I started an Aquaponics system last spring, i started cycling the system with minnows, then added 20 bg (found to be a mix of hbg, gsf, bg),, after a few weeks i added 25 yp.. the tank was a 110 gallon stock tank, the growbeds were two 55gal barrels cut in half..last fall i moved one pair of the gb's inside to keep the fish alive over winter, and used 3 55 gallon glass tanks on the floor for the fish, i added rosy red minnows and crayfish in one of the 55 gal tanks,, bigger fish in one tank, and new yp in the other tank.. i lost a few fish last year, some to disease, some stolen... the only fish i lost in the basement were 5 jumpers the first night (netting was added the second day, just ran out of time) then i started thinking,,,, and thats when the trouble started.. i found an 8' intex pool for 15 bucks, so bought it and set on 1.5" insulation in the basement.. seeing all that water, i bought 50 rosy reds and a 3 dozen crayfish and put them in the pool.. i found two crayfish that made it from last year and they went in the pool as well..so since i had a pool with fish in it, i did up a quick filter in a 55 gallon drum.. i found 2 more 55 gallon tanks to use as well.. then i got 4 IBC Totes.. these will be cut down to be my growbeds and i'll continue to use t8 flourescents (32 watt) for my veggies... so, i downloaded google sketch the other day and layed out my "basic" system.. the pool filled to the "fill line" is something like 696 gallons.. i'd like to have at least 1:1 growbed to ft volume, but will probably have to settle for less.. the "formula" that i have been using is 25lbs grown out fish for every 100 gallons of filtration..so with 1:1 i can safely grow out 150lbs of fish.. i've got glass shrimp in the tanks, and daphnia.. snails made there way in with some duckweed (using duckweed for my crayfish tank filtration, been running for one month with now problems, but i regularly test my water for ph, nitrites, nitrates anyways, enough of the rambling.. here's the layout; [img]http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/download/file.php?id=40124[/img]
That's cool! I hope to dabble with aquaponis this winter. Might as well use the water from the fish and in turn reduce the nitrates running it back. I asked the wife what I should grow and she said cherry tomatoes. She uses them for her lunch salads.
My big tank is cycled now and if I had time to even breath I would move the bluegills in. Lots of irons in the fire and deadlines right now. I also have on order a 4 foot circular tank from Rural King (didn't have to pay shipping) and will put my yellow perch into that one. I'll run them off of the same RBC and another clarifier drum. I'll also break in a small upflow sand filter at the same time. I hope to get over to the high school and finish plumbing their system.
Keep us posted! I don't know squat about aquaponics yet but I can produce lots of fishy water loaded with nitrates!
Last edited by Cecil Baird1; 11/01/1107:57 PM.
If pigs could fly bacon would be harder to come by and there would be a lot of damaged trees.
Not sure I am 100% correct so any one can feel free to correct me or add to my statement.
I did a small 20 gallon Aquaponic thing with Flat Minnows and used Mustard Greens as my Nitrate filtering device. I used 2 inch Net pots from a Hydroponic store and Styrofoam to raft the mustard growing in the net pots hydroponically. This was only a short term deal to keep bait alive. The Air Stone was good for both the Fish and the Mustard Plants and while this wasn't a long term thing it did work better than no filtration system. AND It was a cost effective method. My test strips showed the water as very low in Nitrates. I am told Mustard Greens have a high demand for nitrates and that is why this works.
for a small tank like that, and minnows that is a great, cheap short term solution to keeping some minnows alive.. the problem with this type of system is that you'll get some solids buildup and may have to "vacuum" out the tank occasionally.. by using gravel growbeds, you trap much of the solid waste, i added some red wiggler worms to further break down waste.. i'm using duckweed and anachris(sp??) to keep my a crayfish breeding tank running, and i'll be getting some water lettuce for minnow breeding tank i want to set up..
i'm working on adding images, but having a little trouble - i can't do photobucket or imageshack, as those are blocked from work, where i do most of my computer work..
i wonder if my website is still up..(my wife and i used to manage a band's webpage).. i'm sure my wife has the access to it, and i could upload my pic's there.. since this is the pond boss, and i've reference this site quite a few times on this other site, i'm just going to direct link to my post for now, and save us all a little bit of grief.. oh, and happy holiday! i just picked up 120 (or so) yp, and 10 blue tilapia this past friday from Shelby Fish Farm in ohio this starts on page 6, with all my recent work (i'm rather proud of it, but still lots to do!) http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=8354&start=75
i'm working on adding images, but having a little trouble - i can't do photobucket or imageshack, as those are blocked from work, where i do most of my computer work..
Keith -- you might try Google's Picasa. We have pretty tight IT restrictions where I work, but Google is not blocked, thus Picasa is not blocked. Plus, I really like the way the whole Picasa package operates. Most of my Pond Boss photo posts in about the last 3 years are from Picasa (see Posting Photos with Picasa).
yeah, that one is blocked too.. i'll get our webspace back up.. we only pay a few bucks a month, and have quite a bit of storage available.. i've been meaning to use it to track my systems anyways, and the pb gives me a little more incentive
Keith Sounds great 150 lbs of fish is a lot for that system to handle Check out the you tube videos by Murray Hallam The folks I know with systems follow his rules regarding #s of fish/ sq feet of growbed/h2o capacity
since i have another day off, i went ahead and created a google picsa account, and uploaded all the photo's i've taken over the last couple weeks.. so now i should be able to post pictures directly into my posts... i've got lots of pics, but i'll just go over some of the highlights (to me), i'm rather happy with where things are, but i still have stuff to do! here are my 3 growbeds, each one is 1/2 of an ibc tote, on 2 of the beds, there are 3 pairs of 32watt t8 lights (48") and 4 pairs on bed 3.. enough talk, pic time.. growbed 1: [img] first indoor strawberry!
the only seedlings i planted were the strawberries in gb1, and in growbed 2 2 tomato (better bush), 1 ichiban eggplant, and 1 regular eggplant.. the rest is all seeds i planted, the only thing that hasn't sprouted is fennel and stevia.. anyways, here's gb2 first indoor tomato! ichiban
regarding my "livestock".. i started in spring with travis hughey's barrelponics system, with 2 pairs of growbeds, and a 110 gallon stock tank...then added a couple dozen minnows (emerald shiners) and a couple dozen crayfish (papershell) to start the cycling. then i got 15 bluegill (2 to 3")- early posts made me think that some were hbg, some not.. in july of that year i got 25yp (3").. i went out of town for a few days and when i got home, 8 yp were missing (there was a net over the tank) and i lost a couple when it got really hot, so in the fall i moved it into the basement.. after i set it up, i was pretty happy with how the fish were doing and started planning an expansion, and gathering stuff.. i had shoulder surgery last year, so i just kept planning and doing little things..i got the 8' swimming pool for 15 bucks and had to set it up, so i used a diy filter and ran it with minnows and crayfish for months, then finally found totes for 40.. the gravel was next, and after rinsing enough for the growbeds and a few aquariums it was game on. the 100 yp are in the pool, and i have 5 tilapia each in 2 different glass tanks.. planning on a fish fry for the older fish, biggest yp is 14", and the yp from last year are 7-11" oh, and last year, i started a gammarus culture, set up a glass shrimp tank, and i got a marmokreb (self cloning crayfish) that is in berry.. more pics to come
so lets do livestock pics now; greenwater is in the kitty litter buckets scud tanks (adding daphnia soon) i put scrubbies in the scud tanks (4 in each tank) and use them to harvest.. i harvest one tank every couple days glass shrimp in berry; marmokreb in berry papershell crayfish in the pool - since moved to the sump almost forgot about the rosy red's! (i've had them quite a while now) they're in the pool with the yp, and i have some pots in there for them to lay eggs, i pulled a pot full of eggs (and the male) out of the pool and put it into a 40 long tank so that's all the little stuff..
a few yp didn't make the trip, i think about 15 or so died since friday, but the rest are looking good, eating blood worms and crushed pellets.. the ones that didn't make it; settling in nicely with the rosy reds.. they'll be gone soon (the rosy reds that is) tilapia tanks are heated already settling in and staking out territory here's an overall shot of the pool;
being a ring pool, it is an odd shape, but i was inspired by the pb posters to make a couple of things.. i made a cover for the pool out of 1/2" pvc, with a cutout around the drain lines, and hinges out of pairs of 1"pvc glued together side by side; and i have to have a way to harvest the fish,,, i don't want to try fishing them out and putting a hole in the pool! so i made an odd shaped crowding net that swings 360 thats probably enough for now, eh?
Too bad you're not in Indiana. I could supply you with bluegill and yellow perch without the expensive VHS testing. The ones that don't perform as well as the others I usually give away. They be perfect for an aquaponics system.
If pigs could fly bacon would be harder to come by and there would be a lot of damaged trees.
so,,, uh.. just a note to others... don't use milkcrates! had one growbed drop by a few inches, found it crooked when i got home from work, and kinda freaked out, but took a minute, grabbed a couple car jacks, jacked that puppy up, and replaced the scrunched crates with blocks.. i'll be replacing the rest
Milk crates would work, you just need the older ones - metal or wood!
I was on a fishing boat in the middle of the ocean, and some of the guys drug out fireworks that they had confiscated (Utah State Police). A 4" mortar completely flattened a plastic milk crate when it went off.
good news is that i found a pot full of rr minnow eggs after i put the yp in the pool, i was able to get the male with the eggs, and i'll take him out after they hatch no fish losses since last tuesday or wednesday, i think i lost of total of 18 to 20, my older fish (1 lot from '10 and one from '11) got moved into the pool as well, and are settling in nicely... i don't expect the rosy reds that are still in the pool to last very long; i have one yp that has a messed up tail, i call him bendy.. he might be slow, but he's fat!
all the crates are replaced with blocks, and started to get the parts out of storage to start a single tote system and noticed a dead yp in the pool.. i happened to be home at lunch today and took a look and didn't see it.. anywyas,it was very bloated and i noticed a couple of spots of fungus, i had a rapala fillet knife still in the box so decided to take a quick check, and test my fillet skills - it's been 30 years since i've filleted a fish! so a couple pic's the practice butterfly;
Nice system keith. You can still fillet with the best of them. I'm happy everything is working for you. Its obvious you have put a lot of time and thought into your system. Great Job!!!
rosy red minnows have started to hatch! this time i have greenwater ready for them so i should be able to get some to survive.. i should check the marmokreb, it's been about 3 weeks since i noticed she was in berry.. still have lots of work to do though
my job's been pretty busy lately.. we're relocating data centers.. my ap system has been neglected.. my blue tilapia have had at least 2 hatches of babies, i set up a smaller system for breeding, but ended up filling it with 50 nile tilapia fry.. they grew quick, so this weekend i finally got a few things accomplished.. harvested 11 yp for dinner!... caught 5 blue's from the pool, one had a mouth full of eggs that she dropped in the transfer tank and then ignored.. then i moved the now 5-6" nile tilapia to the pool, and put the 5 blues in the breeding tank.. i moved a dozen fry i found in the sump to a 55 gallon tank i was trying to set up for fry, but i don't think they made it through the night.. out of the 11 i harvested, a few were from 2010, and the rest from 2011, and i managed to take some pic's so without further ado.. i couldn't decide what to make, so we had yp 3 ways first was an egg wash, dipped in cornmeal, italian seasoned panko, and romano cheese second was a parchment paper pouch, a little white wine, butter, dill from the basement garden, salt and pepper third i did a quick salt and sugar brine, then hotsmoked with tea, oak and cherry chips and for my bonus, i found 3 egg sacs.. i just added a little butter to the pan i fried the fish in and gave them a quick sautee, they were awesome!
I've been eating cooked caviar since I was a little kid - my grandmother did too, and I got it from her.
My mom doesn't like the smell of fish, so I'd have to go to my grandmothers house (her mom, who lived next door) to eat fish. She loved fish, and I was tasked to bring her fish every week.
those are perch egg sacs.. i've been eating them since i was a wee lad..fried in either bacon grease,,, or butter..they're very creamy... or in scrambled eggs, it reminds me of lobster and eggs, without the lobster texture.. the fried fish is just a mix of cornmeal, italian seasoned panko and romano cheese.. for the smoked, i put 2 fish in a half gallon of water with about 1/3 cup salt, and 1/4 cup sugar for about 30 minutes, patted dry and dusted with garlic powder, then hotsmoked with a cameron stove top smoker for 20-25 minutes..i had smoked perch on crackers with a little tartar sauce the next day watching the browns get beat for the baked fish, i used parchment paper, a splash of wite wine, a knob of butter on each fish, salt, pepper, fresh dill, and fresh thyme.. folded the paper up into a pouch and baked for 20 minutes @350 i'm just super happy that i raised these fish in my house.. i have a pretty good stock going, and the tilapia have been breeding - mostly feeding the yp, but i'll probably get my aquaculture license this winter..
All those listed fish will work, although the CC eggs, if close to maturity will have a tendacy to pop and spatter the hot grease all over the place. The smaller diameter eggs taste better too - CC eggs are a bit rubbery.....
All the eggs will pop and spatter the grease tho - especially if the skein isn't broken.
brian's post got me motivated to post some updates.... my office started a project to move our datacenter last summer, worked most weekends, so my system got little attention, besideds feeding the fish, occasionally harvesting some chard, lettuce etc.. the job finally started slowing down (only working a couple weekends a month now).. i had to clean out the overgrown growbeds, add a bunch of gravel due to settling - the top layer of the growbed was damp, causing algae, and bugs, mostly fungus gnats.. so i got all that done, and replanted 3 beds - 1 to go, but i still need to set up my lighting on that one.. ok.. the pics, growbeds before cleanup;
my first marmokreb crayfish in with my tilapia fingerlings one of the latest hatch of marmokrebs i think this one is second generation.. eating a frozen pea; i've fed at least a couple hundred to the pool system, and put 40 or so larger (second generation) marmokrebs into the pool, at least 3 were berried before transfering to the pool.. lots of pvc hides, but i've been thinking about adding some kind of additional "structure".. i grow lots of duckweed in the crayfish tanks, i can get 2 "scoops" a week
there are a few sunfish in with the yp, nile tilapia and blue tilapia 6" clay pots with the fish 10 ort so tilapia fingerlings made it to the sump from the pool last fall, 5 made it to fingerling stage....
couple of overall shots of my tanks my single tote system, right now it has rosy reds, i might get some golden shiners and feed the minnows to the pool my ap40 air pump, drives lots of the sponge filters, and aerates the pool.. it's on top of a "rack mount" ups, i've got another one to hook up, should give me 12 hours or so of backup air and a shot towards the 3 growbeds for the pool
i re-did the growbed inlets from 2 "branches" to a single subsurface inlet.. swiss chard that sprouted after i cleaned the bed out, chives survived as well carrots and asparagus in the corner bed couple of celery plants sprouted after cleaning, and i planted garlic, sprouting, there's also shallots, and basil planted, and a lone jade tree.. my son brought over a cutting and i just stuck it in the gravel, it's growing like crazy
All I can say is WOW Keith! Your really going at it, good for you. I would like to, but am afraid that it would take over all my time and attention. To many irons in the fire already. I'm jealous of you.
What method do you prefer to determine plant surface area output vs. fish pounds or amount of fish feed fed daily? UVI says about 7.1 ratio of surface area of plants to fish tank surface area with raft culture. Another text I have is more specific and says 60 grams of feed per day per square meter of the raft for nonfruiting plants to 100 grams per day of fish feed fed for one square meter of the raft for fruiting plants. Seems to be quite a difference.
My raft is about 3 square meters. (4'X 8') and 1' deep with a divider in the middle. Flow goes to the end on one side of the divider and cuts over and comes back where it dumps back into the fish tank via gravity. Preceding that is a clarifer tank and an outside standpipe that removes suspended and settleable solids respectfully. Before flow drops into the raft it's treated with a moving bed bioreactor (mbbr).
Circular fish tank is 5.16 feet in diameter and has surface are of 20.90 ft2. Water volume is 286.1 gallons.
Just now assembling outside. Probably going with 3 to 5 inch tilapia only because these fish -- for a change -- will be for the table.
Thoughts? I'm new to aquaponics but I'm excited! Probably going with lettuce and tomatoes.
Last edited by Cecil Baird1; 06/09/1304:11 AM.
If pigs could fly bacon would be harder to come by and there would be a lot of damaged trees.
thanks everybody! someday i'd like to set up a couple of greenhouses hey Cecil.. i haven't done anything with floating rafts (although i'd like to!) i had trouble wrapping my head around the uvi stuff, and dr. rakocy's excel spreadsheet (for backyard systems) got me ever more twisted.. my take away is it seems to me that the surface area provided by the media for bactera was the more important factor, so i base the fishload on the amount of media.. i figure that for every 100 gallons of media, i can grow out 25lbs of fish, i'll added media surface area when i add filration... the only time my nitrates have gotten high was right after i cleaned out the beds.. i try to test weekly, and haven't had any issues with ammonia or nitrites i've actually got to get started on adding filtration.. i've got a few more barrels and i'm trying to figure out how i'm going to lay out a 2 or 3 stage filter... then i'll figure out how many fish i can add... your moving bed media manufacturer should be able to give you a good idea of how much waste their product processes lettuce will do great until it gets hot, but rafts with insulation may keep your temps more stable.. media growbeds are major heat sinks... you may have trouble with tomatoes while the system is still "new" - i found that maxicrop with iron was a good supplement, i used a capful or so every few weeks.. it took a while, but i did have a major ph crash at around month 8, i added lots of shellgrit and a little hydrated lime and try to keep the water at about 7.2-7.4
Thanks Keith. I was thinking I may not need to add much iron or any at all as my makeup water has about 2.5 ppm in it. How much iron do the plants need?
Ph and alkalinity is very high. Never had a problem with low ph with the fish. But never say never. Actually I was more concerned about lowering the ph to about 7.0 as a concession to the plants, fish, and bacteria.
I'm too lazy to do the media. Also like the additional water as a safety net for the fish with raft culture.
If pigs could fly bacon would be harder to come by and there would be a lot of damaged trees.
i had big plans this weekend to get some cleanup done, and harvest a bunch of tilapia,and figure out how many crayfish i had..cleaned out all the hides, and found i only had 7 "adult" marmokrebs left in the pool.. i put at least 40 in that were over 3" long, thinking they'd grow out! i've fed hundreds of 1" long crayfish to the pool and watched them get hammered.. i wanted to catch 30 or so tilapia.. who'da thought that catching fish in an 8' kiddie pool could be such a pita! so, i only caught 15; i brought them down to the local bait shop for cleaning, they normally do all the yellow perch and walleye, it was quite the spectacle bringing in tilapia! i brought home 10.2lbs of skinless fillets, froze a 3 bags of about 2lbs each, and decided to smoke some, i used cherry and maple, with a 1 bag of tea for the smoke... after brining the fillets in sugar and salt, i dried them off, seasoned with salt, pepper and sumac flower, topped with a slice of lemon, hot smoked for 15 minutes
Very nice fish if you took in 15 fish to be cleaned and brought back 10.2 lbs. How did they taste???
One more thing, a friend of mine told me he has been trying out lava rock as a growing medium with good success. Have you ever tried it? He said its a lot cheaper than those clay balls.
tasted great.. my wife wants the next batch just fried in butter, garlic and a little lemon juice.. it's a very mild fish and takes on other flavors very nicely
harvested 15 fish on sunday, 13 tilapia and 2 yellow perch (that got stuck in the net) i used 2 nets instead of the crowding net this time, it was a little bit easier, but still a pita.. i scaled, gutted, removed heads and fins, put 4 bags in the new (used) freezer, and set 3 bags aside for family.. baked 2 stuffed with dill and basil (from the aquaponic system) a pat of butter and a wedge of lemon.. a little salt and pepper, it was perfect in about 35 minutes at 375 the tilapia has to be the most "mild" fish i've ever eaten.. takes on whatever flavors you use very nicely.. i still prefer yellow perch, because to me,, they're a bit "sweeter".. i have a lot of work to do before i finish harvesting and re-stock, but now that i have a freezer, i have somewhere to put the fish.. i think i'm officially at my goal of 1 meal of fish a week for me and the wife, from the basement the camera was dead so no pics this time..
Well done Keith, sounds awesome! I really like your self sustaining approach here. Now if you could just grow a lemon tree on the aqua ponic system and make butter from the goats that manage your landscaping...does goat milk even yield butter?
Last edited by teehjaeh57; 10/28/1311:48 AM. Reason: misspelled awesome...it's Monday
Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after. ~ Henry David Thoreau
thanks tj! yeah, you can get butter from goat milk.. or better yet, mozzarella! talked to my brother and he's thinking of getting a couple pigs and chickens.. maybe even a cow or two.. just gotta talk him into a greenhouse for a big aquaponic system! ha
I cleaned about 50 large tilapia a few weeks ago from my outdoor aquaponics system. Dipped the fillets in egg and then a commercial lemon pepper bread crumb mix and baked them. I can honestly say I've never had such good fish. Reminded me of flounder when I lived on the east coast. A nice flakey white meat that didn't have a fishy slimy taste to it.
Had some imported tilapia once. Yuk!
If pigs could fly bacon would be harder to come by and there would be a lot of damaged trees.
yeah, the home grown tilapia that i've tried so far has been excellent.. and they grow so freakin fast it's tempting to stick with them and add a little heat in the basement for winter, but right now i'd like to gain some knowledge (first hand) of some other species..
the tilapia are trying to keep me from getting the upper hand.. this morning when i was lighting my systems up, i found 8 or so tilapia fry in my sump tank.. harvesting some them must have gotten the rest of them "in the mood"???? now that i think about it, it was about the same time last year that i found some tilapia fry in the sump.. just as things started cooling down... i should keep records and correlate some data! but i look at computers/spreadsheets all day for work.. i've got i think 4 or 5 bluegills, and probaly 80+ yellow perch that must be getting the majority of the fry, so that plan works fairly well.. i was hoping to grow marmokrebs out in the pool, as well as feed the perch with them, but after the last harvest i found that even the large crays were being eaten, there were only 6 or 7 of the 4" crays left out of the 50+ i put in! so the krebs are going to be pretty much just a supplemental fish food.. ordered another bag of aquamax to pick up this friday (5d05) that i mix with the aquamax dense (5d09 i think)..
I have acess to redclaws if i want them. They raise them within 20 minutes from me.
May put some in my raft tanks next summer. A guy on my board if directors keeps them in his raft tanks and claims they live in plant roots and feed on dead roots. If I got it right he doesn't feed them.
Last edited by Cecil Baird1; 11/10/1301:25 PM.
If pigs could fly bacon would be harder to come by and there would be a lot of damaged trees.
took some pic's yesterday when i saw it was time to do some cleanup growbed 1 is mostly mixed carrots, but in the back i have a few asparagus asparagus needed some room! raised the lights after the pic harvested the carrots for dinner today
growbed 2 is basil, finally got some rosemary to sprout, and my future dil's jade cuttings rosemary behind the basil jades were just cuttings we stuck in the gravel, there's a little hydroton in there too from the "early days" of my system
then there's the single tote system with 5 tilapia that i grew out from fry this one has more basil, dill, thyme and some struggling oregano i feed the tilapia aquamax 5d09, but supplement with duckweed raised in the crayfish tanks
oh,, can't forget this.. carrots for dinner today, basil got turned into 5 cups of pesto, some is being used to marinate some pork, and the rest is in the fridge.. i've made quite a bit of pesto in the last month!
started getting some nitrite readings after heavy feeds, so decided to harvest, i wanted to harvest all the tilapia, i was doing pretty good for a while, but after getting the majority, i had to catch some yp i took all 5 tilapia from the single tote system first then started catching tilapia in the pool then i decided to catch a bunch of yp results!!! tilapia on the left, yp on the right
the better half got me a vac pac machine so i'll be gathering spices from the outside garden (where i have a $%^$# groundhog destroying my sunflowers that are supposed to support my cuke's, and broccoli plants), and sealing up meal sized portions sunflower/cuke area all the broccoli leaves were chewed up my nemesis lives under the porch next door, nobody lives in the house, the owner has been working on it since we moved in 8 years ago, borrowed my son's pellet gun
yeah, i added some fencing where he was getting under, but i caught the little pest (biting my toungue) climbing the fence! the pellet gun is sighted in and ready.. so today i picked a bunch of herbs from the garden (inside and out) and rinsed them, and picked up some lemons from the farmers market staged spices, and started up the seal a meal.. it works ok, but i'd like something with more power clockwise from top left, marjoram, sage, oregano, pineapple sage and rosemary clockwise from top left again; basil, lemons, dill and thyme tilapia the rest of the tilapia
i had a total of 100 fillets, 70yp, and 30 tilapia 6 bags of tilapia with 5 fillets and various spices, and 7 bags of 10 fillets with spices here's the yp ready for the freezer
Well done Keith...you are really onto something here. Have you considered fishing for the tilapia or YP with a little ice rig out of your tanks? Feeling the tug and having a little battle before filleting would make the entire process complete!
Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after. ~ Henry David Thoreau
i thought of trying to fish a couple out, and even tried it with a little zebco rod and real... i was too worried about putting a hole in the tank to spend much time with it.. i caught one of the groundhogs that's been a bane to my garden, the neighbor who's porch they live under let me use his havahart trap.. took him a couple miles out of town and released (the groundhog, not the neighbor.. hehe) trap is reset, cuz you know where there's one groundhog, there are more after i released the gh, i went up to the bait shop and bought 5 dozen minnows (emerald shiners) to feed to the fish that are still left in the pool, they've been pretty shy since the last roundup
last harvest from the pool! (at least until i restock) the only fish left were 2 tilapia (3+lbs), 3 sunfish (from 2010!), and 14 yp.. both tilapia were full of eggs i moved a bunch of the rosy reds and marmokrebs from the sump into the pool with a bunch of clay pots and pvc hides, but i have to fix my drain to the sump, minnows and crays keep making it to the sump.. project for this weekend
right after i cleaned all my glass tanks out, i found several berried marmokrebs, so one went in each tank, then i found a couple clay pots covered with eggs..i was reading about fh/rr minnows and the study showed that the males preferred to go in and take over an existing bunch of eggs, and that they'll breed many times in the same spot, up to several males for one "brood".. so i got luck and caught everything at the right time, got a male and two pots, he took care of both sets of eggs
and a bunch of crayfish, found they were reproducing in the sump, and in my single tote system, as well as all my little tanks.. sorry about the blurry pic, but had to show that even the tiniest of crayfish love frozen peas one of my biggest ones died,and it was in berry..
Do you have a special way to filet the tilapia or some tips to add to those of us who are still wishing we were good at fileting various types of fish?
tilapia have kind of a "v" bone, i fillet just like yp, cut behind the head and follow the spine down, you'll feel when you can go all the way through behind the ribcage, then out to the tail, some people like to skin so only cut "to" the tail but not through, then use the tail to hold while skinning.. anyways, back to the fillet, cut along the ribs, let them guide your knife, you'll hit that v, i cut through it then remove after, and usually end up with 2 fillets from each side, a big one and a small one..
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I love this type of stuff!
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