New System Ideas, feedback wanted

[DonofPaw]

Ok so I want to start a system, I'm located in Massachusetts, we have a lot of seasonal variation. Here's my plan.

I bought a 150 gallon plastic rubbermaid stock tank as my fish tank.

I have a green room, which is south facing and gets very warm on a sunny day, need to figure out how to get the glass ventilator to go up and down again, it has the pulley but no machinery for an electric temp controlled motor system to raise and lower. I'm thinking of getting some of the paraffin filled auto raise and lower devices?

I have a 50 gallon fish tank and a 30 gallon fish tank. Was thinking I would use them in the basement, buy the fish now and keep them warm using tanks heaters and mechanical filters and such from now until April or May when the temperatures are warm enough to keep them in the greenhouse.

When temps are warm enough I was thinking I would then keep them in greenhouse room from April or May - Oct to finish grow out.

Was thinking I would use the 150 gallon tank and cut 55 gallon food grade barrels in half for the grow bed, perhaps a total of 6 or 8 half barrel grow beds.

1. What are your thoughts on my above starting ideas?
2. What kind of system would you use, I was thinking stand pipes on a timer draining directly
into the fish tank.
3 What size pump should I be looking at?
4. What kind of pumps should I be looking at?
5. Will I be able to keep 40 1.5 inch fry in a 50 and a 30 gallon tank from the end of Jan until
April or May?

I really appreciate any thoughts or feedback.

[davidstcldfl]

Hi DonofPaw, I wanted to at least say "Hi'..and welcome.. I was just doing a quick check of the posts. I'm to meet a guy shortly, to look at his AP system.

[rfeiller]

Welcome to the forum.
How large do you expect them to be in 4months? That is what I would base it on.

[Big Al]

hi donofpaw, welcome to the forum. what type of fish were you thinking of
raising and what type of filter were you going to use. best wishes Big Al

[jackalope]

Welcome to the forum .... glad you're here!

[keith_r]

what kind of fish will you use? since you will be using mechanical filtration anyways, you could just start them in the 150gal tank in the greenroom, or even the basement?

If you have 4 barrels for growbeds, that wwould be about 200 gallons of media, roughly half to "flood" the barrels, so 100 gallons to flood, that would just about empty your fish tank, so you'll probably want a sump, and make a "chift pist" system...."Constant Height In Fish Tank, Pump In Sump Tank"

if you are raising a cold water fish, you should check the night time temps of your green room and may be able to winter the fish in there with minimal heating (like bluegill or yellow perch), but tilapia would need to stay warmer

you want your pump to be able to pump the volume of your fish tank at least once an hour, but more is better (and you may want o expand at some point ).. you can always divert flow back into the tank to add aeration. and you want it to be able to pump that volume at the "head" you need, that is, how high from the surface of the water you need to pump, you can get a submersible pond pump that would handle the volume you're looking at at a big box store like home depot or loews for under a 100, use pvc to plumb it - oversize is better, like 1" supply

[DonofPaw]

Hello everyone thanks for the kind welcomes!

My thought is Tilapia since I could order them online and keep some back each year for breeding stock.

My thought at the moment is I get 40 tilapia fry and raise them from the start of Jan (if the seller is able to ship in winter) in the basement fishtank (50 gallons) the basement stays at a constant 45 degrees during the winter so I figure a 300 watt heater should keep the starter fry and future breeding stock warm.

Then I would move some of the tilapia and future breeding tilapia to the 30 gallon tank to grow out a bit before temps rise.

Final step would be to move them to the 150 gallon unheated stock tank in the green room once evening temps are consistanly above 50 (keep a electric radaroator in green room just in case min temps are hit) I would really like to do this using aquaponics though the season would only be about 5 months in the actual aquaponics setup. Perhaps I could look into a cold water fish for winter use next year but I don't think any cold water fish would breed in my small scale system.

Thoughts?

[DonofPaw]

Hmm if I use 2 barrels cut in half so a total of 4 half barrels for growing media would that drop the water levels to low? I'm a little worried about the ump based system I only have liited space in the green room 6X10 plus I don't have anything to act as a sump...

Thanks for the pump size recomedations that is a helpful rule of thumb, can I ever go to big? Any rule of thumb on to large?

[DonofPaw]

I also find so much conflicting info on tilapia grow out size, guess that has so much to do with food and heat. Was thinking the tilapia would still be small enough to keep 40 of them between the 50 and the 30 gallon tanks for 3-4 months, am I underestimating how quick they will gain?

[badflash]

You can keep that many small ones in a 50 gallon tank, but what ends up happening is they grow to 4" in about 3 months. At that point they will stunt and you'll never get large fish. They can still breed and produce nice large offspring though.

Keep in mind that tilapia must be kept above 70F to stay healthy. 300 watts may not be enough for a 45F basement.