My 700 gallon basement system

[badflash]

My main recirculating system is currently in my basement. I'll be hopefully moving it to my greenhouse once I get it built. The primary function is to breed tilapia and sell fry.

When it was first built I used Rubbermaid 100 gallon stock tanks. I am now in the process of converting some over to glass. The current system has 4 stock tanks and 3 glass tanks.

Here is a shot of the outside of my double decker tanks. I built wooden shelves to hold one tank above the other to optimize space:
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c70/badflash/tilapia/tank1.jpg

It is plumbed with 2" PVC pipe. I removed the drain fittings, enlarged the hole and replaced it with 2" bulkhead fittings. The loop you see on the outside maintains a constant water level in the tank.

This is a shot of the inside:
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c70/badflash/tilapia/Oreochromishornorum.jpg
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c70/badflash/tilapia/tank2.jpg

In the 1st picture you see the pipe that fits into the bulkhead fitting. I drilled 1" holes along the bottom of the pipe and covered it with screened tubing. This allows the system to take a suction off the bottom and pick up the fish solids. The second picture shows my fail-safe and also the water supply. The fail-safe takes the pipe and continues it to the surface just above the normal water level. I put some screened tubing over that to keep the fish out. If the bottom plugs for some reason, the water level would rise and go out the overflow.

The inlet piping is one inch. It starts off as 1.5" at the filter and drops in size as the water is distributed. The idea is to maintain a constant water velocity and smaller pipe and valves are also cheaper. The valves allow me to regulate flow to each tank.

Piping returns the water to a central sump. In the sump is my primary biological filter as there are no plants in this system. I use a clever device called an aquacube:
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c70/badflash/tilapia/aquacube.jpg

4 large 8" air stones sit underneath and provide bubbles to move the water through a series of baffles. The baffles support the bacteria that do the bio filtration. The water is saturated with oxygen, so they do an awesome job. It can't clog and never needs cleaning. It also moves about 50 gallons per minute through the filter allowing bio filtration for thousands of tilapia in a larger pool type system. I use a small regenerative blower to provide the system with the air it needs. Each tank has a separate 6" airstone and the blower and pump are off separate circuits in case one blows.

I use a small 1/2 horse pool pump and standard Hayward sand filter to remove the particulates. This requires a back-wash about every 3rd day. The sand has been replaced with plastic permabeads which don't break down like sand. They also proved a fair amount of bio filtration once they are in use for a while. The back-wash gets settled out and de-watered and the solids go into my worm bin. Once I get the grow-beds up in the greenhouse, the back-wash will go to the beds.

The system is heated with 2 1KW bucket heaters I found at a farm supply place. I have them hooked up to a digital Honeywell thermostat. The heaters are only about $25 each, and the thermostat was $60, so for $110 I have enough heat for them. As you might imagine, the electric bill went up. I also have a back-up generator, just in case the lights go out.

I've replaced two of the tanks with glass ones since I set the system up. It is far easier to tell if the females are holding fry. For grow-out tanks, the tubs are fine.

[jackalope]

Nice! hope in a couple of years I will have graduated to that point ;-)

[badflash]

This is the bucket heater I use:
http://www.jeffersequine.com/ssc/produc ... f_id=16047 (http://www.jeffersequine.com/ssc/product.asp?CID=1&pf_id=16047)

[Ironfish]

BadFlash,

I'm very impressed with your system!

IronFish

[JCO]

Ironfish,

8-) Welcome back. A lot has been happening in you absense. You have been sorely missed :mrgreen:

[jackalope]

This is the bucket heater I use:
http://www.jeffersequine.com/ssc/produc ... f_id=16047 (http://www.jeffersequine.com/ssc/product.asp?CID=1&pf_id=16047)

Isn't 100 degrees a little warm? Or does it cool enuff when it's circulating? Or is that just a sales point, and the thermostat is a controllable, so you can turn it down to 75 to 80?


* Thermostatically controlled
* Maintains water temperature at 100°F in a five gallon bucket
* SAFE IN PLASTIC

[badflash]

The 100 is a fail safe cut-off. I have it plugged into a separate temperature controller. Tilapia can live at 100, but they don't like it.

[JeffW]

What is aquacube..it needs allot of air I am guessing...it runs 27/7 too?

[badflash]

The Aquacube is my primary filter as well as my primary aerator. Yes, it takes lots of air, but any system my size or bigger needs it. I use a 1/4 HP regenerative blower 24/7. These are very reliable devices and run 20+ years without doing anything to them except cleaning the intake filter.

Check http://www.advancedaquaculture.com/aqua ... _sheet.htm (http://www.advancedaquaculture.com/aquaculture/spec_sheet.htm)

Never needs cleaning, can't clog. water exiting is fully oxygenated. In a large swimming pool these are idea. Just using bubbles over 50 GPM moves through the filter. You need something like that to handle the needs of 10,000 tilapia.

[JeffW]

Very interesting, I worked on turbojet engines years ago and these remind me of the way they operated by compressing (we called them compressor stages) air then expelling it out. No plants needed on your systems is what caught my eye..I just had to understand how you can do that.

I saw this on a web site:
As the impeller rotates, air is captured between each blade on the impeller and is pushed both outward and forward into the channels. The air then returns to the base of the blade. This process is repeated over and over as the impeller spins. It is this regeneration that gives the blower its pressure / vacuum capabilities. In essence, a regenerative blower operates like a staged reciprocal compressor and while each blade to blade regeneration "stage" results in only slight pressure increases, the sum total, from air entry to outlet can yield, in some makes continuous operating pressures up to 9 psig or vacuum to 14" hg with flows in the 200 to 250 scfm range at these points.

source here http://www.pneumaticsonline.com/Articles/fpzregenblowers.html

[badflash]

The only reason my system works is I change water. If you don't have plants to remove the nitrates and phosphate, the system will eventually become un-usable. I end up dumping about 100 gallons every week. I'm very much looking forward to aquaponics grow beds. Once these are cycled I can stop dumping the water and I won't need the sand filter. I will keep the aquacube though. It isn't practicle to move enough water through the beds to keep up with the ammonia. 50 GPM is a lot of flow, but that is what is needed in an intensive system to keep up with it.

[wpbullock]

Hi, Badflash. Looks like a real nice system you have here. Very well thought out.

I thought I read or talked with someone who warned against solids build up in the growbeds or elsewhere in the system due to eventual generation of hydrogen sulfide. You mention in your posts that you are thinking you can eliminate the sand filter if you get plants growing. Won't your beds get all gunked up with solids and lead to problems? Or is there some aspect of doing that that I don't understand?

I did call the aquacube guys a week or two ago but those are fairly expensive, too.

I have been looking around related to biofilters and found some interesting information. This page shows this gentleman's study into the most cost effective surface area of biofiltration that he found.

http://www.wernersponds.com/biofiltermedia.htm

This guy sells the scrub pads at what looks like a pretty reasonable price.

http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2939616#post2939616

I am thinking I could buy a bunch of these and put them in an onion sack then stuff the onion sack down in a piece of pipe and set it in the fish tank vertically then put air stones in the bottom and bubble air up through the pipe. I can pull the onion sack out periodically and give it a beating in a drum of water and then replace it in the pond. I also thought I could put a finer mesh under the scrubbie pads to keep some of the solids off of the scrubbies and then clean that filter out fairly frequently.

What do you think of the scrubbies?

Wes

[JCO]

Check out the system I built about 4 years ago at this link:

Hello Friends (http://www.diyaquaponics.com/forum/showthread.php?82-Hello-Friends)

We used air stones in the fish tank to keep particles suspended in the water to be overflowed into the sump tank (barrel) and the pump in the sump was well off the bottom of the sump to allow the particles to collect there and these were manually removed via a hose and suction when the buildup warranted it. You could even put another barrel in between the sump where the pump is to act as the collector. Never had to shut the system down for anything such as cleaning the sump etc. Worked great. :mrgreen:

[Breed]

Badflash
I have an 8' poly tank for my Tilapia. I raise them indoors in winter and plan on setting them out in Spring when I will plant my vegetable beds. I will need to heat the tank for a month in the Spring and a month in the Fall. How do you suggest I hook up a bucket heater?
Breeding

[badflash]

Earlier in this thread I listed the bucket heat I use from Jeffers. It is important the element is cages so it doesn't hurt the plastic. I use a honeywell digital temperature controller I got from here:
http://www.northernbrewer.com/brewing/j ... oller.html (http://www.northernbrewer.com/brewing/johnson-controls-a419-digital-temp-controller.html)
If you have a flat bottom kiddie pool, you can use a few water bed heaters. Just put them under the pool. This is a great low cost option as you can get 400 watt heaters on ebay for around $15.

[Breed]

Badflash
I am waiting for Spring, but in the meantime we started an Aquaponics system in our basement with grow beds. We have 1400 babies from fry to adults in 4 tanks with 5 grow beds (none on the fry tank). If I knew how to upload pictures, I would. We have tomatoes, carrots, cabbage, radishes, cucumbers, zucchini, head & leaf lettuce, spinach, wheat (for sprouts) and strawberries. I have three grow beds on one tank that is 125 gallons. I have one grow bed on a 55 gallon tank, but think I will add another. I have 500 fingerlings and can't get the water as clear as I would like. So another bed might help. I have flowers on my cucumbers, they are the fastest growers I have. Tomatoes only took 4 days to sprout and are about 4 feet tall, but no flowers yet. I will cut them back a bit to see if they flower.
I have 319 gallons, all totaled and I think we are going to expand. More babies on the way!!!!

[Breed]

Badflash,
Thanks for the infor. Here are two of my pics.

http://s956.photobucket.com/albums/ae50/bbreed549/Welcome%20to%20the%20Breeding%20grounds%20in%20Aqu aponicsville/?action=view&current=Seedbeds085.jpg
http://s956.photobucket.com/albums/ae50/bbreed549/Welcome%20to%20the%20Breeding%20grounds%20in%20Aqu aponicsville/?action=view&current=Seedbeds079.jpg
http://s956.photobucket.com/albums/ae50/bbreed549/Welcome%20to%20the%20Breeding%20grounds%20in%20Aqu aponicsville/?action=view&current=Seedbeds086.jpg

You have to put URLs between URL tags. If you upload a graphic only, it goes between the Img tags. No charge for repairing your URL links to your graphics. :mrgreen: JCO

[Breed]

Help - What did I do wrong in uploading my pictures???

[badflash]

http://i956.photobucket.com/albums/ae50/bbreed549/Welcome%20to%20the%20Breeding%20grounds%20in%20Aqu aponicsville/Seedbeds085.jpg

http://i956.photobucket.com/albums/ae50/bbreed549/Welcome%20to%20the%20Breeding%20grounds%20in%20Aqu aponicsville/Seedbeds079.jpg

http://i956.photobucket.com/albums/ae50/bbreed549/Welcome%20to%20the%20Breeding%20grounds%20in%20Aqu aponicsville/Seedbeds086.jpg

If you check the photobucket it gives you three links to copy. Use the last one.

Are those Rocky Mountain Whites? You need more growbeds for that amount of fish. The tomatoes need more light. I'd use a couple of 4' shoplights with daylight bulbs mounted so they go up, rather then over the plants.

[jackalope]

Those are Blues .... Aren't they cool? YEAH!!

[Breed]

Thanks Badflash for the information. Now I' m going to have to practice. I hope you guys are patient with a newbee.
The fish are Tilapia Blues. I have lots and lots of them. About 1400. And yes they will outgrow that tank. I'm thinking of getting a collapsable kiddie pool for them and their cousins - the 500 bunch born 10 days later. At least till I can get them outside in the Spring.

[badflash]

Without a doubt, kiddie pools get you the most bang for the buck. $15 for 300 gallons and they last for at least 2 years. Follow this link and scroll about 1/2 way down the page to see a REAL kiddie pool setup:
http://www.atlaspub.20m.com/rcfarm1.htm

[badflash]

Here are some details of one of the 90 gallon drilled glass tanks I used for grow-out. A friend sent me some fry a while back of some rocky mountain whites. These are a true-breeding hybrid of the Nile and Aurea and are one of the more cold hearty tilapia similar to Aurea (AKA blues). Some of these are snow white.

mOYZTVhL6ao

If you watch closely you'll see how the tank stays clean. Water comes in at one end and is removed from the bottom at the other end. Active fish make sure nothing settles. The T at the top is in case the bottom somehow gets blocked. It will overflow before the tank does.

Here is what feeding time looks like. They weren't very hungry. Normally I get wet.
N1i6KdtEXy8

[davidstcldfl]

I had bought a used 55 gal glass tank, to use as my breeder tank. Turns out, it has a sticker saying it's tempered glass and not to cut it... :(

So, I set up an air-lift siphon to take the water and waste out. Then I used a condensate float switch. Which I hooked to a contactor with a 24 volt transformer. The contactor feeds voltage to the (re-turn) poump. If the water gets too high, the contactor opens.
http://i931.photobucket.com/albums/ad157/davidstcldfl/pic011410_5.jpg
It was pretty easy to match the air-siphon to the pump. I just adjust the rate of air flow in the siphon. Hope this helps anyone that has a tank, that they can't bore a hole in.


I like your idea of having your grow out tanks sharing a common sump. I'll have to make sure the tanks I get, can be cut. Good grief, otherwise I'd have to have a pump and swithch set up for each one.... :roll:

[badflash]

No, that isn't required. I have a 120 gallon tank that is tempered glass. You can set up a constant level siphon. That is what I have in that tank. It work like a siphon draining to a drain trap. The drain trap sets the level the system will overflow to. The part that goes into the tank siphons the water over the side to the drain trap.

Here is what a small one looks like:
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c70/badflash/stuff/flowthru.jpg

The one in my 120 is made from 1" pipe. I added a top vent to that with a valve and some tubing so I can vent it if needed.

[JCO]

where do you get the black strainers? :mrgreen:

[davidstcldfl]

Thanks Badflash. 'Trying' to grasp this idea....looks like it will help a lot .
The 'tee' (outside the tank) sets the 'heighth' of the water in the tank ? Or, is the height, set by the 'retun flow rate' ?

What happens 'if' the pump stops ?....I'm guessing the tank drains down to the black part of the pick up tube, then the siphon is 'broken' when it picks up air (?)

[badflash]

The black strainers are part of a reverse flow filter kit for an under gravel filter.
http://www.thatpetplace.com/pet/product ... e_flow_kit (http://www.thatpetplace.com/pet/product/productInfo.web?=&infoParam.itemKey=213925&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=penguin_reverse_flow_kit)

No, when flow stops, the level stays within about 1" of where is normally is. This is a siphon that starts & stops by itself. The loop over the side of the tank always stays full of water. The drain port level outside the tank sets the level to be maintained. The picture is deceptive. The drain port outside the tank is 3" lower than the side of the tank. That is the level that is maintained.

Here is how it works. Water enters through the strainer and goes up over the side of the tank. It then goes down to the bottom of the loops seal and up to the T with the open stand pipe and drain. Because this is open to the air it does not actively suck like a normal siphon. Water seeks its own level, so if the tank water level starts to rise, it just overflows out the drain line.

Think oof a normal siphom hose. Fill the line with water and put one end at the bottom of the tank, the over end outside the tank, looping down then up to above the surface of the water, but outside the tank. Lower the end to below the surface, still outside the tank. Water flows out of the end of the siphon until the water level of the tank is equal to the top of the hose. That is how it works.

[davidstcldfl]

OK....thanks Badflash, I'll have to give it a try.... :D

[catfish]

How much is an Aquacube?

[badflash]

How much is an Aquacube?

I think mine was about $200. I've never had to clean it or do anything to it in over 2 years. These need a big air pump to operate. I use a regen blower.

[catfish]

Where can I get the air supply you are talking about?

Also what model of Aquacube do you have and where can you find them?

[badflash]

Read this post.

Check ebay.

[catfish]

You mention that in your picture you have drilled 1" holes to help pick up solids. Does this then dump the solids into the biofilter or where do they go?

Also you mention the electric went up, have you been able to tell how much this system raised you bill each month?

[badflash]

The solids go into the sump and are sucked up bt the pump. They then are trapped bt the sand filter. For the aquarium system, they go into the bead filter. I clean the bead filter in a deep sink. The sand filer I backflush just like a pool filter.

[badflash]

Also you mention the electric went up, have you been able to tell how much this system raised you bill each month?

In winter with the heater on the system draws 3KW between the heater, pump and blower. My electrical cost is around 10 cents a KW-Hr. That is costing me $216 a month.

[catfish]

Also you mention the electric went up, have you been able to tell how much this system raised you bill each month?

In winter with the heater on the system draws 3KW between the heater, pump and blower. My electrical cost is around 10 cents a KW-Hr. That is costing me $216 a month.


So is the $216 your total bill or that is how much extra it is per month now that you have the Tilapia?

[davidstcldfl]

Catfish, I think the $216 is 'extra'. 'If' he heats his house with electric (in the freezing New York winters... :shock: ).....he owes his soul to the power company... :roll:

[Hotrodmike]

Hey Bad
Where in the world did you find a regenerative blower that small . We used to use those when I worked in plastics . They used the vaccumm side to pull the plastic up into the hoppers but I never knew they made them that small
Have A Kind Day
Mike

[badflash]

$216 is extra.

I got the blower from a guy on Aquabid. Turns out he lives less than an hour a way. It is a standard laboratory blower. They come in all sizes.

[catfish]

So is that just in the winter when you are heating and everything or is that each month for 12 months?


Also are you running this like a business so you can deduct these costs or just eating them?


I am just beginning to wonder if I still want to try to do this since I do not plan on selling any of them.

I guess maybe I should consider selling them.


Where do you get your bags and oxygen and how much does something like that cost?

[Jim7631]

Well, you're right - you are doing exactly what we want to do. Our greenhouse exists; however, we're not prepared to heat it during the winter - at least not to the extent required for Tilapia in Northwestern Virginia. So, we'll start the fish in the basement - like you. Thank you again for the information.

Jim