Hi Everyone- For those that may remember a month or so ago I was asking Cecil a ton of questions in one of his posts about how he aerated his well water as well as asking him a ton of questions in PM's about indoor setups and what it would take to keep my Brook trout over the summer in an indoor tank. Originally I was planning on running well water into my pond directly above a large 5x5x10 cage holding 45 18"+ brookies. I ran the setup for a week and although the trout were healthy I always had the thought in the back of my mind that they wouldn't make the upcoming summer heat!
I knew it would cost me more money but would be well spent for future use if I were to build an indoor "flow thru" tank. I already had the degasser setup complete that I built a month ago so all I had to do was move that setup up to my old shop on the property where I already had well water. I then picked up a 700gallon stock tank from a local farm supplier (it wasn't the ideal tank as the bottom wasn't smooth, as it had 2 raised spots for a set of forks to slide under it to pick it up) but it was ALOT cheaper than the other smooth bottom tanks so I figured I would give it a shot. I didn't feel like cutting a hole in the bottom of the tank for a drain so I made a horizontal drain coming out the side of the tank in a hole that already had a bung installed. The horizontal pipe is 4" off the floor of the tank and drops down in the very center to touch the floor, I cut a series of fish mouths (no pun intended) in this vertical pipe where the solids and water can get sucked up and out of the tank. The water then flows the 2" PVC and into the pictured drain setup. The tank water level is controlled by the two vertical and upper horizontal pipes. There is also a gate valve in the lower section to quickly suck out solids and collected matter that is either on the bottom of the tank or trapped in the lower drain setup (you can see I plumped a 1/4" line from just infront of the gate valve up to the point where the water "water falls" down the 2nd vertical pipe. What this does is keep slight water movement constantly going towards the gate valve but does not allow the solids to make its way up the 1/4" tubing there for trapping all the solid mater in the last few inches before the gate valve. From this point the water then exits the building and drains out into my bush lot.
I added an air stone powered by a linear pump which is sitting directly ontop of the center drain. The added air not only helps with aeration but is said to help the swirl effect of the setup.
I currently have 28 brookies in the tank an a few rainbows and browns (I decieded to harvest a few and put them to good use on the dinner plate, as well as I lost a few due to intense heat the last few days they were in the pond). I am pumping aprox 1.5gallons per minute into the tank and having it drain out constantly.
The last part of my setup and what I truly believe is helping my setup imensly is that I installed a bung half way up the side of the tank and a few inches behind the tank inflow. From this bung I am sucking water out of the tank, thru a 1/3hp jet pump set at 5gpm and pumping it back up thru the degasser setup. It is taking gasses out of the tank water, adding oxygen once again but most enough creating an intense swirl in the tank when the 6.5gpm come out the inflow. All the fish are constantly swimming and facing the inflow direction of the tank and the solids are no longer seen anywhere on the tank bottom like they were the few days I didn't have this part of the system running.
It has now been 2 weeks and I have only lost 4 fish (2 browns, a rainbow and a tiger)which was my own stupidity for not covering the tank with mesh imediatly after putting them in the tank....I left for a couple hours and when I came back the 4 of them were lying on the floor dead.
The water temperature in the tank is a constant 52 degree's and the fish are VERY active and feeding hard.
My hopes for the setup was to use this summer after summer to grow out some nice eating sized brookies by keeping them thru the summer heat but I am very temped to go a few steps beyond that and run it all year long with a smaller perch tank directly behind the trout tank...will have to see what the future brings!
Here are some of the pictures!
Ryan
