Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Raising Forage and Bait Fish Inside - Trout

Last night I finished the "Cecil Envy" Saga. I was on the edge of my seat until the very end!

http://www.pondboss.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=5;t=000379#000003

The thread got me thinking about raising trout indoors. Could you raise trout indoors through the summer and then stock them in the fall for a Fall/Spring fishery? Would a 100 gallon tank be big enough for ~25 trout to grow out?

I used the same basic design for many years with my tropcial fish growth tanks! While I have never tried trout I guess it could be done. Perhaps someone out there has raised trout inside and can help here.

Sure you can. It's done all the time in indoor raceways. RAS (Recirculating Aquaculture Systems) are a little more difficult as the cooler temps require more biofilter material, but it can be done and is being done. Do a search on the net and I'll be you'll find something. I found this one right off the bat.

http://www.uwsp.edu/cls/aquaCulture/6047A05.pdf

One of my state trout and salmon hatcheries recirculates water to conserve on well water. The fish are mostly inside

Would multiple trout species work or do they have problems when put together? IE 10 Rainbows, 10 Browns, 5 goldens in a 100 Gallon tub.

Also, would 25 Smallmouth bass of the same size work in the same tub? The Smallmouths I would only have in the tub until summer.

Keep in mind Bender that the general concepts for all fish are the same. Keep 'em wet. Provide oxygen. Don't let them live in their own waste. Pay attention to ideal temperatures. If you haven't found someone who's done it, then go for it, keep good data and be the first one. Then make sure to tell all of us how you did it.

Sounds good! I have already started calling around for the fish. The Smallies are proving hard to find.

I think keeping them the same size is more important then worrying about different species of trout. Size disparity spells problems as fish are like chickens -- there's a pecking order especially in smaller spaces. Typically the smaller fish are lower on the hierarchy and don't get as much feed. Sometimes actually having more fish breaks down the territoriality (sp?). Some species are more agressive or territorial than others. Typically the predator fish are the worst.

Not sure. Never tried it. Sometimes certain species will stress the hell out of another. You have to be careful. Might not even be a problem.

I finally did it. Today I picked up 25 5-6+" rainbows and 100 3-4+"YP. I have 2 110 gallon tanks with the perch in one tank and the rainbows in the other. I have aeration running in rainbow tank only right now.

The Rainbows are NOT doing so good. Most of them are swimming near the surface and seem to be gasping for air. I have lost 1 so far and 2 more are not far behind. Assuming this is DO related I am heading up to Walmart to pick up another pump.

Note: Rainbows were "gasping" before I put them in the tank. I am wondering if the hour car ride was too long for them...

The YP seem to be doing great, although, I did have to put a strainer on the drain because they kept trying to swim into it and get stuck. They seem to be scared of everything right now and are hanging out at the bottom of the tank.

I'm not a rainbow guy, but I do know that YP are scared of their own shadow. After nearly a year in the tank they'd still whack their heads against the side of the tank every time I checked on them. Get used to it. One good thing about YP is that they're extremely tolerant of low DO. I'm very interested on further RT updates. Thanks.

Back from Wal-Mart and I added a new pump and two new air curtains. Aeration appears to be up 3 fold.

I turned off the Well water for now as I was worried about possible rust/gases that maybe causing the problem. I am using a water filter that is supposed to cut rust down, but I am not sure that it is enough. Tomorrow I might put something together to run the water through.

Bad news...Lost 6 more RT. The Smaller ones are hurting right now the bigger guys are cruising at the bottom. Hopefully the aeration will save the rest.

Perch - 100
RT - 18

Bender,

I am just a newbie so excuse this if its dumb. Concerning the RT. The water temp? Possably to high? Maybe add some salt to the water, not iodized. When I moved mine almost 3 hours we added salt and ICE and I use a areator to. I bought the aquarium salt at walmart it reduces stress. G/L

My temps are around 55 degrees, according to my Wal-Mart special aquarium thermometer. I am not sure the temp is accurate, but it is definitely cold enough water for the rainbows.

The aeration seems to have worked. I lost a couple more in the meantime but now the fish have returned to deeper waters and appear to be happy again.

Sounds very neat got any pictures of your set up?

Bender, here is a picture of the Tensleep state fish hatchery in Wyoming, home of the Yellowstone cut throat brood stock. It's kind of hard to see but there there is a 3" pipe with holes in it providing a strong circular current in this large round fiberglass tank full of trout, the trout were stacked in there like cord wood. The tanks are partially buried in the ground. Also note that these tanks are all located in the shade under a metal roof.


Here is another picture of some of these 6-8" trout taking pellets in the tank. Something on a much smaller scale such as Bruce's RAS system should work well.

Thanks for posting that Shorty. I almost bought a kiddie pool on ebay about the diameter of the one in the picture, but I couldn’t talk the wife into it. Instead I told her I was going to get two small tanks to grow out some fish. It took a lot of flowers to get back in her good graces after it was all setup. I guess we have different opinions of what "small" is.

Checked in on the trout and found two more dead that I missed last night. They jumped out of the tank and were out of sight. I am surprised the cat didn’t get it. I fed this morning and the Trout eagerly ate, but the YP didn’t seem interested.

The feed I purchased is AquaMax 300. It is 50% protein and appears to be a sinking pellet for fingerlings.

I will post pics of the rig after I clean up from last night’s sump pump debacle. With all the rain we had yesterday, I now have a 3” 1 acre lake in my backyard and the sump pump couldn’t keep up. The good news is that my pond filled up quite a bit.

Rainbow Trout - 15 of 25 stocked
Perch 100 of 100 stocked

Have you read the Cecil Envy thread? The yellow perch may not go to pellets quickly. Eventually they should. It took me several weeks to get them interested in anything but nightcrawlers IIRC.

I have been throwing some pellets into the perch tank when I feed the trout. They did not seem interested in the pellets, and I hadnt seen them take any until a few hit them today. I think now that they are getting used to their enviroment they will start feeding more.

Ok I finally got around to taking a few pictures of my tanks. The basic design should look familar, aside from the vent I added at the top of pvc drain loop to prevent siphoning out the tank once I close the clean out valve.

Water flow starts at a faucet near the well, then flows into a water filter to reduce rust and sediment. From the water filter water sprays into the trout tank. The water then flows out of the trout tank into the perch tank through the PVC drain. From the perch tank the water flows empties into my sump pump crock.

Aeration is handled by two aquarium pumps with two air curtains a each.

Bender,

Just curious but do you know how much iron you have in your well water, and how much you have on the other side of the filter? The reason I ask is typically your well water has to be vigorously agitated for a few minutes to get the iron to precipitate which allows it to be filtered. Even after aeration it takes about 20 minutes for my water to turn brown in the open well tank pit if I leave it sit.

How about D.O. before and after?

I will have to test the water. The well was dug in March and the initial water test showed 2ppm iron, but I would not be surprised to find out that it is higher now. When I change my house water filter it is rust colored.

Weekend Update:

I went away for the weekend and found 5 dead perch when I came back. I have been battling FA since it was introduced to my system with the fish and had a big flare up. I also put an aquarium heater in the perch tank and set it to 19 degrees Celsius. I am putting in a biological bog filter this week so hopefully that will help.

Trout are doing well and are aggressively feeding.

95 of 100 perch stocked left
15 of 25 Trout stocked left

Another Perch was belly up this morning. This is the 6 one since I put in the heater. The perch seem to really like the heater as they gather around it and they are more active now. I am starting to wonder if they are burning themselves on the heater or if the temperature change between the well water and the heater is stressing them.

I finished putting in a homemade bog filter last night and it really cleaned up the water. It is simple with water flowing through boxes of gravel that I will plant over the next week. I am planning on using this type of filtration for my 1/10 acre pond.

Here is the system.

Pic of the hole spacing on bog pvc drain.

This is the filter half completed.

Filter draining into the trout tank.

You can see some of the perch by the pump. Before today I had to drain the water to see them.

Here is the whole rig. I had to use hardware fabric to filter the water coming in from the trout tank as there was too much FA coming in.



I also moved the submerisble aquarium heater placing it horizontal. When the perch crowd the bottom of the tank to get near the heater they dont touch it now, which I think killed about 8 perch since I put in the heater. No perch have died since I changed the heater orientation.

Bender, would you please consider a cut and paste post to the Cecil Envy thread. This information is extremely useful. I'll be honest in that I don't fully comprehend what you're doing, but I plan on thoroughly studying it so I can add this system to my redear sunfish tanks. How did you come up with such great ideas?

Here's the link.

http://www.pondboss.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=5;t=000379;p=1#000000

Bruce I copied my last post and pasted it into the Cecil Envy thread with a brief explaination of what I am trying to accomplish.

The bog filter is a small scale version of what I am planning on doing using with my newly dug 1/10 acre pond. By creating contained wetlands to filter the water for me I should be able to increase my biological capacity without using a well. The biological filter uses a pump, however, low head pumping uses a lot less energy than pumping water up a well. The gravel in the filter traps sediment from the water and provides a place for benefical bacteria to live.

I am still debating using a well for my pond to further increase biological capacity, but I would use a low gpm pump to keep the electric bill reasonable.

How large do you anticipate the bog for the 1/10 acre pond would be? Also, could you pump the water up and additional 10 feet and make a scenic waterfall out of it?

One website I found suggested that a bog filter should be 10-20% of the size of the pond. The bigger the filter the better job it does.

I am planning on a 500 sq ft bog filter followed by an 80 stream that will have a 6" deep gravel bed. I will be planting the river bed with rice or allowing nature to plant what she wants. You could also use the bog filter as a garden as many plants would thrive with a constant supply of nutrient rich water.

The goal of the bog filter is to reproduce a natural wetlands. As long as you created the wetlands so it drains toward your pond you could create a waterfall at the highest elevation of the wetlands. There are some efficent pumps out there that would work great for a 10' waterfall. I saw one that pumps 11000gph at 300 some watts.

The size of the filter will depend a lot on the bioload or amount of fish waste that needs to be cleaned up. One also has to consider that the fish will grow during their stay in the pond or tank and the bioload exponentially increases as the average length of the fishes increase. Some filters use more efficient filtration media than gravel; for example plastic excelsior ribbons or bioballs. However if one plans to also use bog or hydroponic plants to remediate the waste then gravel may or may not be necessary depending on the plant species. Research has shown that some plant species are much better at removing and retaining waste products than others.

I have wondered which plants I should add, do you have a list at which plants are most efficent at removing waste and retaining waste products?

I am tempted to try rice after reading about it on a post in the Rice as a forage base thread.

Vetiver grass if you can find it in your area, it is non invasive, not quite as pretty as rice, but probably more effective for waste removal. Also good for erosion control, roots can grow down to 12'.
It is the tall grass on my floating island.

When I set up my system for Tilapia I found that I had serious peaks in the nutrient levels after feeding. Makes sense if you think about it. Anyway the peaks caused the bacteria in the filtration system to be overwhelmed and I had some mortality. I started feeding the fish using a belt feeder so the feeding was spaced out more evenly throughout the day and the ammonia from the waste didn't peak and the mortality rate dropped. Considering the biomass load in your 100 gallon system the filter you built may experience similar peaks if you feed once or twice a day. My system was a recirculating system with no constant water overflow so filter efficiency made a huge difference as there was no turnover. Belt feeders are aquaculture specific pieces of equipment, not too pricey, but they aren't for pond use so it may not pay for you to try one. just my .02

Rad, thanks for the info on Vetiver grass. I think I am going to try rice for the first test run since I found rice seed before Vetiver seed.

PaPond, one of the reasons I am planting the bio filter is to eliminate nutrients from the water. So far everything is running smoothly, with the flow through and I was able to cut down on the water flowing through the system. I feed twice a day by hand until the fish lose interest, although the perch are picky eaters and there is a lot more wasted pellets than in the trout tank.

The heater has been great for the perch. They are definitely more active at 60 degrees than 55. Since I was able to turn down the water coming in the system the heater has been able to keep the temps warmer.

Filter Update.

5 days after adding the biological filter and I now have zero FA. Water clarity is the best it has been since I added the fish. The only debris I have noticed in the water is old pellets. I might have to switch to a floating pellet to cut down on waste.

I have planted rice and Thai peppers in a seed starter try and will transplant them into the filter once they are 1-2” tall.

Bender, My water was cloudy when I fed the pellets but after I switched to Krill and grass shrimp it cleared right up. The fish eat the grass shrimp but fight for the krill.

My cloudy water was due to FA that hitchhiked along with the fish. Until the filter started working I couldn’t see more than shadows. Now every thing is clear.

I ordered some dried grass shrimp, daphnia and frozen krill. I have tried feeding grass shrimp and they wanted nothing to do with them. The daphnia had some activity but not what I expected. I will try the krill tomorrow and see how they react. I want them to be feed trained, however, so I will keep giving them feed and use the other as a treat.

Great thread, Bender. Thanks for taking the time to keep us updated.

I bought the freeze dried krill and FD grass shrimp. The grass shrimp I crumble up and they eat it but if they had the choice they grab the krill. I got BG in the tub so maybe there tastes are differnt then the trout.

I have perch and trout in seperate tanks, both did not touch the whole fd shrimps. Maybe the key is to crumble the shrimp. Trout are supposed to love shrimp so I was suprised they did not eat them.

When I fed the shrimp to the perch, the water temps were at 55 degrees and they were not eating as well as they are now in 62 degree water.

Quick update:

Trout are showing great growth so far. I havent removed them to measure but there is a definate increase in size. I might have to buy a larger pellet feed for them.

Perch are doing well and are now attacking the pellets like the trout. It is hard to say how much they have grown as there are so many.

I will be planting the biofilter with rice tonight.

I have lost 3 trout over the last couple weeks. I am not sure what is causing them to die now, after no casualties since they were introduced to the tanks. I did a quick dip test with the following results:

Nitrates = safe
Nitrites = safe
Total hardness = Very Hard
Total Alkalinity = High
PH = Alkaline

Right before they started dying I transplanted the rice and peppers in the biofilter. Some of the soil got into the water and made it cloudy so I increased the fresh water flowing into the system.

I am not sure if the problem is with the water or if it is from the soil introduced to the system.

I have 1 trout left and judging by the size of him, he was hogging all the food. I wouldnt be suprised if he is 12" long and he is fat!

Perch are doing well and have started to lay eggs in the tub! I am concerned because I wanted them to spawn in the pond! Should I move them to the pond asap? The pond is still filling naturally but I could hasten its progress using my well if needed.

Great. Do you still have 90+ perch left?

What was the original length of the perch, and how much have they grown?

Did they ever get used to seeing you, or are they still spooky like mine were?

I am down to around 85 or so perch now. With the perch spooking into a tight school everytime I come around and the various sizes in the school it is hard to say how much they grew. I think there has been some growth but now where in line with the trout. The Trout I have left has grown at over 1" a month which I found to be remarkable.

The pond level filled up by atleast 6 feet over the last two weeks. I have another 5 feet to full.