Bsfman's "frankenstein" system

[bsfman]

I call my ststem a "frankenstein system" because it was stitched together a piece at a time over a three week period from remnants of stuff originally used for something else.

I had an old well aerator tank that serves as the basis for my system. A Home Depot 600 gph pond pump is the water moving engine. Several 3 gallon rubbermaid bins stacked on 1X2's, drilled with bottom holes and filled with an assortment of washable A/C filter, plastic scrubbies, pea gravel, sponges, PVC cuttings and shavings, and old aquarium gravel was the original biofilter and also provides aeration.

I had planned to stock the system with maybe 8 to 10 small tilapia. A friend has oreochromis aureus swarming in farm ponds on his property and offered to castnet me some. He showed up with three dozen ranging in size from 4 inches to 7 inches! This was a massive overload for the size of my system, but I forged ahead regardless.

Naturally, I had sky high ammonia right off the bat. Massive water changes did nothing to bring the levels down. I was using well water and when i tested the well water, I learned it was coming out of the ground at over 4ppm ammonia. I replaces 135 gallons of well water in the aerator tank by hauling canal water up from my backyard canal 10 gallons at a time in two 5 gal buckets. THAT was some work, believe me!

I knew I needed more than 125 gallons to support the amount of tilapia I had so I recruited two 35 gallon plastic trash barrels and a 20 gallon plastic trash barrel to serve as my sump. Nine more double bucket trips from the canal had them filled with clean water.

I had another small fountain pump on hand and some extra pea gravel and scrubbies so I used the little pump to recirculate water through an additional biofilter in one of the 35 gallon barrels and used a gravity feed from the aerator tank into a third biofilter (scrubbies) in the other 35 gallon tank. Both 35 gallon barrels drain into the 20 gallon via gravity flow and I relocated my 600 gph pump into the 20 gallon sump where it pumps into the fish tank.

Within a week, my ammonia levels were zero, but the nitrites and nitrates were sky high. I recruited some wild growing water hyacinth and placed a few bunches in one of the 35 gallon tanks. Nitrates immediately started to come down, but it took another week and a half until the nitrites dropped. Needless to say, I stayed busy humping buckets of water from the canal for daily water changes until the nitrites finally dropped!

Today is exactly 3 weeks since I added the tilapia and for the past 3 days, my readings are ammonia 0, nitrites 0, nitrates between 0 and 5ppm, and Ph 7.4 to 8.0. (The Ph drops when we get rain but increases when I add canal water to the system). Apparently, my system has cycled. Now I'm making WAY fewer trips with buckets of water from the canal (thankfully)!

I was astounded at how much duckweed three dozen tilapia can consume! I've gotta seriously ramp up my duckweed production to keep pace with demand! I'm not very scientific about feeding. Two to five times a day, I add a few ounces (by volume) of BSF larvae and they are consumed within seconds.

Fortunately, my aerator tank has a central drain and opening the valve to drain maybe a gallon daily pulls most of the tilapia poop crud out of the fish tank. That goes into my duckweed bins to fertilize duckweed growth.

My system ain't pretty, but it seems to be cranking along nicely and I am totally amazed to see how much the tilapia have grown in just three weeks!

Not sure i know how to do this, but I'll try and attach a YouTube video of the system and feeding BSF to the tilapia.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdfI1byL ... e=youtu.be (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdfI1byLHZM&feature=youtu.be)

[davidstcldfl]

Hi bsfman ....welcome to the forum... :D

when i tested the well water, I learned it was coming out of the ground at over 4ppm ammonia.
:o ...really? FL well water, you just have to love it... :roll:

The system sounds great... :D I'll have to go to youtube and check it out.

[rfeiller]

welcome to the forum. are you in aggie land with those well water nitrates. is it a shallow well?

[bsfman]

welcome to the forum. are you in aggie land with those well water nitrates. is it a shallow well?

The well is a couple of hundred feet deep. Not in aggie land, but the town is built on ancient mangrove swamp with fill dredged out of a network of canals. Also very close to the Caloosahatchee River which carries massive ag chemical loads out of the sugar growing areas in central south Florida. I suspect that between the river ag chems and massive lawn and golf course fertilizers swept into the extensive canal system, the well water has become polluted with fertilizers.

[badflash]

You might want to try processing your make-up water through a cattail bed or duckweed to remove the chemicals. As you already know, duckweed can then be fed to the tilapia. BSF are very high in fat, so as the tilapia get older cut down the percentage of feed from BSF. Otherwise they put on fat and not meat.

[urbanfarmer]

Neat system

[bsfman]

Otherwise they put on fat and not meat.
That may well be the case, but am I incorrect is assuming that fish fat is unsaturated fat and a non "trans-fat" and also a fat rich in omega-3 fatty acids? Certain fish (salmon, tuna, mackerel) are considered healthy yet have high levels of fat. I may well be wrong, but I sort of assumed that "fattening up" tilapia is a win-win situation. Evidence to the contrary is appreciated! :)

[urbanfarmer]

A quick and dirty copy/paste... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_fat

Trans fat is the common name for unsaturated fat with trans-isomer (E-isomer) fatty acid(s). Because the term refers to the configuration of a double carbon-carbon bond, trans fats may be monounsaturated or polyunsaturated but never saturated.

Unsaturated fat is a fat molecule containing one or more double bonds between the carbon atoms. Since the carbons are double-bonded to each other, there are fewer bonds connected to hydrogen, so there are fewer hydrogen atoms, hence "unsaturated". Cis and trans are terms that refer to the arrangement of chains of carbon atoms across the double bond. In the cis arrangement, the chains are on the same side of the double bond, resulting in a kink. In the trans arrangement, the chains are on opposite sides of the double bond, and the chain is fixed in an approximately straight shape in this region.

The process of hydrogenation adds hydrogen atoms to unsaturated fats, eliminating double bonds and making them into partially or completely saturated fats. However, partial hydrogenation, if it is chemical rather than enzymatic, converts a part of cis-isomers into trans-unsaturated fats instead of hydrogenating them completely. Trans fats also occur naturally to a limited extent: Vaccenyl and conjugated linoleyl (CLA) containing trans fats occur naturally in trace amounts in meat and dairy products from ruminants, although the latter also constitutes a cis fat.

No trans fats are essential fatty acids; indeed, the consumption of trans fats increases the risk of coronary heart disease by raising levels of "bad" LDL cholesterol and lowering levels of "good" HDL cholesterol. Health authorities worldwide recommend that consumption of trans fat be reduced to trace amounts. Trans fats from partially hydrogenated oils are more harmful than naturally occurring oils.[4]

Some studies have shown natural trans fats in beef and dairy products can have the opposite health effect and can actually be beneficial, e.g. lowering total and LDL cholesterol and triglyceride levels.

[badflash]

There have been studies on feeding tilapia with catfish feed. Catfish have a higher fat need/tolerance. Compared to lower fat feed, these tilapia put on fat and not muscle, so the calories were wasted, sort of like what happens to me.

I've not seen the breakdown of what sort of fat BSF have, but I don't think it really matters. Saturated or not, it turns into calories that become belly fat. We are not worried about tilapia heart attacks.

[bsfman]

I've not seen the breakdown of what sort of fat BSF have, but I don't think it really matters. Saturated or not, it turns into calories that become belly fat. We are not worried about tilapia heart attacks.

I agree. I was referring to the fat the tilapia aquire. Isn't fish fat (oil) unsaturated and high in Omega 3's? I could well be wrong on that, but if not, I don't mind consuming chubby tilapias! :)

The BSF I am feeding are grown on a consistant, feed based formulated diet. A lab analysis I commissioned from the University of Georgia Feed and Environmental Water Laboratory of the BSF larvae I am feeding shows 19.58% total fat, 51.2% crude protein (dry matter basis). Both fat and protein are higher than something like Zieglers Finfish Silver with 10% fat and 40% protein. Perhaps not the ideal ratio of protein to fat in BSF, but heck - I got the grubs so I may as well feed them to the fish and so far the fish are thriving on them.

[badflash]

Fish fat is not naturally high in Omega 3's. This comes from what they eat. This has been one of the big criticisms of tilapia. Cold water fish like Cod have access to krill and other critters that are loaded with Omega 3's and these carry on to the fish. If you feed tilapia feed high in Omega 3's, you get tilapia with it.

The belly fat comes off when you fillet, so it is lost weight. It melts off when you cook, so it doesn't do much good.

Finfish Bronze is actually what you should feed tilapia, but I can't get it here. Many people grow "pond scum" which is a green filamentous algae. It grows explosively in water from animal run off. Use this with the BSF to lower the fat levels and it is a win-win.

I am amazed that tilapia farmers and pig farmers don't team up.

[urbanfarmer]

Depending what you feed the BSF it will have higher/lower protein/fat. As far as the quality of protein, it depends on the amino acids that make up the protein. Not all protein is created equal.

I have been putting together data of protein/fat of BSF and yours seems higher on protein and lower in fat than what I have found so far, but I have also found BSF that analyze to much lower protein and fat. It just depends what you feed them.