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View Full Version : How to select the best fish for my environment?



AquaPatriot
08-17-2013, 05:29 AM
I live in southwest Ohio. I will have a 300 gal FT and 2, 110 gal GB's. They will be in an enclosed sunroom that is attached to the house and faces the south. It will be in direct sunlight. I need help determining which fish will have the best chance to be productive in ths situation? There is a larhe indoor trout farm an hour northeast of me but they insist that aquaponics do not work in Ohio and especially for trout. I do not want the expense of chilling the water so I moved on to tilapia. I am concerned about the cost of heating the water so I have been considering catfish and bluegill because they do well in the local ponds. Please share your experiences in similar climates.

Roger L.
08-17-2013, 07:57 AM
I live in Louisville KY. I chose Blue Tilapia for their ability to with stand the cooler temperatures than other Tilapia. My system is in my basement which remains in the 70's year round. I have recently added a small heater to raise the temps to the high 70's. I would say it depends on the temperature swing in your sunroom. Some of the longer term guys on here can help you better than I, but pictures might help us give advice.

JCO
08-17-2013, 09:12 AM
I agree with Roger, if you are wanting to raise fish to eat, I would choose Tilapia over Bluegill and Catfish. :mrgreen:

AquaPatriot
08-17-2013, 07:18 PM
I bought most of everything I need today to start my system. I bought a heater also. I am going to give tilapia a try. My ambient temperatures are fairly extreme in the sunroom. Roughly 95 degrees in the summer to zero degrees in the winter. There is a fairly large farm in the area that I recently heard about that raises tilapia with very good results. I hope to go see their operation soon. Thanks for your help.

JCO
08-17-2013, 11:05 PM
The farm road trip sound interesting...take some photos if they will let you and give us a look and report when you get back. :mrgreen:

AquaPatriot
08-18-2013, 04:57 AM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIt-b_hbJi4

bsfman
08-18-2013, 06:58 AM
With adequate aeration, blue tilapia will handle the 95F temperatures without problems. When the 0F weather hits, you will need some method of keeping the system water above 50F (above 75F would be even better.) Perhaps you can rig a small household water heater and pump the FT water through it. The smaller the volume of water inside the heater, the more quickly it will heat the water.

Alternatively, you could cobble together a small heater using a 220V water heater element on a 110V circuit. Some years ago I did this for an all-grain beer home brewing system. I encased the element in a 1 1/2" section of copper pipe and wired a dimmer switch into the circuit to control the temperature, then pumped the liquid through it. Though I ran the 220V element on 110V, I could still achieve liquid temps in excess of 178F. You would want to use stainless pipe rather than copper in your system though. You might even buy a small (say 2 1/2 gallon) stainless soda keg (often available through homebrewing websites or eBay) and plumb your element through the lid which is sealable and also easily removable). The two fittings in the keg for the gas input and liquid output could be modified using a little redneck engineering to accommodate the water in and water out lines. The whole thing could be mounted inside a box filled with some sort of insulation to slow radiant heat loss. (Spray in foam or pink attic insulation?)

Using such a system, you could either heat the water directly, or coil some pex tubing and pump the system water through it - absorbing heat along the way. (I suggest this because of possible metal contamination from the heater element itself if you direct heat the water.) Come to think of it, if you heat indirectly, the type of container wouldn't matter. You only need to heat the standing water in the container to 140F or so, so even a 5 gallon plastic bucket would work without danger of melting. Or better yet - a 5 gallon Igloo water cooler which has built in insulation. For safety, be sure the heater is plugged into a GFCI outlet!

Also, if using indirect heat, you could fill the heater with some liquid other than water which might have superior thermal mass (ethelyene glycol, glycerine, vegetable oil, salt brine?) since the system water would not be in contact with the liquid used inn the heater vessel.

Roger L.
08-18-2013, 07:18 AM
Very impressive operation. I'm sure that it will help some of those inner city kids avoid the downfalls of life in a high crime area.

AquaPatriot
08-18-2013, 11:17 AM
I decided to get the FT off the concrete floor to provide a bit of air/insulation. I also bought a FT water heating element. I don't expect it to do the job completely but I think I will just monitor the temperatures daily to see how they trend before I spend anymore money. January and February concern me the most. If I reach temperatures in Decemeber that concern me then I will be proactive and figure something out. Thanks for your help. It is much appreciated. I should have water and media in the FT and GB's sometime next weekend.

JCO
08-18-2013, 01:03 PM
Please take photos as you construct and post so we can see your progress. :mrgreen:

AquaPatriot
08-18-2013, 05:00 PM
Has anybody experimented with the heated pads that you lay underneath your seed starters? I was wondering if it would be worhtwhile to put one underneath the outside of the growbeds to see if I could help stabilize the temperature of the media?

bsfman
08-18-2013, 06:13 PM
Has anybody experimented with the heated pads that you lay underneath your seed starters? I was wondering if it would be worhtwhile to put one underneath the outside of the growbeds to see if I could help stabilize the temperature of the media?

Might be worth a try since growbeds are heat radiators during cold temps and heat absorbers during high temps. The most economical bang for your energy bucks though comes from heating the water directly.

JCO
08-19-2013, 12:14 AM
I agree with BSFman, heating the water directly is the best practice.

When trying to heat the water indirectly, you will loose some of the heat through radiation to other objects that it touches which does not benefit the water, but the surrounding air.

Heating the air is also not a viable source either as the ambient air temperature will never produce the same temperature in the water. The water will always be cooler than the surrounding air.

Heat the water and keep the Fish tank covered as much as possible during the winter to conserve the heat inside the tank. :mrgreen:

AquaPatriot
08-19-2013, 03:12 PM
I did buy a heater but I do not believe it will be adequate. I do like the idea of covering the water much like an outdoor hot tub. I know there has to be a place to release gases. Any opinions on how much water I should leave uncovered? I should have the plumbing done by this weekend. I will rinse the media over the weekend and cycle the water a few times and probably add fish if the numbers look good. Thanks again for your help.

AquaPatriot
08-19-2013, 04:40 PM
I have one more thing that seems to have different opinions? To add red worms or to not add red worms? I plan on running the water going into my growbeds thru a filter sock to help reduce solids in the GB. After reading some other opinions, it appears that if I filter the incomg water there would be no need for the red worms. Any thoughts?

Aloha Don
08-19-2013, 06:14 PM
Wow! you are opening a can of worms there...lol ;)
Worms have been discussed in different threads here on this forum...
search for worms and read everyone's opinion...

JCO
08-19-2013, 10:08 PM
That's probably the best suggestion I've seen on this forum when I comes to worms because you know how I feel about worms in the grow bed :evil: :evil: :evil: :mrgreen:

eddiemigue
08-20-2013, 12:56 PM
LOL JCO. I have had quite a good time reading the worm debate, but I won't chime in now as to not derail this thread.

Aqua,

Regarding your original question, I am in the lower Hudson Valley in NY, zone 7a, and I believe not to disimilar to your climate. I have blue tilapia, and they are doing very well. My setup is in an unheated, but well insulated room in my garage. All the thermal mass in the room, combined with the heat from the lighting keeps the room above 50F. Thus, a simple aquarium heater in the FT can keep my water temp in the 60F + range and keep the tilapia happy enough. They slow down, growth-wise, and don't breed at the lower temps, but can survive fine.

Your setup will have a lower ambient temperature overnight, but with enough thermal mass, and some decent insulation (not sure how your greenhouse is constructed), you should be able to keep the water temp tolerable for tilapia w/o too much energy input.

AquaPatriot
08-20-2013, 03:57 PM
Thanks again for the input. The system is in a enclosed patio that we refer to as a sunroom. It is not insulated. The windows face the south and the GB's will be about 18" from the windows. I hadn't planned on using lights becuase of the direct sunlight but I may reconsider during the winter to increase prodcution and for an extra heat source? Hadn't really considered it much.

eddiemigue
08-20-2013, 05:02 PM
Lights can get very expensive to run, and aren't the most efficient way to heat an area. I use them b/c there isn't sufficient sunlight in the room that I setup (the heat output is a secondary benefit), but if I had a greenhouse/sunroom, I would rely on sunlight for lighting. You may also want to consider passive heat capture with solar air heaters and/or solar water heaters.

I plan to give these a try in my hoop house and see what kind of difference it makes. Part of it depends on how much thermal mass you have in the sunroom and whether you can effectively capture the heat of the day to later radiate our at night.

Aloha Don
08-20-2013, 05:22 PM
I like the idea about using solar - I like off grid concepts- I'm actually just cheap and dont want to pay any more than I have to pay...I would think a 300 gal FT that is well insulated should be ok in a sun room environment with your heating element..
Looking forward to following your progress ...

Apollo
09-04-2013, 11:24 AM
Hi, I'm new to all of this, but why are we not also concerned about the cold temp for your two GBs. Is it not possible to heat the entire greenhouse?

Apollo

dead_sled
09-06-2013, 03:25 PM
I think it would require more energy to heat the entire space as opposed to heating the water. The water temperature is the most critical when choosing fish and plants.

ogaffney
11-22-2013, 04:47 PM
I live in Wisconsin, the weather get very cold. I will only be able the temperture at or around 50 degrees. What fish can I use?