How to select the best fish for my environment?

[AquaPatriot]

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.]

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]

I agree with Roger, if you are wanting to raise fish to eat, I would choose Tilapia over Bluegill and Catfish.

[AquaPatriot]

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]

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.

[AquaPatriot]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIt-b_hbJi4

[bsfman]

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.]

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]

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]

Please take photos as you construct and post so we can see your progress.