. Throw a few small fish in and see....

I've cleaned a lot of plastic totes and barrels, and in my opinion the best thing to do after you've cleaned it is to ask yourself "would I use this for drinking water for my family?" If the answer is yes, you're probably good to go. If not, I wouldn't put fish in it.

If you decide to try it, I recommend a powdered brewers wash for cleaning. Some types of plastics are porous, and are difficult to clean.

I have one that I use to catch rain water that I thought about setting up with some tilapia to winter them. Seeing all these intricate setups is disheartening though. Just thought about putting a couple aquarium filters and heaters in/on it...

I don't think I agree with the comment about if you wouldn't drink out of it, don't put fish in it. I mean, I wouldn't drink out of my pond....

Sean

Don't give up that thought Sean! If you are willing to settle for only a few fish, I see no reason it wouldn't work as a hobby kind of project. I wouldn't try it for a bunch of fish though. I raised fish for years in aquariums, just don't over populate your ability to keep good water quality with those aquarium filters. Maybe a pair big enough to breed would give you several stocker little guys for next spring? I would probably throw in a benign bottom dweller to keep the excess food cleaned up. If I was doing it, I would set it up just like a big aquarium. My 2 cents

”Like an aquarium” was my thought on it Bill....set up in my shop. My thought was to use my minnow trap to get a couple dozen of my smallest fingerlings when the water gets to about 60 degrees in my pond...and set the heaters to maintain about 60-65 degrees through the winter. Then put them back in the pond in the spring when temps will support them.

Sean

I'm looking at it from a chemical standpoint. If I can't remove the fertilizer residue to the point where I'm comfortable enough to drink from it, I'm not sure I want fish in there, either.

I don't know how big a tank you are talking, but I would keep the feed to the low side. I would not be looking for huge growth, just get them healthy and happy thru the winter. I like your plan and it is a great opportunity for other folks to learn from your experience! I would think keeping the feed to the low side will also help with water quality.

The totes I have are 275 gallon. I have two. I also have some rain barrels I am not using any more.

I have a 2500 gallon tank I use to catch water off my shop roof. I would use it for small water changes.

Sean

I'm currently looking at blue barrels to build a dock. Some are labeled as food and others chemical. At first glance I figured food grade would be safe. And it probably would but I'm concerned about how safe. Some of the concentrated syrups don't ever really get cleaned out.

At one time I raised bees. One of our tricks was to give them a barrel of syrup generally used for soft drinks. We opened the top of the barrel and floated plastic foam on top. The bees landed on the foam and got the sugary stuff. However, one barrel of Coca Cola syrup killed a lot of bees one year. I'm still nervous about drinking Cokes.