Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Can talapia be raised above ground swimming pools?

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It's 300 gallons and just under five feet across. The RBC is actually sized for a 12 foot swimming pool. In the book Small Scale Aquaculture they use a 12 foot swimming pool with a liner for tilapia.



I have several hundred 4 to 6 inch bluegills in it that started out at about 1/2 to 3/4 inches in February including some I brought in a few months later from a floating cage that were already 2 to 4 inches.



It depends on the temperatures. The closer to optimum for the two species of bacteria the faster it happens. Optimum is upper 70's to low 80's. There a slight different in preference of the two species but not enough to worry about. My water was quite cold in the low 60's F. this winter without heaters so it took about 5 weeks if I remember right. In optimum temps you could have the tank cycling in two weeks, especially if you seeded it with some bacteria from another tank or aquarium.



Rotating biological contact filter. The plates are surface area for the nitrosomonas and nitrobactors. The plates moving in and out of the water keeps them wet but contact with the air gives them plenty of oxygen.



I drain and clean the clarifier ever couple of days but could probably get by with doing it less often. In the book Small Scale Aquaculture with the 12 foot swimming pool there are two clarifier tanks and I believe they only do it once a week.

Not difficult at all. I have a bulkhead in the bottom of the tank that is connected to a PVC elbow and a barb fitting and a simple clear hose clamped on that when not in use is mounted vertically on the wall. When I want to drain the clarifier I simply drop the hose into a drain in my basement floor. However before that I detach an extension on the clarifer end of u-tube and cap the short end. This keeps the siphon intact. In the picture I added a 't' for fill up but it's really not needed, and it created problems for me as apparently it has an air leak in the threads. Just a u-tube made of PVC and PVC elbows works great. There's no need to reestablish the siphon each time as long as you cap it under water.

It takes about 10 minutes for the clairifer to drain by gravity. Then I remove the filter material and spray it off in the drum, and the put the filter material temporarily in another drum next to the clarifer. This takes another 5 minutes or so. So total time to drain and clean about 15 minutes. Of course I can go do something else while the clarifier is draining. Once the tank is completely drained I mount the hose up on the wall vertically and secure with a zip tie. Before I used the insurance of the zip tie, one day I was sitting the nearby shop working on taxidermy and a flow was water shot past me!

Make up water gets pumped in with a battery powered pump from an iron removal system I set up which runs on the same principal as the clarifer but consists of two drums side by side.

Here's the bottom drain on the clarifier. The tank is mounted on a cinder blocks to clear the plumbing from the floor.



Here's various drain hoses mounted on the wall when I don't want them to drain. The water will only come up to the level of the clarifier.





Here are some fish. The water does have a brown tint due to tannins in the feed, but the flash gave it a yellow color for some reason.