sweet, reminds me of when i was just a young grasshopper catching my first stealhead with my old man in washington.
I can def see how afghanistan could be a wonderful place for trout, and probably once was. drinking water here is much more valuable so the creeks and rivers have been pillaged. maybe one day. maybe i can convince one of my interpreters to start a trout farm!
as far as gavity is concerned, i wouldnt have a problem with that since my property is so vertical. the reason i would like to have the linear ram pump is because i think it might be more efficent then siphon. do you think there is a better way?
Gravity flow can easily be controlled via a valve like a gate valve or even a homemade valve. You could even control flow with a flexible corigated pipe by pulling it up, and tying it off with a stake if you want to stop flow, or other ways. I'm a big believer in the KISS principal (Keep it Simple Stupid) and gravity flow with a valve would be right in line with that. I would not mess with the expense of a RAM pump unless you want to move water uphill.
I would love to be able to grow browns or rainbow that big, but my little pond would never be able to handle that.
You can grow trout as big as you want in a small pond. The rainbows in the video are at least 4 or 5 lbs. It's just that you are limited by maximum pounds depending on your flow or if you build a biofilter, and clarifier, and how much the biofilter and clarifier can handle. Trout are grown to large sizes all the time in raceways as small as a foot deep and 3 feet wide. You see, our trout have been selectively bred for at least 120 years, so the ones that can't grow or handle small spaces have been removed from the gene pool.
i have also considered a trout farm for myself to run after i get out of the military. after doing what i do for a living, low stress living is very appealing hence why i bought a house where i did.
There are a lot of trout farms in that area of the country and occasionally one comes up for sale. In another part of the country there is an awesome trout farm that has gone to weeds because the father passed away and the son has no interest in running it. (Cape Cod) Maybe need to send the ungrateful boy to Afghanistan eh?
and also that is very cool of you to offer to send the book, i will be moving to a different area and by this time next week will have my new address, and i will send it to you then. ]
I'll be waiting for the address. I have two copies because someone borrowed my first copy and took their time sending it back. I then bought another one and he finally sent me another copy.
in your pond, are all the trout about the same size? or could the monsters be eating the little guys you restock with? i wouldnt put it past a 12 lb'er having lunch on a 1 lb'er.
I've tried putting them in at different sizes and it's not a good idea as you probably know. Even if they don't eat each other the bigger ones bully and stress the smaller ones and hog the feed. There's a pecking order with fish just like there is with chickens. Brown trout are especially aggressive. I also no longer try and grow out brooks and browns at the same time, as the browns stress the brooks even if they start out the same size. It doesn't take long and the browns end up much bigger too.
[quote=kloot]im not a marine but i think your neighbor would like this pic of me a few weeks ago on mission.
Yep looks like you are armed to the teeth.
Of course you need to be where you're at. Please keep your head up and watch your back. My dad who was a Green Beret in Vietnam told me survival it was all about keeping your head up and constantly being alert to your surroundings to survive. He said if anything seemed not right it probably wasn't. My nephew who was wounded twice in Iraq was constantly looking for suspicious things along the roads here for several months after he got back. He said he knew better but couldn't help it.
Me I'm the slacker of the family on my dad's side that goes all the way back to fighting in the Revolutionary War. I was in the ANG and missed being deployed to Desert Storm by 20 minutes.
