And finally success, all of that playing with different parts and it was the drain pipe for both problems. Problem solved for now, we'll see what tomorrow brings.

Good!  Usually there is a range of sweet spots for the siphon to work properly.  Depending on the exact set-up/tubing, that range can be relatively narrow.

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If you have the temperature for it, I would definitely go with tilapia.  I've never grown any so my advice is purely from what I have read.  They grow the fastest and are tolerant of many conditions except low temperatures.  They really do best at 75 to 85, stop growing at 70, and die at 50F.  If you have 6 months of hot weather, I would try that next.  Tilapia are notorious for being able to eat a wide variety of food.  

Goldfish are great because they are nearly impossible to kill compared to every other freshwater fish.  Catfish are tough, but goldfish in my experience do even better.  But you can't really eat goldfish.

I really like my Channel catfish and they are popular in aquaponics.  Why can't you go with catfish?


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You can still grow catfish in 50 gallons.  The only thing you have to watch out for is the total weight of the fish which is proportional to how much grow bed volume you need to handle ammonia waste.  The number is roughly 25 gallons of grow bed media can support a total of 6 pounds of fish.



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I can raise them just not eat them as they are not kosher.

Got it.  I guess eel and crayfish are out.  Happy Hanukkah!

I actually did toy with the idea of eel as we can buy them for bait about an hour away on the seacoast at bait shops.  I had them added to my aquaponics license but there were some additional rules and nothing ever came of it.  They are very tough to keep from escaping!  I've had them crawl out of aquariums and have found them dried up the next day.

I think Tilapia is your best bet.  They are also a lot easier to breed than catfish so you can supply your own fry.  I simply can't do it because of the temperature requirements.  

Go figure, I get home from work and again my siphon is not working. How did I see that coming. lol

Since you don't have a lot of fish depending on the system, you can always make another automatic bell siphon.  Where did you get your design?  Have you seen the article about automatic bell siphons?



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I watched a lot of youtube videos when I first started it out. Now I'm just doing whatever will get it to work. I think I have it working again... we shall see what it's doing here in a few.

If you haven't read this article, take a look.  There may not be anything new for you, but I followed the directions and I've been able to get my siphons to work consistently.  

Automatic Bell Siphon

How many gallons is your grow bed volume?

Sorry for the delay, have been busy. My grow bed is 10 gal. My aquarium is 55 gal. I have been thinking of adding a second 10 gal. grow bed.

I now have beans growing again, and waiting for other plants to start. What do you guys think?

Looks good!  The general consensus is that 25 gallons of grow bed volume can support a total of 6 pounds of fish.  I think in terms of temperature, the bacterial activity increases with it, so the rule of the amount of fish you can keep likely remains the same independent of temperature as the fish's metabolism also changes with temperature.  

I would add another 10 gallons and then figure out what fish you want to keep.  If you have it indoors, you should really look at tilapia as they are the best overall fish unless you have to deal with cold water like I do.

Quick Update:

I brought my 12 Channel catfish indoors on 01/02/2016.  That's a record as last year I brought them in on 11/18/2014, and the prior years were 11/12/2013, and 11/18/2012.  So this was the longest I had them outside.

I fed them until 10/18/2015.  I have the temperature highs and lows for this entire season.

The total weight of the fish went from 9.8 pounds on 05/05/2015 to 18.7 pounds on 01/02/2016.  The largest fish went from 1.5 pounds to 2.7 pounds during the same time.

I took picture but Imgur is blocking AR15.com so I will have to host them elsewhere.

While I brought the fish indoors into the 300 gallon stock tank, I am using snow to keep the water temperature < 50F for several days and only gradually let it go up to prevent temperature shock.  The current temperature of the basement is about 63F.  

I have a home-made 12 gallon canister filter along with two smaller canister filters.

I will post an update with pictures as time permits.

This is extremely exciting.  My plan is to breed these come springtime!



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Quick update:

I am letting the water temperature go up to 55F starting tomorrow morning.

The fish are looking good.  Since I brought them indoors on 01/02/16, I let the water temperature go up to 50F up until today.  I bought the paperback edition of the following book for $99.  The hard-cover is $250+.  



I found a link from the book that talks about how slowly to increase water temperature.  The temperature of the water in a bucket in the room is only 63F so I probably don't need to be this cautious, but I've invested 2 1/2 years in these fish and don't want to mess things up!

ETA:  The outdoor temperature this morning was 2F!  2.  I timed bringing in the fish well.  There's no way to keep the fish tank outside at those temperatures without putting in a lot of heat.


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Quick update:

I measured levels yesterday to get an idea of where I'm at:

Ammonia:  0.5 ppm
Nitrite:      0.25 ppm
Nitrate:     5 ppm

Ammonia and nitrite, while low, should be zero.  While I started with expanded shale covered with bacteria, I wonder how much the prolonged near freezing temperatures affected them.

I'm not going to worry about it too much but I am going to keep a close eye on nitrite levels.  I started to feed the fish yesterday a little more.  I don't know if the catfish are eating as they tend to only eat when it's dark, but I can definitely see the goldfish eating so they will produce ammonia.

I will get some pictures up.  I was going to do it when I had more time, but Imgur had blocked Arfcom and I didn't want to use another site.  They've unblocked us so I will get pics up soon.

Also, I got a shipping notice on my book.  I'm excited to look through it.


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I posted this in General Discussion:

I posted pictures of my Channel catfish a while back and wanted to update.

This is probably a few weeks after I got them about 2 1/2 years ago.  This is not all of the fish at the time.  I initially had a batch of about 25 fish:



Cut plastic 1 gallon milk jug for size comparison.  Some of the fish weigh between 4.5 to 9 grams.







This was after several more months of growth, probably 6:



This is spring 2014 after growing them all winter indoors.  They are about a year old at this point.  Unfortunately, I don't think I have a photo of them in their 75 gallon indoor stock tank for comparison, but you get an idea comparing them in these pictures in 5 gallon buckets to when I had first gotten them.  They numbered about 17 IIRC.  This is while transferring them outside to the aquaponics system for the summer so only a few in the bucket at a time.





I weigh them to get an idea on growth.  The best scale I have found is a Pampered Chef.  I tried a digital scale but they have to stay perfectly still for a few seconds which never happens.





Juvenile Channel catfish have black spots and a forked tail to help differentiate from other catfish species:



Spring 2015.  The largest catfish weighed 1.5 lbs and the total weight of the fish was 9.8 lbs.  They were 2 years old at this point.



Mid-summer 2015 at the bottom of the 550 gallon aquaponics fish tank:



January 2015.  I put them into the outdoor aquaponics system on 05/05/2015 and the photo below was taken last week.  The largest catfish went from 1.5 lbs to 2.7 lbs!  The total weight of the fish went from 9.8 lbs to 18.7 lbs.  I put them in the 75 gallon tank temporarily solely to take a picture for comparison.  





If all goes well, they will be 3 years old this coming spring 2016 and I will attempt to breed them.  Fingers crossed.

Quick comparison of the fish all in the 75 gallon stock tank:

6 months old



2 years old



2 1/2 years old

Quick update:

I will get some pictures of the fish indoors.  I have them in the 300 gallon sump tank i.e. stock tank.  The middle of the tank has an inverted 5 gallon bucket which has a 12 gallon container filled with expanded shale.  I also have the much smaller canister filters X 2.

My nitrites were climbing and peaked at 2ppm and wasn't coming down.  Ammonia was at around 1ppm.  I wasn't happy with the nitrites and added 3ppt (parts per thousand) salt which prevents the fish from absorbing the nitrites.  

I also ended up doing an almost complete water change.  Of course you have to re-add the salt again.  The water temperature is hovering between 58 to 59F.  I don't heat the basement and I think evaporative cooling also cools the water.  I'm actually happy with this temperature.  It's cool enough that I don't have to worry about high metabolic rate and high ammonia production, but it is warm enough to need to feed them and keep their weight on.  I am hoping to fatten them up before putting them outside in the spring.

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8 months after I set up my initial aquaponic skeleton i have an update.

In june 2013 I was ready to add the expanded shale to my system, I was scheduled to meet my brother the morning of june 13th, 2015 to pick up a yard of expanded shale in his pickup, at 1 am on june 13th we got the call everyone dreads. My father had passed away in Utah(i live in texas).

So we packed the car and were out the door by 5 am with me, my wife, 1.5 year old daughter and my brother. drove all day. We were there for 2.5 weeks. by the time we got back to texas summer was in full swing so i stopped working on it at that point.

I did inherit my dad's 2001 HD silverado (496 cu in of gas powered glory ;) ).

so i went and got the shale this weekend, have it in my 250 Gallon IBC system. Siphon is working beautifully, drained one time to remove silt wash.

Going to start cycling this week, temps have been in the upper 60/low 70's for a week. odds of terrible cold has dropped rapidly.

i hope to have fish in a couple weeks. i might start with comets because they are cheap.....

Sorry about your dad.  May he RIP.

Comets should be bullet-proof.  I have kept many different fish over the years and I think they are the most difficult to kill.  They can withstand both extremes of temperature and very tough water conditions.  

I don't know what you'll decide to keep afterwards, but if you go with Channel catfish, they like to have companion fish in the system as it makes them more comfortable.  The Comets are referred to as "dither fish" in this situation where they make the catfish less nervous.  This is the Wiki link on dither fish, though they talk about them in terms of Cichlids.  Catfish and goldfish get along fine as long as the latter are as big or bigger than the catfish, or at least can't fit in the catfish's mouth.

Thanks for the condolences. He had been in poor health for a couple years, had a minor skin infection on a monday, went to hospital they kept him for 3 days, released him on Friday morning, that night he was gone. He was 70 and its never easy to get that call but I think he was ready my mom passed 15 years ago and I think he just wanted to be with her again.

I eventually want to move to Mozambique tilapia (we can keep them in texas without an aquaculture license.) and maybe some channel cats. but 20-30 comets to get started seems easy enough. also i have 2/3 of a yard of shale left, and one more IBC. so after i get some plants going i may set up a second tote and plumb it into the system.

Tilapia is going to be awesome.  Fast growth rate.  They eat everything.  They are considerably easier to breed than just about any other fish than guppies.  The flesh is mild and easily spiced up.  

Definitely get pictures of the comets when you have everything set up.  I'd love to see them!

That shale is easier to work with than gravel because it's less dense.

just found your thread! awesome stuff.





Gonna be building a aquaponics greenhouse this weekend, but wont be using any fish.






https://simplydifferently.org/Star_Dome?page=0



 

Cool!  What area of the U.S. are you in?  I don't have the space for a greenhouse given the layout of my property, but it's a great way to prolong the aquaponics season.  

What kind of fish are you thinking about keeping?

ETA:  I read your message below your avatar.  I ran for town budget committee last March and was elected for a 3 year term.  Great way to get involved!

In WA, but wont be using fish at first. I should get 9 to 10 months of use out of the year without heating. Using a dome so it can handle snow load and wind side load.





eta: local govt is great place to get good things done



going to use this system:


 

Tiger shrimp?  Are you going to do hydroponics first?


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Sorry for not updating this more often with photos.

Everything seems to be going according to plan which is as follows:

1) The 12 indoor Channel catfish are looking good.  The 15 gallon homemade canister filter made with expanded shale rocks is working perfectly.  The ammonia and nitrite levels have remained zero since January.  Nitrate levels have risen rapidly, but since the 300 stock tank is in the basement next to the sink, I can pump the water from the tank to the outside and then refill with tap water (well water containing no chlorine).  They are looking great.

2) I am in the process of setting up the outdoor 1100+ gallon swimming pool I will be using as a "breeding" tank.  I am using plastic totes as the cavities in which the catfish will breed.  My plan is to use plastic fencing to separate 3 of the plastic totes and have 3 breeding pairs.  The totes will be kept on the bottom by putting about 1 to 2" of pea gravel inside them which will also act as the surface onto which the eggs will be laid.  I still have to cut/melt 6" diameter holes in the end of the totes so the catfish can go in and out of them.  I will have the tops on the totes of course so it will be a "cave".  My plan is to buy a heater to heat up the 1100 gallons of water to a minimum 74F.  Breeding usually starts at 70F but I want a safety factor.  Also, the higher the temperature, the faster the eggs will develop.

3) I don't think I'll need much of a filtration system since the fish will not be fed while in the 1100 gallon tank outdoors.  I may move the 15 gallon canister filter outside and use that, but I still have to think about this part.

4) The males and females can be definitively differentiated as the females have 2 vent holes near the base of the anal fin and males only have 1.  Actually holding the fish to determine this should be quite interesting.

5) If all goes well, I have a woman who has an aquaponics system in a greenhouse that will gladly take the baby catfish.  I am doing this purely for the intellectual challenge, though I'll likely keep a number of fish for myself if this actually works.

That's it for now.  There are some other minor details that aren't worth getting into now.  If anyone has any suggestions or questions, please let me know!

Update:  05/08/2016

I have started to plan out the area where the 1100 gallon pool is going.  I have to clean up the area a bit.  I want to demarcate the gravel area and the lawn next to it.
I had a lot of weeds growing there so I covered it with some soil from the garden and I'm going to seed it with Red Clover.  This will be a nice grazing area for my chickens.

Sorry about the mess.  This will clean up nicely.  I always find that before starting one project, I have to finish another, and another before that one.  I put a row of paving stones
to better separate the lawn from the gravel area.  I am going to avoid putting anything on the lawn going forward.





More picture updates as things progress

ETA:  I am going to have a 2' high chicken wire fence to keep the chickens away from the new clover bed.  Also, in case anyone is wondering, those are rows of radishes in the raised railroad bed.  They should be ready to harvest at the end of May and then I will plant cucumbers for pickling in their place.  I like planting two crops in the same place if possible.

ETA2:  I may be buying some Rainbow Trout this coming Wednesday.  Long story short, I think I can do a breeding pool and also keep some trout in the main system.  I have been itching to try trout again.

I picked up some Rainbow Trout, ~20 of them 4 to 5" long.  I'm still brainstorming how I'm going to make this work, but I have some good ideas.  The indoor catfish are doing well but
my source for catfish food is running into a snag.  I placed an order 1 week ago and it was supposed to arrive in 2 days.  There is no response to emails from 2 days ago and again yesterday
and no one answers the phone and the mailbox is full.  I have no idea what is going on.  I wanted to buy both my catfish and trout food so hopefully it is temporary.  I broke down today and
ordered a big bag of Bio Trout pellets.  Hopefully that gets here on Monday.  My catfish haven't fed in days and I think I'll start feeding them chopped frozen sardines.

Minor Update:  05/24/2016

I picked up another 30 trout last Wednesday (6 days ago).  One committed suicide from a container so I have 49 Rainbow trout in my outdoor system.  I am very excited but cautious about this.
The good thing is if the water temperature rises too much, I can always let them go in a friend's pond (legal).

The catfish are doing well.  I had a little problem getting food for them as the supplier didn't get the food to me so after a week I ordered some trout pellets and that
is what they are getting.  I have read through my catfish book and I feel that I am ready to try to breed them.  The first thing I need to do is to raise the indoor water
temperature to 70 to 75F which triggers the development of egg and sperm.  The outdoor 1100 gallon pool system where I will actually pair up the catfish is going to
need a heater since the water temperature has to be at 80F.  Colder than that and you risk fungal diseases attacking the eggs.  Warmer than that and you run into
problems with embryos developing so fast that you have a lot of fatal mutations.  It's still too cold outside at night so I will wait a bit longer.  

I will update this thread with pictures as soon as I can.

Update:  06/11/2016

The Rainbow Trout seem to be doing well in the 550 gallon outdoor tank.  I am feeding them a commercial sinking 2mm pellet feed from Bio-Oregon 50% protein feed.  They have a ravenous appetite.  I have a total of 49 trout from a fish hatchery that I put into the system between 3 1/2 to 6 inches, with most of them being closer to 6".  I did try this before in 2012 in this same system but used 8 to 9" trout and I believe they were all killed due to nitrite poisoning while I was still trying to learn how to do this whole aquaponics thing.  

Great plans for these trout in 2012 but they all deaded.



I now know how to collect bacteria from the canister filters I use for my catfish indoors and then use the washings from that to inoculate the outdoor system.  The bacteria break down ammonia into nitrite and then nitrate.  

These are the new Rainbow Trout:





I put them in the sump tank of the system temporarily only.  You must always cover any aquaponics system with netting or the fish will jump out.  I've had catfish jump out and die.  This is before I bought all the 49 trout.  I wanted a small test run with fewer fish to make sure they would survive the 1 hour trip in a cooler with only a battery-operated aerator.





I then took the trout out of the sump tank and put it in the main 550 gallon tank:





550 gallon tank with netting on top held in place by bungee cord:



The perfect temperature to maximize growth is 64F.  It was around 58F today and it has gone up to 74F.  The problem with higher temperatures above 64F is the lower oxygen levels.  Below 64F and their metabolism slows and they don't grow as fast.

If I run into problems with water temperatures that are too high and I can't keep the fish happy, I will let them go in a friend's private pond.

I will update the catfish project separately.  

Neat.  I am very curious about the trout.  No one in my family likes catfish, but we could eat up some trout.

I will do my best to keep things updated.  Had I not essentially killed off my trout in 2012, I probably never would have tried Channel catfish.


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Brief Update:  08/10/2016

1) The trout look great.  I think I really hit it out of the park with them.  Out of 49 Rainbow trout, only 2 have died.  One not sure why and the other may have had some kind of intestinal blockage as it got real skinny.  Very happy with how they have turned out.  Water temperature has been around 66F and we haven't had weather hot enough lately to make cooling necessary.  

2) The catfish need to be fed more.  They're simply not producing eggs and I think it's because they need to get fat and happy.  Still working on it.  

I'll get pictures up soon.

I try to spend 2 - 3 days a week at our cabin but work has gone crazy so 1 day every 2 weeks which stretches my automated animal care.
Something went wrong with my aquaponics and all my fish died and created quite the unpleasant atmosphere.

If anyone needs 25lbs of dead goldfish let me know and we can dig them up.

I have no Idea what went wrong it's been running continuously for 3 years. Might have been to many fish.
25lbs fish 200 gallons water 30ish sqft grow bed? Of coarse I started with 100 little goldfish from walmart.
So I drained and refilled the tanks and will try to get fish moved from my tank outside this weekend.

1) How long had they been dead?

2) Did the pumps fail?

My Jewelweed in my grow bed essentially peaked in their growth so they weren't sucking out as much nitrate, so my nitrates went way up.  I did a water
change though and fish look great now.  I've lost 3 fish total out of 49 trout but I think it was due to various problems and not one single problem.  If your fish
were dead and already decomposing, there's no way to measure nitrate and ammonia as they would both likely spike as a result of decomposition.  

Sorry to hear about that.

At least a week it was a solid decomposing fish and fat? soup.
Pumps where running and thankfully the bad stuff was floating and the beds looked normal.
I was growing less than usual after cleaning out a bunch of plants last month so nitrates could have been a problem.

I will be adding a camera in the future so I can monitor it remotely.
Is there a cheap digital monitor for water quality that I could install and my camera pick up?

It's very sad to watch a bunch 2" goldfish turn into 8" goldfish and then let them die.

How did I miss this?

Awesome.

I completely hear you.  I hate it when animals/fish die.  

A very simple possibility is that a single fish died and caused an ammonia spike which killed off the rest of the fish since the grow bed bacteria could not deal with all the ammonia.  Ammonia can spike like crazy from a dead fish which is why I look into the fish tank daily to make sure there aren't any dead fish in it.  

I can't think of anything to easily monitor water quality other than the temperature.  Ammonia, dissolved oxygen, etc monitors are expensive and you'd have to be handy in marrying it to some system that could alert you.  It's doable but not easy.


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Thank you.  This is why I asked you a while back about a pond on your property.  That's my dream some day is to raise some Channel catfish in a pond.  IIRC, there was one property in your thread that had a pond but you ended up buying a different property.  Is that the case?

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Yea, the home (really a converted barn) was in terrible shape, and couldn't pass inspection by the lender.

We have a nice stream running through the property now, and a huge 2/3 acre field that is unusable because it has a spring under it, so it sits in 2" of water all year round.

Perfect for a pond.

Big time jelly.  With the heat down there, you can do Channel catfish and grow them fast, and also have a self-sustaining breeding population.  Pondboss.com has a ton of info, but it's basically making sure water quality is good.  Actually, you may be able to do Tilapia.  That whole Gulf area is the original range for the Channel catfish from where they were introduced everywhere else.

C-4 do you buy fish local? i just moved back to NH and bought a house with a pond and it looks like it could use some type of baitfish. I've called a few places but they seem closed down so i don't know where to get some fish.

Yay! I missed this thread.

If you don't mind my asking, what general area are you in?  My dream is to buy property with a pond.

I would go with Golden Shiners.  

Do you have a picture of your pond and also size, depth?

My Rainbow trout are from the Sumner Brook fish hatchery in Ossipee.

I'm going to post an update here soon with pictures of the trout.  They grew extremely well since May.  If it wasn't for their colder temperature requirements, I would recommend them to you.

im in canterbury. pond is .35 acre deepest is 16 ft and i think it is spring fed. does sumner sell golden shiners?

No, they only sell trout. Shiners you would either get at a bait shop or catch them yourself.

1) Are there any fish at all in your pond?  I know a lot of people will stock a pond with trout and then they are fished out and predators get any remaining ones.  Any bait fish in such ponds are usually gone as trout will eat them.  So it's possible there are no fish in there.

2) If there are fish in there that are predatory such as bass, pickerel, trout, etc, you will have a hard time stocking it as they will eat them as soon as they are stocked in there.  

3) I probably don't live very far from you.  IM sent.

Big updates coming.

This is an update of the Rainbow Trout I bought back in the spring and put in my outdoor 550 fish tank aquaponics system on 05/12/2016.  

I fed the trout BioTrout fish feed, the 2mm size.  It is a slow-sinking pellet, so if you need floating feed then I would look for something else.  This is a good quality feed.  They have and east and west coast location and will ship food but you have to call in.  I ordered a 20kg bag and then vacuum-sealed the bags in smaller ones with an oxygen absorber to preserve freshness as an open bag really should be used up within 90 days.

They did great.  I did have a few days in the dead of July where I had to cool the water using 52F well water from my well when the temperatures rose above 70F.  I think the fish would have survived just fine, but cooling it down made it much more pleasant for them.  From my observation of their feeding and other behavior, they do very well between 64 and 66F.  By 67/68F, they're less happy.  By 70F, they become sluggish.  Most of this I think is due to the high stocking density and therefore an easier lowering of the dissolved O₂.  They survived above 70F no problem, but they slow down their eating and aren't perky.  My peak temperature in the system was 74F.  

As previously explained, this is an aquaponics system but I didn't intentionally plant anything in the grow bed.  Instead, I had wild Jewelweed set up on its own inside the grow bed and I just let it grow.  I had a large Jewelweed plant grow last year in the grow bed between the solar heating coils, but I killed it off when I added salt to my system to help with a Columnaris infection (everyone pulled through).  That Jewelweed plant was killed but not before producing a ton of seeds that led to this year's plants in the grow bed.  Jewelweed loves sunlight, nitrogen and very wet areas so it was a perfect environment for it.

From the earlier post in the spring, these were the fish.  I made two trips to the fish hatchery and ended up with a total of 49 fish in the 550 gallon tank.  As the aquarium hobbyists are surely thinking, it's a complete overstocking of that size of system, but this was an experiment.  The fish ranged in size from 3 1/2 to 6", with most being closer to the 6" end of the range.



The following 5 pictures are from 05/23/2016, or 11 days after the fish were transferred into the system.  You must cover the tank with netting or you will lose fish to jumpers.  This applies to all fish as I've even lost catfish who managed to jump out in the past.  For size reference, the stand pipe in the middle of the fish tank through which water exits is a 2" PVC pipe.







That's mostly fish waste on the bottom.  Since water comes into the system from





The following 2 pictures are from 06/13/2016.  Pictures are difficult to take as you get the reflection from the water surface so you have to get things just right.  While the plants in the grow bed do absorb nitrate waste product, the number of fish make it difficult for it to keep up so you have to do periodic water changes.  I pump the water out and use it to water one of my gardens.  The fish were growing and look happy.





The following 2 pictures are from 06/17/2016.  The fish tank is full and these were decent pictures.  Still growing.  It doesn't look like it, but there are 49 fish in there!  I did lose a total of 6 fish during the entire season to disease or possibly some other factor.  I had a couple that simply wouldn't eat.  It could have been parasites.  Who knows.





This picture from 07/06/2016, you can see the fish tank on the left and the grow bed filled with Jewelweed in the middle.  The Jewelweed is growing in expanded shale through which the water is running.  There is no other fertilizer in the system.  Everything the plants need is coming from the fish waste.



The following 4 pictures are from another water change on 07/13/2016.  Still growing and looking good.  For size reference, the stand pipe in the middle of the fish tank through which water exits is a 2" PVC pipe.









Grow bed on 07/14/2016.



Grow bed on 07/18/2016.  You can see the 75 gallon sump tank with water flowing into it and the tubing of the submersible pump sending water back to the fish tank.  You can see the 1100 gallon pool on the right which was part of an unsuccessful attempt at breeding my 2 year old Channel catfish.  I will have a separate post about them.  They've doing just fine.



This is from 08/02/2016.  The pool has gravel-filled totes that I am going to use in another attempt to breed my catfish.  You need a 6" diameter hole for the fish to go in and out and then some 1" vent holes above that.  The Jewelweed is growing like crazy.  Those are pepper plants mostly in the foreground and behind the Jewelweed are Bluejay blueberry bushes.



The following 5 pictures are from 09/24/2016.  The stocks on some of the Jewelweed got massive.  I've never seen anything like that before in the wild.  The plants have started to die back a little as some of them fell over.  They're also in full bloom and you can see the beautiful little orange flowers.  The first picture is how the grow bed normally looks like with no plants in it for reference.













09/29/2016.



Saturday, 11/19/2016, I ran out of time.  I always have work, family and other projects going on so I had to get rid of the fish.  I asked member AK-adam to, please, take these fish off my hands as I had nowhere to put them.  I didn't have the time or the desire to kill and freeze the 43 trout (they did become pets of sort at this point), and he has a 0.35 acre/16 foot deep/spring-fed dug pond on his property.  Since I have a non-commercial aquaculture permit ($20/year), transporting them to his closed-system pond wasn't an issue.    

The water was drawn down for the last time for these trout.  They had obviously grown a lot since they were first stocked 6 months earlier!















I used a rubberized net to transfer them to a cooler and stock tank.  I gave them the once over to look for disease, etc.  They all looked healthy.  Water temperature was 42F in my system and 48F surface temperature in the pond.  Not much of a difference so shock wouldn't be an issue.









Picture from when they first went in 05/12/2016



Picture from when they came out 11/19/2016.





The biggest of the fish were right around 12".  Unfortunately, I didn't have time to weight them, but you can use tables to get an approximate weight.  





I put the fish in the 75 gallon sump/stock tank in the back of my Subaru Forester.  I did get some water spilled but fortunately not too much.  It turned out I was only 35 minutes away from AK-adam which was lucky!

The water level is several feet low but we had a bone-dry summer and all the ponds in the area suffered as a result.  



This is normally a little island at one end of the pond but it's dry land due to the low water level.  The pond does have some Largemouth Bass and Brown Bullhead catfish, but I don't think they would be able to eat any of the Rainbow Trout due to their size.  



He had one of his kids help out.





I made several trips from the car with a 5-gallon bucket to transport the fish and AK-adam counted them out--43.  In earlier pictures it doesn't look like that many but I know they didn't breed in the tank!  I contacted him yesterday and there are no floating fish so I think they are taking well to their new home.









The very next day, we got snow.  Talk about good timing!



I mainly did this to see if it was possible to grow Rainbow Trout in my aquaponics system and the answer is "yes".  I would love to own a pond like the one above some day, though I would likely raise Channel catfish in it.  I am going to re-double my efforts to breed the Channel catfish in the spring when they will be 3 years old.

If you have any questions, please post them up.  I'll IM AK-adam to let him know about this post.