Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations the beach clean-up and Lake Georgetopia

George,
Allen and I did pump water into Georgetopia up to the feeder level. It took about an hour and everything looks great. That was done just after we treated, we also ran the aeration system during that transfer to mix the water in as well as possible. The latest pictures are post treatment and post pumping. Knowing what you and Eric have been saying, I will test the water ever time I am out to the farm this summer just to understand what the water is telling me.

So far the best thing I have seen is the fish feeding and seeing the fish we have seined. They are full of energy and are healthy looking!!

Now I am off to build the new control box and to add bigger batteries.

Things are looking real nice!!!

What ya getting for batteries?

I am getting bigger batteries for the solar powered aerator. The old little batteries I am using are tired and won't hold a charge as long as they use to hold a charge. I am also going to upgrade the charge controller to a new MPPT controller (when it becomes available). Basically, its a MORE POWER issue.

Brian, I know you've gone over this before, but what is you solar set-up again???

Look at Concord products for your batteries. They ain't cheap, but are the best! http://www.concordebattery.com/

Their Engineers will set you up!

Best prices I've found are from a rep in Texas, so that's home turf for you.

I would like to hear more about the solar set up too. I have an off grid pond and am getting more worried by the day. It had some great LMB in it a month ago, but I saw 5 big carcasses yesterday on the banks. Not a pretty sight! Your project is INSPIRING to say the least!

Rob C

Rmedar,

The setup is, four 85watt panels, a 30amp PWM charge controller, three lead-acid batteries, a 12volt DC timer and a 12volt aerator.

I plan on a new MPPT controller (when available) to take advantage of better efficiencies from the panels, and bigger batteries to allow for better run times during critical hours of the day. Eventually, I will upgrade to bigger panels and run the aerator 24/7, but that will be a little while as I have other priorities for now.

A solar tracker may also be in the future, but we will see if I have the bandwidth for that as well. I still need to finish up the burn pile out by Georgetopia for starters.

JKB,

Concord does make great batteries, but I will use cheeper ones for now so as not to tempt anyone. When I have a more permanent setup, I will look hard at their offerings.

BTW, Texas is bigger than France, so being from Texas might mean a really long drive to get to his place, after all, El Paso is closer to LA than to my farm.

But I would like his contact info just incase he is closer!!

Okay,
I got back to the farm yesterday and got a lot of work done. I also had time to shoot a little video of the CNBG, FHMs and Tilapia feeding in Georgetopia.

Here you go, Notice they don't really seem interested in a rubber worm hanging below the bobber.




There is other video coming from the beach cleanup area. Teaser, it was prom night for the BG. I'll post that video later today.

Okay, here is the video of the area we cleaned up this winter. It appears to be a big hit with the Bluegill!!



There appears to be a LMB swimming through the top of the frame towards the end of the video, but I did not see it eating, it seemed to be passing through that is until it got run off.

Brian (or Kasco)-- Have you heard if the new propeller design is going to be what consumers get if they buy the emergency aerator off the shelf? If not, will Kasco sell an aftermarket propeller?

With the first propeller, you had to change the weight to get it better. With the new propeller, did you leave that change in place, or go back to the original configuration?

Thanks

Excellent video !!! Shows the BG nests well and the spawning activity of males protecting their broods. Nice work Brian !

F&C
I do not know if they are going to use the newer prop, but they should. It is a better pattern and it draws fewer amp than the original. I really want them to make a three bladed prop for this application as it will draw fewer amps still and have a better pattern as well.


Eric, Thanks, that was just too good not to record. I am glad it turned out as well as it did, I got lucky!!

Nice work Brian.

Well we got out to the pond yesterday to remove a few fish from Georgetopia and to my horror, I found the aerator not running. It turns out that the on/off switch burned up. The fish took food willingly and seemed to not be in any stress, but, I figured if we were going to remove some fish, it might be prudent to remove some more if all goes well on the first pass.

Well the first pass of the new seine was interesting to say the least. We needed to slow down even more than I expected. As the net drew in water, it sank easier and was very easy to work with in Georgetopia. We decided to seine only the shallow half of the pond for the first pass. That seine pass turned up a lot of fish and everything worked well. We did add a frozen bottle of water to each cooler as suggested by one of the experts and they cooled the water and lowered the stress on the fish being transferred to the big pond.

Here are a few pics of the fish we transferred;

Clearly this is one of the original stockers!!



Here is another original stocker!!



A better view.



Here are a samples of the fish we transferred:





And of course, we did find evidence of several successful spawns from the CNBG and Tilapia.

Here is a picture of some of the size classes we found in Georgetopia.



And here are some Tilapia focused pictures.









While the transfer only took about 10 minutes per pass, we could see that adding the frozen bottle of water really helped the fish out. We forgot the frozen water bottle in one of the coolers on one of the passes and it was very obvious to us that those fish were more stressed.

All in all, we believe we lost very few fish. I only found two or three CNBG floaters and they were very small fish. I only found two Tilapia that could not be revived and they mostly came from the cooler that did not have the frozen water bottle.

We calculate that we moved around 30-40 Lbs of fish from Georgetopia and we learned a lot about the process. Remember that we found the non-functional aerator when we arrived which drove us to remove some more fish after we found that our process was sound and quick.

And about our aerator, well we removed the failed switch and it is running great!!

Nice update..

Did you transfer those little CNBG?

Did you transfer any Tilapia? and what sizes?

Any size increase on the Tilapia

You must have had a backup switch with you. Good thing. Thanks for sharing.

Looks fun!

I'm not much on moving fish when it's 100+, but that trip down might have been a big time save with the aerator out. Glad you caught it in time.

The fish are looking good as well.

Me too - as you know I was concerned about solar aerator failure.

F&C

Every fish pictured went to the big pond. I put some of every size class or Tilapia, FHM, and CNBG into the big pond. I also ran our AC powered aerator in the big pond for an hour before the transfer thru an hour after we finished the final transfer. The aerator was in the area where we completed the transfer to assure we had good O2 ifor the transferred fish.

Fish eagerly took food before and after the seining and transfers.

George, the aerator switch failed, But I can't blame the solar for that. I think the fact that this is a first of a kind might be the real issue. Also, the manufacture is in Wisconsin, not Texas and it has been over a hundred degrees all this past week and the switch was in a metal box in direct sunlight. The good thing is that as soon as I removed that switch, the aerator ran like a top. When I finish the upgraded control box, I'll be adding two cooling fans so I can keep the temps as low as possible during summers.

After the switch was removed, the aerator was running like new!! I really did not need their switch as I have the system on a DC powered timer to turn it on and off as needed. The DC timer runs a high amp relay that turns the aerator on and off.

Brian, your surface aerator will handle high biomass.
Looks good.
G/

Nice Job - like a pro. Glad it worked well tricks and all. Did you transfer into cages for habituation ? Those are well conditioned fish.

Eric,
I did not Habituate them because I did not want to keep them in the warmer waters on the top of the pond any longer then I needed to (my cage is only two and a half feet tall). I figured some might become food and others would survive and that would be okay. The real focus was on reducing the bio loading in Georgetopia.

When I transfer the lion share of the fish, I will have a new cage that will allow me to habituate them. I am going to build a round cage for that effort.

Have any other tricks I can learn?

I use a net to habituate fish. Best way IMO is with rigid plastic netting. Buy it in a roll or long sheet. Walk it out from shore in an arch and D ring it to temp posts. Put fish behind it and give them several hours then take the net down and roll it up for storage.

Eric, that is genius! simple, easy, very effective and reusable! It would give the fish access to nearly four feet of water and a large area to habituate in. I love it!! I have some left over ridged netting from my last fish trap so I'll see how big an area I could make and let you know. I think that just might the ticket for the fish!

Any thought on size of the area for the pen? And do you release them all at once or some at a time?

I have them in the schools I provide fish systems and fish for but one problem we have is the darn things like to trip for no apparent reason. One time one tripped and although I had battery back up, it was over a weekend, and once the batteries used up all their juice the aeration failed and the fish died.

Thoughts? (Yeah i know this is a old thread but just saw it as I was interesting in the solar powered aerator.)