I'm starting up an aquaponics project for school in the next few days and hope to have it cycling with a low density of fish in the next two to four weeks. I'll elaborate details as the project progresses, but right now the species of fish to raise is still up in the air. I'm torn between raising 50 or more of this year's GSF spawn to 7+ inches to stock in the pond to keep recruitment down, and growing out CNBG to the same size to stock as essentially forage producing machines for the GSF. I'd appreciate anyone's input.

You cant go wrong with Tilapia, they are easy to breed and there is a bunch of videos out there on them and they are most people use. Also when you are down they are tasty

GSF as in green sunfish?

I ask about Green Sunfish because that is what my pond is managed for. The reasoning behind raising them for stocking purposes may be completely wrong, but I assume that a liberal feeding program should sustain them if they are added to the pond.

Connor,

Just a thought....How about raising forage for your GSF as your first try at an aquaponics project?

Bill Cody has some bomb GSF breeders. However Bill lives in a state bordering a great lake. Therefore you will need to employ Fatih or Bongo to smuggle some down to you. I will deny any involvement with such an operation.

Bill D.- That was my thinking behind the CNBG. I was mainly drawn to the bluegill because I know that once they reach a certain size (4+ inches?) I won't have to worry about them being preyed upon by the greenies. I'm an amateur, and don't know much, so I would like to hear the ideal forage options for my pond.

I think "ole 3 finger DD1" can best tell you about the voracious nature of GSF and what the forage of choice would be. If you lived up north and I was forced to recommend one, I would go GSH but I am definitely not a pro. My thinking is the GSH adults will reach a size beyond the mouth gap of your GSF and can maintain a population.

Please keep us in the loop as you move forward. Nice when a young pondmeister can maybe teach a few old dogs some new tricks!

Connor, you are definitely working in the right direction for inclusion into the very exclusive "Green Sunfish Association".



Keep us informed on how raising them works out.

I've decided to go with raising stocker sized bluegill because I've only got two summers left at home before college and the pond has to run itself with comparatively little management compared to what I'm able to do now. There' a fish truck delivering tomorrow, and I know that buying fish from a non reputable distributor usually advised against, but Overton's is about 4 1/2 hours from me and these guys are stopping a mile from my house. This venture is going to be tied to an agriscience environmental systems project to be entered in this coming July with the hopes of placing high enough for scholarship opportunities. Again, I'll be sure and keep everyone updated on the status as the project progresses!

The stocker bluegill thought fell through due to 100% mortality soon after delivery (I'm taking the blame for this one). I was at first unsure whether or not I could catch enough GSF of uniform size, but a few attempts at trapping yielded 40+ 3 inch gs that immediately went into the fish tank. The tank is cycling right now and the new 1000 gph pump is about to be ordered.

You're coming along Connor. Keep at it.

Connor are you saying you're adding the fish to your system before it's cycled?

You can add a very small number of fish to cycle a system if you don't go the fishless route for cycling, but much more than that and you are looking for lots of morts.

What are your ammonia and nitrite readings?

Good luck with your project. Keep us posted.

I'm aerating right now, and the pump will be here tomorrow. I've only fed three times, thinking that the less nutrients I add to the water the better right now. I also went ahead and added the fish because of the comparatively cooler water temperatures equating to slower breakdown of fish waste. As far as ammonia and nitrite readings go, I ordered a test kit from API that should test ph, nitrates, and nitrates. To clarify about the system, I set up a 330 gallon tank to hold the fish and used one 55 gallon barrel as a sump tank, and am sawing 3 barrels in half lengthwise to serve as growbeds. These beds will be filled with driveway gravel (drainage rock) to serve as the growing media. I'll be sure to post pictures tomorrow to illustrate the setup!

I don't know anything about aquaponics but have in the distant past kept GSF in aquariums when our kids were small. Would catch GSF, snails, crawdads and whatever else the kids could come up with in a small seasonal creek and dump them in a ten gallon aquarium.

GSF are tough fish. They will take a lot of abuse. Them along with BH's are the two fish that survive about anything in local ponds and streams and will be there when all other species of fish will have died.

Good luck with your project.

Connor, get in touch with Brian Cotton (Bcotton here). He's in Dallas and doing amazing things with aquaponics.

Did you start with pond water or another source. I ask because if you can do water changes with the pond water when ammonia and nitrites get high you can do that every few days while cycling.

Its hard to give cycling advice without the test kit readings. But some general things that people forget.
1) do not water change with water that is extremely different from the tank water weather that be temperature, PH or have chlorine in it.
2) you can destroy chlorine/chloramines with vitamin c (aesorbic acid) I use 500mg per 50 gallons
3) ammonia is less toxic the lower your PH is. high 6's to 7 is as low as i would go unless your water is already low ph
4) the toxicity of nitrite revolves around the compound inhibits the fish's ability to take up oxygen from the water. It's also called brown bloods disease because the gills may be brown ( not red) for lack of oxygen. In addition to good aeration to help with oxygen availability , salting the water up to 3ppt can help. Roughly speaking (for easy math) a 300 gallon fish tank would be about 1000 liters. 3kg of salt into (about 6 pounds) 1000 liters would be 3ppt. I wouldnt add it all at once. And in aquaponics some plants dont like high salinity so you want to avoid adding salt or dilute it after the cycle is complete.
5) nirtifying bacteria seem to do best in the mid to high 7's ph (but its commonly considered that other types of bacteria will fulfill the nitrating role at lower PH, it will just be different sets of bacteria. but unless you find a supporting research paper, just treat that as something you "heard on the internet." )

I am not saying to do these things. some of these points even contradict others. I am just giving some general information to consider and each situation is different.

I wanted to work with green sunfish to attempt to reproduce hybrids with BG and RES but i was not able to find a source. Pond stocking people and hatcheries seem to consider them undesirable.

Gainesville (pond king) maybe is closer to you than overton's. You can source bluegill, res, hyrbid crappie, channel cats, blue cats, HSB and LMB there. (they rarely seem to have black crappie!, i wish they would) And while they dont advertise individual fish prices on their web site if you send a contact form/e-mail, someone will get back to you with what they have in stock and the prices. Its a closer option to people in the north side of the metroplex.... I tried the fish truck once, and never again.... a waste of 250$

Also, i would avoid moving, buying, transporting or handling fish right before or during a significant weather change like the cold snap we just had. The transport is a lot of stress you compound it with temp change stress.

Sorry if i rambled about things you already know but i didnt see any specific sentences ending in a question mark.

brian

Thank very much for your reply, Bcottom! I do have a test kit for ph that we use on the pool, and checked the system ph today and it ran around 6.7. When you say salt, are you referring to non-iodized table salt, or epsom salt, or something entirely different?

typically regular sea salt. You can buy it at the grocery store. The most important thing is that it does not have the "anti-caking" agent. added

Brian, thanks for posting.

Sorry about the delay in updates, but my whole growbed frame wasn't level or wide enough for the growbed tanks. Time has been tight the past few weeks, so it's been a little work every weekend until I've gotten to this point. The growbeds have been leveled and widened, and my filter tank and sump tank have been put in place as well. I ordered a filter media called bio-bale, which claims a surface area of 220 square feet/ cubic foot. Plumbing still needs to be installed, but I'm not undoing anything I've already done, which is nice.

Be sure and show pics when you get it finished.

I finally rigged up the plumbing completely and the system now cycles at about 420 gallons per hour. With the tank carrying 275 gallons, both the sump and the biofilter holding 50 gallons each, and both growbeds holding 15 gallons each, I'm just above my target of 405 gallons per hour (which would cycle the tank once each hour). I have however, run into a problem. Two days ago, I had one green sunfish die. Yesterday, about 15 fish died. Today, I found 5 fish dead.
I ran tests last night after it became apparent there was a problem and the results are as follows:
Ammonia- 1.5 ppm
Nitrite- .12 ppm
Nitrate- 2.5 ppm
pH- 6.2
I don't see anything totally amiss with these readings, so the only thing I can think of that could've gone wrong is that two nights ago the air temperature dropped about 25 degrees from the daytime temperature. With the rapid turnover rate the system was experiencing, the water cooled too quickly and the fish became stressed and died. I'm curious if you guys have any other theories as to why so many fish have died?

Conner I would freak out if my ammonia readings in any of my tanks was 1.5 mg/l albeit your low PH should mitigate the unionized ammonia.

Is your Ph normally that low?

Keep in mind your sudden drop in temp may have effected your bacteria efficiency too.

Which fish died? I don't remember which species you had.

Lost tilapia in an aquarium couple weeks back. No heater, tilapia doing fine, air temperature dropped 25 degrees and all tilapia were dead the day after.

The green sunfish are the ones that died, but this particular batch of fish was used primarily for a jumpstart anyways.
The pH usually hovers around the 7.4-7.6 mark...
The only reason I wasn't too concerned about the Ammonia reading was because I'm still technically cycling my system, and figured it'd be beneficial as far as bacteria growth to not try and lower it artificially. Also, even though it is not optimal for fishkeeping, I hadn't noticed any adverse effects until the fish kill happened.
(Edit note: average pH value was incorrect)

Test results today are as follows:
Ammonia- .12 ppm
Nitrite- almost zero
Nitrate- 1 ppm
pH- 7.4
(Note: The water has changed over the past few days from emerald green to more pea-soup like.) I'm guessing that as more nitrate became available, a plankton bloom was triggered and then lowered the nitrate levels?
Cecil, after you brought up the affect pH had on ionizing ammonia, I read into the subject. Since my pH is typically higher than what it was during the fish kill, I'm fairly convinced that ammonia toxicity did not kill these fish.

I dont think it is relevant to the fish kill but i almost always get suspended algae bloom this time of year as the water temps warm up. It usually dies off after 2-3 weeks.

algae blooms in aquaculture are usually undesirable but the affects are mild. They do cause more PH fluctuation throughout the day and at night time when plants cant photosynthesize the algae can use up/depleate oxygen the fish needs. This is easily countered with aeration.

There can be similar type issues when the algae bloom dies off and starts decomposing.

Its usually a good idea to try to shade your fish tanks and any exposed water to limit algae blooms.

brian

Thank goodness I've never had any algae issues indoors. Outside the tilapia seem to pick the algae clean from the tank walls (along with snails), and if I'm doing aquaponics it seems the tomato plant consume enough of the nitrates that fuel algae.

As far as adding pure ammonia instead of fish to finish cycling the system, I can't seem to source any at the local grocery stores. I've read about using fish feed to add nutrients and ammonia to the biofilter... Is this an effective way to cycle the system?

Also, I placed my Optimal Bluegill Feed order tonight and already can't wait to start feeding it to the fish!

I got my ammonia at a hardware store (Ace). Just make sure it's non foaming. If you shake it and it doesn't foam you are good to go.

If it does foam that means it has detergent in it and you don't want that.