Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose 300 Gallon Plastic totes??

I have found that producing just a few fish as you are doing ends up with each fish costing lots of money. But you learned and had fun doing it. Paying a school for what you learned would also be costly, plus you get to keep the fish.

Have you tried mixing mashed or small chopped worm pieces into the moist pellets? Then rolling 1/4" pellets? For best moldable rolled pellets, they should have consitancy of pie dough - moldable damp but not soggy wet. If you do this the bass should readily accept the worm flavored pellets. Another good option is to soak pellets with pureed worm, chopped-mashed shrimp, worm juice, shrimp, crayfish or clam water juice -something flavorful or fishy. I have used crayfish collected from the local creek to get my crayfish meat/juice. Store bought shrimp should work well.

I have found that if you make the soft pellets into odd shapes the pellets will sink in an unusual pattern and appear alive or swimming. That will entice bass to try eating the pellet. Once a bass tastes a worm or shrimp flavored pellet most will always accept additional pellets. When bass are eating pellets for a few days toa week, you can gradually reduce amount of flavoring when you soak the pellets. Aquamax and other high quality feeds do contain some flavor enhancers. When training fish, I always add krill powder when I moisten my pellets.

"Have you tried mixing mashed or small chopped worm pieces into the moist pellets? Then rolling 1/4" pellets?"

Bill, I stole the wife's blender when she wasn't looking and pureed some nightcrawlers along with the pellets until I had the right consistency to make my own sinking pellets. This morning before I left for work I fed them these pellets and they gobbled them up. Tonite when I got home they were not so anxious to eat them. Some did but quite a few of them spit them back out so I started mixing in some chopped worms and that got their attention.

Lost another smallmouth today. He measured 3-7/8" long and looked as though he had been eating ok. This makes 4 smallies and no largemouths. Do I see a trend here? Is it time to get the smallies out the tote with the largemouths? Is that the problem? Here is a pic of the smallie.



I also added a spray header to the incoming water from the well. We use these at work (steel mill) to spray fine mists of oil on the steel strips as they run through the mill. It really creates a surface disturbance (lots of tiny bubbles) without using any additional water.



Oy yea, by the way, she doesn't want the blender back. Go figure.

Since you only have 20 SMB you might as well leave them in the tote and see how many survive. It is not worth the time and effort to remove just 14-15 fish. It is possible that the LMB are harassing the SMB enough to cause stress and death. Time will tell more about this. Do the SMB appear segregated, more isolated and to be higher in the tank or near the surface or one corner? If so intimidation and stress is a factor.

You will probably have to feed worms mixed into pellets for about a week to get the bass fully conditioned to eating pellets. Then gradually over 3-4 days use less worm flavoring. I assume you are using "Aquamax for Carnivors" pellets? What number size of pellet?.

Heres an update. I had lost 2 more smallies so I seperated them so I could watch more closely. They would not eat!! I tried pieces of crawlers, red worms, & small minnows besides the pellets. They would not touch anything. Two more died so last saturday I took them back to the pond and released them. Perhaps they should have never been in the same tote with the largemouth?

The largemouths are doing great. Have not lost any and they are now taking both floating and sinking pellets. I also feed them pieces of crawlers, redworms & minnows about every other day. I love watching them swim around with minnow tails sticking out of their mouths.

I keep the water temp between 72 - 74. Also added another pump and filter that we had used for the koi pond that is really keeping the bottom of the tote clean.

BuckeyeWilly & others,

Your totes look like a great idea. I have access to some and was wondering about using two. One would be full of underwater plants and the other would have the fish in them. Is this feasable or should I just use a bog pond? Does the bait station take care of the aeration?

I am thinking about raising about 20 HSB for a few months and maybe getting them started on pellets. It is just an idea and of course it depends on availability of fish.

Thanks for any advice.

The second 300g tote could be turned into a large biologicial trickling type of filter that traps solids and processes ammonia. Another option is to use both totes as connected (piped one flowing into another) or separate raising tanks to reduce the biomass in each tank. Have overflow of both tanks discharge into a 55 gal barrel that acts as the trickling filter. A good efficient 55 gal trickling filter should handle 20-30 HSB in 300-600 gal of water. Put a bottom drain in the trickling filter to periodically drain off the settled solids. Decaying settled solids (mostly fish manure) puts a very big biochemical oxygen demand and increase of ammonia production on the recirculating system.

Thank you Bill. What do you put in the 55 gal drum?

The non-plant biofilter should contain materials that will not readily decompose, will not get compacted and yet allow lots of surface area (small interstitial openings) and air spaces for colonization of denitrifying bacteria. Light weight material would be helpful but not necessary.
Simplest material would be stones the size of golf balls or large pea gravel, but weight is a concern with this. Broken cement block pieces or brick pieces would work, again a weight factor. Another option along these lines is lava rock.

Typically the pros use filter media such as bioballs, plastic ribbons (biofill), plastic netting, filter foam, flexable synthetic fibers, etc. Look or search the aquaculture field for what is commonly used. Although plan on some expense if you use some purchased speciality items. You should research biofilters and biofilter sizing before going much further. Aquatic Eco-Systems catalog can get you started: aquaticeco.com
see Techtalk 95 for filter sizing info.

I would consider making the 55 g drum a two stage filter. On top of the drum or just inside, I would first have a solids filter to trap largest particulates. This would consist primarily of a removable filter foam or polyester washable 1/2"-2" thick mat. This would filter out lots of larger solids and could be removed, washed/cleaned, and replaced.

After the water is prefiltered at the top you want it to then be evenly distributed or spread out over the entire top surface area of the barrel so the water is evenly distributed to all surface parts of the biofilter to begin the downward trickling and cleaning process. Pipe the water out the bottom of the filter for a return trip back to the growing tank.
Other filter designs are also available.

Thanks again Bill, that is a great website.

If I had a maximum of 20 pounds of fish does anyone know how many gpm the pump would need to be capable of?

Well I went on aquaticeco.com and read tech talk pump selection guide #105. I then called their tech line and learned a ton of information.

One thing that I did not plan on was the air pump and diffusers. I guess I thought that the water would be sprayed over the surface of the water and that would get the oxygen into it, I was wrong. A few hundred dollars wrong.

mtalley, I regularly raise fish quantities over 50 pounds in stock tanks without benefit of air pump and diffuser. I simply use a sweeper nozzle because my water is routed through a pressure tank. Do you have a pressure tank?

No. If you mean just a normal pressure tank for rural residential, no I live in town, but we have good water pressure. But, I thought it was a closed system with water only being added when need be. I think I am misunderstanding you.

I was going to have a pump drawing water from the bottom of the 2nd in line tote. The water would be pumped to the biofilter (drum) then routed to the first tote then 2nd. All water would be dumped into the top of each container and drawn out the bottom.

OK, seems we lost some posts but I got it that Bruce does not use a closed system.

The pump that I am using has 1 1/4" in pipe size and 1" out. That water will be pumped to the top of the bio filter. How do I rig it so that the water does not splash out yet it is evenly distributed over the filter foam? The spray header buckeye uses looks like it would cause a lot of resistance. The water will then be gravity fed to the first tote then second. Will 1 1/2" pipe be big enough to keep up with the volume that the pressurized 1" pipe moves? Also, does the bacteria in the non plant biofilter need sunlight? I was going to use a metal 55gal drum. Thanks for any help.

I'm pretty sure bacteria that make their living off processing nitrogen compounds don't need sunlight. Sunlight might even cause a problem by encouraging algae growth in the filter assembly - somebody should know about that.

mtalley, the spray head did cause a lot of resistance and I removed it. The water now returns to the tote through 1-1/2" pipe. I have had no water quality issues with this system. The bog pond is doing great and some of the plants are actually blooming. The pump causes all the solids in the tank to settle right next to the pump. I purchased a small vacuum pump that I can use to pick the solids up and lose very little water. I add additional water about once a week.

Update on the bass. I haven't lost any fish and they are all now eating the pellets. It's kind of funny - some eat the floating pellets while some will only eat the sinking food. I make my sinking pellets by mixing them in a jar with water and I add a little salt (for flavor?). I shake them good for a few minutes and then place them in ziplock bags in the fridge for 24 hours. When I feed I then have to squeeze the pelllets so they sink. The bass are really growing!! I have at least 1/2 dozen that look to be 7". The rest are in the 4 to 5" size. All with nice fat bellies. This sure makes a great winter project!!

Willie

Ok, I have the system set up with two 300 gal totes and a 55 gal drum as the biofilter. I have two problems.

The pump is pumping faster through 1 1/4" pipe than the water can gravity through 2" pipe. I can slow the pumps flow by closing a valve a little that feeds the water to it. But that seems like it would waste a bunch of electricity. Does anyone know if a reostat sp? would work with a 1 phase motor? Or does anyone have any other ideas?

The other problem I have is I forgot to put a screen in the bottom of the totes so small fish would be sucked into the pump, not good.

Other than that eveything seems to be working. It is hard for me to believe that the fish need that amount of water flow.

The correct spelling is rheostat. Barring info from someone who actually knows, you may find the following speculation of use.

A rheostat is a variable resistor, which would be used to attempt to control pump output by reducing the supply voltage from the nominal 110/115/120 VAC without changing the sinusoidal waveform. A variac (variable output transformer, 110 VAC in and dial-an-output) would have the same affect, without having to worry about the rheostat's power rating.

IME, single phase motors subjected to lower than normal voltage input (with the regular sinusoidal waveform) either get enough power to start and then run (apparently) normally, or won't start at all. The reduced voltage level which will enable them to start is load dependent, i.e. 92 VAC would start a motor having a light initial load, but not with a heavier load. With a pump, I think this load cutoff point would be based on the water pressure the pump is supplying.

If the motor gets so little voltage (wrt it's load) that it cannot start, IME being in this partial-power-supplied-but-not-enough-to-start state willl not damage the motor in the short term. I personally have not cared to leave a single phase motor plugged in to such insufficient voltage for long enough to determine long term affects. I have run an single phase air compressor with low voltage (apx. 92 VAC) for several hours accumulated over a period of several years without any (apparent) ill affects.

Solid state dimmers, as have been commonly used to control incandescent lighting levels, reduce supplied power by chopping out a portion of the waveform, changing it's shape from the normal sinusoidal form. These should only be used for resistive loads and would likely be very bad news for a motor.

It is not a god idea to starve the pump by reducing flow to the inlet. Doing so will result in cavitation and damage the impellar. it is better to reduce the outlet side of the pump by partially blocking flow and putting a little back pressure on the pump. unless you have a positive displacement pump, this should not cause any problems. if you do have a positive displacement pump (piston pump for example) then you need to insert a pressure relief back to the suction side to control outlet flow. The power consumption difference on a small pump with partial flow restriction is insignificant.

I think your pump is oversized for the needs of the system biofilter. Evidently my post about pump size (gpm) did not get posted in this thread due to website technical problems. I proposed the rated flow volume of the pump should be in the neighborhood of 7 to 10 gpm which would also allow for a pump head height of 5-6 ft. IMO actual flow to the biofilter only needs to be 4-6 gpm (max 10-20gpm). Significantly higher flow rates could possibly actually decrease efficiency of the biofoilter, although I am not an expert in this.

Can I ask who recommended the pump size or how you determined size of the pump you are now using? Does it have a flow rate that you can provide? A pump requiring a 1.5" dia pipe seems like way too much flow for a 55 gal trickling filter and a 600 gal combined culture tank containing 20-30 fish (6"-10").

When I had a simple trickling filter made from a 5 gallon bucket, I had the water discharging through a hole in the cover/lid (prevent external splashing) into the center of the biofilter. Then the flow hit a flat large dia inverted lid with a 1/2"-1" rim to help contain the water until it drained through onto the filter pads. The lid had lots of small (1/4") holes randomly placed in it. In the lid/spreader I placed numerous rocks to help redirect, slow and spread the flowing water from the discharge pipe. Water moved through the filter pads, trickled down into the biofilter media and collected at the bottom of the bucket where it flowed by gravity out onto and powering (waterwheel) a rotating drum biofilter that sat in the fish tank. Filter pads were rinsed and cleaned once/wk or overy other week depending on how much solid waste was being produced.

Could an overly high flow rate be split, with part going into the biofilter and part returned to the tanks, perhaps to spray and aerate?

Good idea Theo.

Bullseye Theo, that is what I did. The water that returns to the tank is regulated by a ball valve.

Bill Cody, I was using pump sizes suggested by aquatececo.com, but used a different pump (same specs). I told them I would have 20 lbs of fish in the system and they suggested 60 gpm. We may have over estimated the head.

M Spinhirne, my dad said the exact same thing. All of a sudden he is involved in the project.

To spread the water evenly over the biofilter I used a bunch of pvc fittings and some pipe and drilled holes in both. I also added an aerator and some bateria.

Thank you guys very much for the help. I have some BG and FH coming in the morning. I will put some pics up tomarrow. Thanks again, you guys have given me some great ideas.

More problems ...

Added about 50 total 3-4" BG and RES to the first tote and 200 FH to the second tote. I had put a screen and some foam in the outlet pipe of the second tote but some FH managed to become chum anyway by going through the pump. Then I think a BG or RES got caught in the transfer pipe that gravities water from tote 1 to tote 2. This was enough back pressure to overflow tote 1. Other than that and the fact that I don't trust the system to leave the pump on unattended overnight every thing is great.

Does the bacteria that you add to the biofilter (gravel)reproduce very quickly? I added 16 oz yesterday but lost some water today so I know I lost some bacteria. We also planted some more fish in the pond, I'll post about that after I get done w/ dinner.

We added 200 BG, 200 RES, 2,000 FH, and 100 crawdads to the pond this morning. When we put the 215 WC and 5,000 Rosie Reds in a few weeks ago I didn't see much of them afterward. This was a little different. The crawdads kept heading towards the bank so I kept throwing them into deeper water. I also noticed the BG, RES and FH swam around much more this time.

I had a minnow trap in the water about 200 feet from where we planted the fish. I have had it in for 10 days or so and I checked it every day, just to see if the minnows are moving around. This afternoon I checked it, maybe 8 hours after we planted. There was a FH and two crawdads in it already. These FH were larger than the RR we planted a few weeks ago so that could be the answer, meaning the RR were too small and swam through the wire mesh. But those crawdads sure moved around the pond faster than I thought they would.

I also scared off a blue heron and when I walked over to where it had been standing there was a crawdad on the bank half dead. I am really looking forward to see what spawns.

Bacteria colonization rate will depend on the water temperature and amount of food (primarily ammonia) available for them. Some other types of bacteria do consume other compounds (wastes).