No problem.

Update:

1) The temperatures are more seasonal than they have been in a couple of years.  That's not good since we've had fairly warm falls in the last two years.  The water temperatures in the two systems have been consistently below 60.  We did have a couple of days of rain where the temperature rose to 62 F in the systems but it has come back down to 54 to 56 F.  People here and elsewhere have recommended stopping the feeding when the temperature reaches 50 F to allow for the fish's intestines to "clean out".  The average nighttime temperature over the next 10 nights will be 49 F so I am not going to stop feeding them yet.  

2) The bacterial efficiency at 50 F is 25% of what it is at 70 F (efficiency drops by 50% for every 10 degrees F drop in temperature).  I think that the 50 F temperature is a good point to stop all feeding not only from a digestion point but also because of the danger of ammonia and nitrite levels spiking.  I actually thought of getting one trout to put in the tank as a "canary in the coal mine" since it would get sick/die much faster with toxic levels than the catfish.  If the average temperatures continue to drop as they have then it won't be more than 2 to 3 weeks before I will need to stop feeding entirely, but I have already cut the feed back.  Instead of 22 grams twice a day (44 grams total per day) I am feeding 33 grams once a day.  I will check ammonia and nitrite levels tomorrow again and I may adjust the feedings downward again.  I am also paying close attention to how well they are finishing their food and I'll continue to cut back as needed.  

3) I'm getting a little concerned about my plan to use the 100 gallon stock tank to hibernate the fish in the garage.  I'm not sure it is big enough.  I think that it should be fine.  I thought again about using the 500 gallon tank and keeping it right where it is outdoors, and using a combination of insulation, water circulation and a small heater to keep it from freezing.  From all the reading I've done about cisterns, it would take a monumental effort to keep it from freezing.  

I took more pictures of the fish tank the other day because it was so sunny outside:

Quick update:

1) I forgot to mention in the post yesterday that I caught some White Suckers while scouting another pond this past weekend.  It was a very interesting set-up.  The pond empties at one end over a dam that is only a few feet high.  The other side is only a foot deep and had very little flow.  I used a small dip net to catch about 6 of them, each about 4 to 4 1/2 inches long.  They were promptly dropped in with the catfish.  They seemed to do OK for a couple of days.  Then two nights ago I noticed that several of them looked like their backs were torn up real good.  I managed to catch them all and put them in the small system along with the goldfish and golden shiners.

2) I checked the ammonia and nitrite levels again today and they were both zero.  Great, it looks like the bacteria are still working.  The fish load is nowhere near maximal so I'm not too surprised.  As I was doing this and that with the system, I had an epiphany:  Why not fill some mesh bags with gravel and sink them in the stream out back?  As long as the bacteria do not freeze, they should be fine.  I can then pour the gravel back into the grow bed to re-inoculate the rest of the gravel with bacteria in the spring.  Since there will be no flow and the gravel will be empty of any water all winter in the grow bed, that bacteria will all die out.  It's really too bad because the system has finally seemed to mature.

3) I have a friend with a very small pond that wants me to manage it for fish.  It's maybe 6 feet deep X 30 feet wide X 150 feet long.  It may be bigger than that.  I will have to get better measurements.  I know there is the website Pondboss.com where I have been reading a ton, but I may make a separate thread here since the only thing in the pond right now are frogs, crayfish and golden shiners.  My friend thought the pond was 12 feet deep and had bass in it but I quickly dispelled that myth with my fish finder and a couple of hours of fishing.

C4, is the water cloudy because of the bacteria?

It's much clearer than it looks in the pictures.  I can easily see right to the bottom and everywhere in the tank when I use a flashlight at night.  It's difficult to take good pictures and I'm not a photographer so I did the best I could.  

There is definitely some suspended organic matter in the water.  I think it's a mix of a minimal amount of algae, fish solid waste, plant matter from the grow bed, minute food particles, nematode and other worms, insect larvae including blood worms, etc.  There is of course bacteria but I don't think anything pathogenic like Staph, certainly not in large amounts.  I know that bacteria can definitely be a problem with warmer systems using for instance Tilapia and much higher fish concentrations from what I have read.  

I think the water quality is pretty good.  One reason is that while catfish are very tolerant of poorer water quality, crayfish/crawfish are not.  They actually need pretty good water quality.  It can be muddy, but the water itself can't be very polluted/toxic or they will die.  All my crayfish, when they're not killing each other or being killed by the catfish, look great.  I actually saw two mating the other night and scooped them up with the netting.  I'm kicking myself for not taking a picture because it's not something you see all the time.

Crayfish porn?

Found another one on her back tonight.  Damn whores!

Quick update:

1) The water temperature today was 59F.  But the weekend is bringing really cold weather.  The average temperatures beginning Sunday and going on for the next week should be below 50F.  It's going down to 37F on Sunday!

2) I will get pictures of the fish at some point, but when I catch them in the net they look great.  They have nice round bellies.  The fins and skin have no sores or parasites that I can tell.  Their barbels look great.  None of them have died.  I haven't looked at every single fish, but I've done a good sampling every night over the last week.  It really helps that the water is crystal clear.  They just look healthy.

3) I am still feeding and still down to 11 grams of food per day.  I did switch the food to the sinking pellets that the fish farm uses.  It smells like shrimp and I think one of the ingredients is krill or something similar.  It's also higher in fat than the other pellets.  I was a little leery of switching the food recently because I didn't want to disrupt things, but they seem to like it just fine and the extra fat I think is a good idea at this point.  They need to have a lot of fat to get through the winter hibernation which is still my plan.

4) I really have no reason to remove the catfish from the system even after the temperature drops below 50F.  It just means that I will stop feedings.  I want to wait as long as possible to transfer the fish.  I want them to be as "sluggish" as possible.  I think I'll drain and drag the sump tank into the woods near the chicken coop.  I'll drain and leave the grow bed in place.  I will drain and flip over the fish tank so

5) I should look to renewing the aquaculture license ($20 per year) as I am keeping the fish passed the new year.  

6) I'm not going to add any more fish obviously at this point.  

Any comments or ideas are welcome.

How many crayfish do you have?

I started with 40, but the supply is literally endless in the wild.  There's a couple of reasons that mine did poorly and I ended up with about 12 right now():

1)  Brown Bullhead catfish love to eat crayfish.  They cruise the shallow waters close to shore at night looking specifically for them.  So it's only natural that my catfish tore them to shreds.  The good news is that they have left (so far) only the bigger ones.  I think I have more than one species including calico crayfish.  They are all edible and the calico crayfish seems to grow the largest around here.  Here is a link to the ones in NH.  Click on each species link for a picture.

2) Crayfish will fight with and kill each other.  This is especially true if they are kept in a small space.  One way to mitigate this is to supply plenty of food and to make sure they have places to hide.  I specifically did not want to put rocks or other objects into my tank because I need to see exactly what is going on day to day.  An example of something that can go terribly wrong is if a fish dies but is wedged by the current under a rock.  It will rapidly decay over a day or two and the sudden spike in ammonia levels will kill everything in the fish tank.  So I elected to keep nothing in the fish tank but water.  Unfortunately, this means that the crayfish cannot hide from each other and they are forced into mortal combat.


One thing I noticed when hunting for crayfish this summer across central NH is that lakes and ponds with substantial largemouth and smallmouth bass populations seem to have few crayfish.  Bass are very effective at keeping the crayfish population down.  I found trout ponds to have a much larger population of crayfish.

Another thing, I did most of my crayfish catching with a small dip net, flashlight and tall boots.  The problem I found with minnow traps is that while the crayfish would crawl into them, they would also crawl right out of them!  So when I set the traps at night and checked them in the morning, I found none in the two traps I always put out.  If you do go with traps, make sure to set them some distance from where you are fishing for the catfish and retrieve them before you leave while it is still dark.

ETA:  Oops!  I forgot that I have about another dozen smaller ones in the large system's sump tank.  Since I have the two pumps in there along with plastic baskets they sit in, there is a lot more places for the crayfish to hide.  They eat whatever bits and pieces end up in there from the grow bed.  I also occasionally drop some fish pellets in there.

Good info.  We need to hook up for ice fishing this winter.

Yes, that would be great.  I go for cusk on Winnepesauke, and I like pickeral and yellow perch on the smaller lakes and ponds.  But I'm up for anything.

It was terrible last year.  I had to study for a re-certification exam I had on March 1rst and was planning on doing a bunch of fishing after that.  It was the earliest ice-out since 1888!  March 22nd.  March 4th there was nowhere near enough ice for me to put out cusk lines in my favorite location.  Oh well, hopefully this year.

Update:

1) Big changes!  Tonight is the first frost of the season.  The temperature in the small system is 46F and likely the same in the large one.  I stopped feeding them officially last night, 10/11/2012, since the temperature is now consistently below 50F.  So the fish will now have to survive on their fat reserves until spring.  

2) I'm going to take apart the small system within the next week or so depending on the temperature.  I need to start prepping the 100 gallon container so I can bring it into the garage.

I'll post more hopefully at the end of the weekend.  I can't get into my photobucket account because of their new changes so I have to sort that out before posting more photos.  I'll likely host new pictures here.

Quick update:

1) I just realized that the small system has been in operation for 5 months.  Ouch!  That's not a very long growing season.

2) If all goes well, I will try to start my system in the spring as soon as there is no danger of the system freezing.  I'm hoping for some time in early April if possible.  Since I have all the parts, I can theoretically get the water flowing early.  The last two springs were the earliest in well over 100 years (ETA:  Meaning that the ice-out on the big lakes was the earliest since they began recording it in 1888.  This year it was March 22 and last year (2011) it was March 24.  I could maybe start even the last week of March since the water will be flowing and thus less prone to freezing).  I will cycle it without fish and use urea, ammonium sulfate or aqueous ammonia.

3) I have some plans regarding bacteria.  I don't know of the legality, but I have thought about using those onion storage bags to put gravel in and store them in the stream out back.  The water can flow through the mesh bags so the bacteria can still get some nutrition.  As long as the water does not freeze, the bacteria will not die.  The stream may get a layer of ice over it during the coldest period of the winter, but it never freezes to the bottom.  I think this would make the most sense.  I will look into the legality however.  I don't need Fish & Game or the EPA after me.

Have you done any research on how people keep these systems going through the winter, in the frozen north?

Have you run the calculator on 'price per pound' on the fish yet?

I still have some volunteer fish in my 1100 gallon tank.  They were sucked in as eggs/fry this summer.  I am not sure if I will drain the tank this winter or not.  IT would take an unusually cold winter to freeze the tank.  

So far, my volunteers are surviving on algae and mosquito larvae.   They only get  new oxygen when I run the pump to refill the tank when I am irrigating my garden.

TRG

Uh, that would be slightly embarrassing.  

I got the 500 gallon fish tank and the ?600 gallon sump tank essentially for free.  I think my friend's only expectation was that I actually build an aquaponics system.  He's seen the progression of the system to the present and I feel I've fulfilled any obligation in that regard.

The 300 gallon stock tank used as the grow bed was $300 from the local Agway.  I experimented with many pumps and currently have two pumps in the system that were $70 each.  The gravel I would have ordered anyway since I needed it for around the house for other projects.  The food which is usually the largest expense for a commercial aquaculture operation was very little compared to the other start-up costs.  

So for this first season, the costs dwarf any return in fish and vegetables.  You would have been much better off buying $100 worth of sardines and canned tomatoes.  I would have broken even if I was growing sturgeon and harvested some caviar.

If I decide to continue this going forward, and I can keep the catfish alive and healthy through the winter, I won't have the same expenses next year.  Keeping the fish through the winter should cost very little.

I have an offer for your tank.  I have developed a mild obsession for breeding Daphnia:





Here is a video of them swimming.  You can just watch the first minute or so:



I'm pretty sure I have Daphnia pulex which are smaller than the largest species Daphnia magna.  They feed on phytoplankton/algae and bacteria.  They seem to tolerate temperature extremes as the water temperatures in the buckets and 30 gallon container I've kept them in have reached temperatures of 85F+ and now are down to as low as 45F.  They are explosive breeders and can quickly overpopulate a container of water.  It's amazing to watch!  They breed both asexually and sexually.  You can read the links as they go into more detail.  The population then crashes due to the lack of food, and the cycle starts all over again.  They will keep any floating algae out of your tank.  They live alongside mosquito larvae and midge larvae (bloodworms).  I've had all 3 together in the same containers.  

They make excellent food for fish so they won't overpopulate in the tank.  I have two 5 gallon aquariums with sand on the bottom that have viable eggs.  If you're interested, I can send you some or even some live ones.  Let me know if you're interested!

Very cool

Update:

I'm starting to take down the small and large systems.

For the large system, I'm doing the following:

1) I put the netting back on top of the fish tank because the leaves are really starting to fall here and they do a great job of clogging the outflow of the fish tank.  The small white thing in the top right corner sitting on the netting is an aquarium thermometer.  



2) In addition to the black netting, I changed the camo netting to a simple blue tarp.  It blocks the sun much better than the camo netting which, as you know, is critical to keep the algae level low.  It's attached to the deck and it's very easy to pull it over the fish tank and attaches with a nylon cord to the grow bed.  If it's going to rain, I do like to take the tarp off and allow fresh water to enter the system.  It's less of a temperature shock than using the well water and you have to replace some water due to evaporation.  Also, some of the water overflows from where the grow bed pipe enters the sump tank.  This does help lower nitrate levels if the plants don't keep them low enough.  Right now that the plants are not growing, I'm happy to see some of the water exchanged.





3) I don't have any pictures of him, but my friend gave me a Rainbow Trout, probably 7" long.  I was curious about the reasons for my trout deaths and I thought that putting one back in the system would help answer some of my questions.  He's been in there for about 2 weeks now.  He looks awesome.  Admittedly, the water temperature is ideal for him.  We've had some warm weather and the temperature peaked again at 57F yesterday.  I've been feeding him worms literally every day and he has a voracious appetite.  As soon as I drop the worms in, he grabs them within 1 to 3 seconds.  He's acting like your typical trout.  He gets along with the catfish who have not touched him one bit.  He's too fast for them.  

Because of the higher temperatures, I decided to feed the catfish a little.  It's a long time to April!  As soon as the pellets went in, the trout went nuts.  So at this point I think that it was mainly a temperature and likely dissolved oxygen issue.  This trout has no evidence of parasitic infection so that may have been a factor in the summer trout I had as well.  I'm very happy about this but I'm still not planning to use trout next year.  It is satisfying though to see a trout do well in a system as long as conditions are good for it.  I feed him heavily and he looks like he's put on 20% weight!

4) I've been pulling the corn out of the large system.  The root balls are large.  The one on the left is with the gravel shaken off and the one on the right is with the gravel still on it:



The horseradish was terrible!  There is no root!  Instead of a nice fat single root as horseradish should produce, it's a fine meshwork of roots and there is no way to eat it.  The good news is that at least it produces a phenomenal surface area to absorb nitrate.  In fact, I would highly recommend horseradish if you want a plant that grows very well and you're not interested in a crop from it.  It seems to take very well to an aquaponics system.






5)  In the small system, I took out all the plants.  I fed the Swiss Chard to the chickens, not that there was much of it given the poor sun exposure from being blocked by the tomatoes.



This is the cleaned roots from one of the small system's tomato plants.  It's extremely long and healthy-looking!  I would definitely recommend tomatoes for your system.  They are nitrogen hogs and they produce good fruit.  Just make sure you stake them well.



6) The following picture shows two things.  First, you can grow Habanero pepper plants without any problems in aquaponics.  I think it would have grown better and produced more fruit had it had more sunlight.  If peppers are your think, I can definitely recommend growing them.



The second thing the picture shows is the dying tomato plant in the background.  We had a lot of wet weather in September and I think this led to verticillium wilt getting into the systems.  I've had a terrible time with this wilt in my garden which is why I decided to grow it aquaponically.  However, many of the pathogens that can attack plants in soil can do so in an aquaponics system.  But the tomatoes did do well until about a month ago so I can still recommend them.  A dedicated picture of verticillium wilt.



7)  I wanted to learn more about both fish and plant physiology so I ordered a couple of textbooks.  They are really good and I've learned a lot so far.  It's especially interesting to read about electrolyte balance and how fish deal with it.





Interesting factoid:  Fish can produce up to 1/3 of their body weight in urine per day.

I should have the small system taken down completely today.  That's all for now.

Update:

1) I'll try to post pictures this weekend.  The temperature has really plummeted.  I ended up doing some more feeding but finally stopped for good on November 2, 2012.  I was still getting water temperatures sometimes in the high 40's.  This is it, though, I'm not going to feed the fish at all.

2) I had some Golden Shiners still and the Rainbow Trout.  I swear that the trout probably doubled in weight.  I fed him worms from the garden daily and he gorged himself.  I had no way of keeping him over the winter though so he and the shiners went into a friend's pond today.  I also have probably 5 White Suckers but I didn't want them in his pond.  They can't breed in there because of the lack of flowing water and they are not good table fare so there was no point in putting them in.  I haven't figured out what I will do with them.

3) I pulled apart the small system completely.  I filled 3 separate 10 lb. onion bags with gravel from the small system and sunk them in the stream out back.  The bacteria should stay alive as long as the water does not freeze.  This way I can have my bacteria for the spring.  I will fill 3 more bags from the large system and do the same.  I never did find any laws against it.

4) I am going to wait as long as possible to take apart the large system.  The gravel grow bed stays put but the water will be drained from it for the winter.  The sump tank will be drained of water and then flipped over for the winter.  The fish tank will be turned over for the winter after removing the water.  The 25 or so catfish and the goldfish will go into the garage in the 100 gallon tank.

Hopefully more pictures on the weekend.

Sucker is good eating, a little boney, but good eating.

Some people here eat them in the spring when the water runs ice-cold.  When they are spawning, they are extremely easy to catch with a net or spear and it is legal to do so.  I can't remember off-hand how long the season runs.  I have seen them while trying to catch smelt during their spring spawn.  I haven't had much luck with smelt in this area, but the suckers will try to swim several hundred yards up streams from the lakes and ponds, sometimes in water that is only 6 inches deep.  I buy them in the winter for bait for cusk fishing.  I'm not sure I want to hang onto them for that long.  We'll see.

Update:  11/20, New Beginings

I moved the fish into the garage.  I woke up on Sunday morning to the outlet pipe from the fish tank being frozen.  So the water coming into the fish tank was simply flowing over and the pumps were running in insufficient water.  Hopefully they aren't significantly damaged.  It was down to about 27F so at least that had a cooling effect.  Also, you could hear them gurgling in the water, but there was not enough water for them to pump it.  I did use the pumps to empty the fish tank last night so they seem to be working fine.

In any case, the fish tank had about 1/2' of ice on top of it:







Outlet into the grow bed:





On Sunday, I emptied the grow bed of water using the side drain and also a siphon.  There is a screen over the outflow side/bottom hole so the gravel cannot come out.  In fact, there are two layers of plastic mesh.  This was obviously done on purpose so rocks would not come out when the time came to drain it:





I have some more pictures of the set-up inside the garage.  It's just the 100 gallon stock tank.  It's absolutely nerve-wracking to have ice start forming because once something is frozen, it's impossible to thaw out.  More pictures and prose tomorrow, including some crayfish porn!

Just to finish up the pictures I started . . .

These are some of the Brown Bullhead Catfish.  I actually completely forgot to count them.  I didn't have any deaths of catfish so there are either 25 or 26 that I put into the system.  I'll try counting them in the 100 gallon set-up but it's difficult to do if they're moving around.



The 500 gallon fish tank being drained.  I was doing this in the evening and it was cold!  It was probably 26F.  That's cold for trying to keep a system outside.  Even with the water flowing, ice will eventually take over.  



Inside the slowly emptying tank you can see the goldfish easily.  The surface kept forming ice.  I used one of the pumps with the garden hose attachment to empty it since I could stop it when I wanted to (as opposed to using a siphon).



This is the sump tank.  I emptied it and flipped it to remove the last of the water.  Various tubing on top of it.



The 500 gallon tank on its side.  Kind of sad.





I decided to give the crayfish to my acquaintance/friend for his pond.



As promised, crayfish porn!  This one is hard to see because the male is directly on top of the female, belly to belly.  I'll post a picture from google first,  The male is on top and will 'pin' the females claws down so she can't injure him:



My picture from a bucket:



This one is from the 500 gallon fish tank.  I think the cold water triggers the spawning behavior since they normally mate in the early spring.  The one male is on top of the female in the right lower corner of the photo.  There is another large male to the right waiting for his turn I would guess.  I used my Surefire E2D LED to illuminate the crayfish.  They are way at the bottom of the tank so you'll have to forgive the picture quality.



Catfish pictures taken around the same time.  They're definitely reducing their activity.



Lastly, this is the same 100 gallon stock tank I used for the sump tank in my small system.  It now houses the catfish inside my garage.  I have a bubbler going.  They seem fine.  I'm sure the move has stressed them some.







Bubbler/aerator:



That's all for now.  If you have any questions or suggestions, please let me know.  I only have the very limited experience with 3 catfish in the garage last winter, so this is mostly new territory.  I'm going to keep a better log of temperatures.

Yeah, there are days I miss the ex.  Thanks for the updates, I am still following your thread and learning a lot...

Good.  That's at least one person.  

I think when I renew the $20 non-commercial aquaculture license, I'll ask for a few other species to be put on the list.  I'm thinking of Yellow Perch, White Perch, and Sunfish.  I think the most likely candidate would be Yellow Perch if I were to add another fish type.  I may also just go with more Brown Bullhead catfish.  It will depend on how well the system gets going in the spring and what the weight of the fish are.  I will definitely weigh them before they go in so I can better determine how many I can try to grow given the size of the grow bed.

Cool pics!

YP grow SLOWLY, at least at first (take forever to get from <1" to 2 or 3", then they take off)
They do feed train easily, and are fairly hardy though.
And they will sit there along the tank walls, esp. when you are cleaning the tank: have to go SLOW so you don't scrub them!

Good to hear!  I have the luxury of being able to catch them locally.  I'll start with 3"+ fish then.

Update:  12/02/2012 Yikes!  Should have checked ammonia earlier.

I checked the ammonia today for the first time.  The test solution was darker than the 1mg/L but lighter than the 5mg/L, so say 3mg/L of ammonia.  This is high so I started water changes today.  The water is from the well which has zero ammonia so this is all from the fish.  I removed 20 gallons from the 100 gallon tank.  I let 4 X 5 gallon buckets of fresh water sit all day to let it cool to the tank temperature so there wouldn't be any temperature shock.  The temperature in the tank is 39 F (4 C).  

I put a small 2" Golden Shiner into the tank today as well, otherwise the only fish are the catfish.  I've kept the goldfish and suckers separate.  I think Golden Shiners are less tolerant of pollution than catfish, although probably not a lot less so since they are in the carp family.  I want to use it as a 'canary in the coal mine' of sorts as it might start looking worse than the catfish if anything is wrong with the water.  I'm going to start checking the ammonia levels regularly.  This week I plan on doing a 20% water change every day for five days.  I haven't gone this far to let the fish get killed by something as simple as ammonia poisoning.  I didn't check nitrite or nitrate since the water is from the well and there is virtually no bacterial activity since there is no gravel in the system.  Any trace amount of nitrite or nitrate produced will get flushed out anyway.

I'll try to get a picture up of the fish.

Update: 12/15/2012 Ammonia the same, weather really cooling

The ammonia is still the same as of yesterday before I did a water change of 20%, but I ended up only doing a few days worth of changes since I last posted so I'm not surprised.  Despite the near-freezing temperatures, they still produce quite a bit of ammonia.  I let the buckets of water come to ambient temperature so there is no temperature shock.  I am doing 20 gallons per day (4 X 5 gallon buckets) starting again yesterday.  I'm going to stick to the schedule and re-check after a total of 100 gallons gets changed out.  After that, I will change 5 gallons a day if the ammonia has dropped a lot.

I still haven't sent in my renewal for the aquaponics license.  I have to put that in the mail on Monday.  I will be adding a few fish like I posted previously.  I may end up not putting any new ones in, but I'd like that option.

Can't believe that ammonia is that high with temps that low, esp if fish are off feed.
Shallow well/500,000 bird poultry operation next door?



Now you need to dig a big hole, then sink your tank down in that, and build an earth sheltered greenhouse on top of it all, to stabilize/increase temps, THEN you get fish back on feed, pump some water on a side loop up and down thru a series of media filled baskets, and get your denitrifying bacteria up and running again!

Better yet, berm up COMPOST around the greenhouse walls, and inside around the tank as well, to generate some heat AND make some nice soil for the garden!

See? Mission creep at its finest!!!!

Don't think I haven't thought about it!  It would require too much work.  It will also get extremely cold here and I think that even with all that (burying the tank, greenhouse, etc) it would still freeze without a lot of supplemental heating which I wanted to avoid, except for maybe the coldest days in February.  I fully expect to have problems keeping the water from freezing inside the garage, but the tank is against a house wall.  On the coldest nights I can either use a water heater of some sort or a Mr. Heater propane heater next to the tank.  It will be easier to prevent it from freezing.

As far as the ammonia, yeah, I'm very surprised as well.  The pH of the well water is 8.0.  I would like it lower since it would help buffer ammonia toxicity but there is no way to accomplish that.  The low water temperature definitely does help but not as much as a low pH.  There are no farming operations around here and I've measured ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and pH more than once in the well water with values always being zero and pH being 8.0.  I'll re-check the ammonia in 3 days after these water changes and see what effect they've had.  They generally stay in a 'ball' of fish on the shaded part of the tank, kind of like chickens huddling together at night.

Update: 12/29/2012 Fish tank indoors and out

I've continued the water changes.  Below are pictures of the catfish in the 100 gallon tank inside the garage.  

Bubbler on one end



I keep a floating plastic tub that covers maybe 1/2 of the surface to help keep the light levels low during the day.  It stays at the left side of the tank.  When you first remove it, the fish are in a ball under it.



They then spread out:



Here is a view of the fish tank on it's side.  I put two 55 gallon barrels in the grow bed and there is a tarp tied over it.  In this way, the snow will go over the edge and not collect inside the grow bed.  The wood support has a couple of cracks and I worry about putting too much of a snow and ice load on it ie. snow falls, then melts and fills up the entire grow bed, gravel and all.  The sump tank is flipped upside down and it can handle any snow on top of it.  We got some snow so the containers are obviously covered by it.  I don't think I would have been successful trying to keep the fish in the 500 gallon tank outdoors without investing in a lot of extra heating.  Below the next picture are two more of how it looked this summer.



Late summer/fall photo



Mid-summer photo

Update: 02/07/2013 Fish vs. Ice

It's been intermittently chilly around here!



It's been a bear trying to keep the water from freezing at times.  I have not had to resort to any kind of water heater.  I have used a Mr. Heater a handful of times for a few hours in the evening to warm the air a little, but I haven't even used up more than two propane canisters.  I got it a little too close to the 100 gallon fish tank and the plastic got a little hot.  



I am using an aerator and sometimes a water circulater when it gets very cold.  When the water does freeze over, I've used hot water to cover the ice and let it slowly eat away at it.  So I'm doing a good job of keeping the temperature near freezing while not letting it get too much above freezing.  The plastic container on top is only to keep light out.







I've kept the goldfish and suckers separately in a 5 gallon bucket.  I've brought the bucket indoors to thaw the ice.  I try not to keep it on the concrete since it freezes more easily there.  I had supercooled the water last week and when I bumped the bucket, all the water suddenly started to crystalize.  I was able to get the ice out with a dip net so the fish were fine.



Spring is around the corner here.  We had a thaw that really got the water level up in the stream and moved some of the gravel bags I have out there.  But it did not look like any were ripped open.  I got my new aquaculture license ($20) and added Yellow Perch, White Perch, Bluegill and Sunfish to the list if I decide to keep them.

ETA:  I'm planning some ice-fishing with sgthoskins for some cusk.  Where I usually set my lines up is a good place for White Perch so maybe I'll pick some up.  I'm going to check out the ice tomorrow and keep a close eye on the weather.

Hope you all make it through the snow ok...

Thank you!  I should be OK as long as a tree doesn't fall on the house or other such disaster.  If the power goes out, I have an oil furnace with forced hot water as my primary heat and I just got a new wood stove.  I have a generator to run the furnace until the gasoline for the generator or the oil for the furnace runs out.  Then I can use wood for a while.

The fish are surviving.  I have been busy with ice-fishing so I haven't had a chance to update this, though there isn't really a whole lot to update.  The fish look great.  
I'm getting very close to starting up the aquaponics system so I can start the process of getting the bacterial colonies covering the gravel.  I am going to wait until
the nighttime temperatures are consistently >30F.  This will likely happen over the next 2 weeks I'm hoping.  Ideally, I'd like to get the system running prior to April 1rst
or close to it.  Since all the 'parts' are in place, it should not take long to set up.  I have some of the gravel from the system in 10 pound onion bags in the stream out
back and I'll be using those as the source of bacteria to re-colonize the system.  More updates as I start to set things up.

I was wondering when you were going to restart the system

We keep getting nice days but the temperatures at night keep going down into the 20's.

Update:  03/30/2013  Still plenty of snow outside, p.8

So there is still plenty of snow and I'm not sure how quickly it's going away.  The daytime temperatures are well above freezing, between 36 F and 55 F over the next 10 days.  But it will be on 27, 26, 28 respectively on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday night, but otherwise over the next 10 days we have above freezing temperatures at night.  IIRC, the outflow pipe in the tank froze 11/18/2013 and I just googled the low for that day and it was 24 F at the local airport.  I looked at my post on 11/20/2013 and I wrote that it went down to 27 F.  So it's still a little too early to get the system up.

In case you're wondering, I have two 55 gallon barrels and two 15 gallon ones under the tarp to help the snow slide off.  The 55 gallon barrels had propylene glycol solution that the local marinas use to winterize the boats.  I plan on cleaning them out and using them for potable water storage.

Beyond the temperature issue, We've had a decent amount of snow the last month so I can't even move the containers at this point!  Here is a picture below.  I spread gravel over the area on top of the snow to get it to melt faster.  It looks like it's probably going to be another 10 days before that snow is gone and nighttime temperatures stay above 27 F.

Update: 04/05/2013 Started moving the containers today!  p.8

I know it's only been 6 days since my last post, but things are starting to move fast here.  It is supposed to go down to 27 F tonight and 30 F tomorrow (Saturday) night.  After that, the lowest temperature is supposed to be 38 F over the next 8 days.  
I strongly suspect that we will not likely have any more freezing nights or at least there is a strong chance we will not.  

I shoveled out most of the snow from around the containers.  I was able to move the sump tank and the fish tank.  The grow bed is stationary anyway due to
being filled with gravel.  I flipped over the fish tank.  The rubber plugs look like they've held up well.  If all goes well, I think I may start the system up on Sunday.
I will have to hunt around in the stream for the bags of gravel.  The stream out back is still quite high.  I can always use a rake to grab the bags.

I got some good solid leads on where I can find more Brown Bullhead Catfish in case I need to add more to my system.  I was doing some spring cleaning in my kitchen and found a decent cooking scale.  My plan this time around is to be a little more scientific in terms of measuring the weight of the fish that are going in.  I may not weigh each fish, but I will have a total weight of fish by weighing, say, 5 at a time.  This way I can decide if I have enough fish for the system or if it's too much.

ETA:  One thing I did notice is that the grow bed still has about 2" of ice at the bottom of it.  I think if I didn't put the Automatic Bell Siphon in then the ice would likely melt quickly because of the flow.  

These are a few pictures of the system:

Any dangers to growing crops if my water source has an overpopulation of fish?  The ammonia levels are fish safe and our bio-filter works great but I still have to do a lot of partial water changes.

I am using my wife's 2500 gallon koi/goldfish pond for an aquaponic setup but she seems to always have way too many fish reproducing.  And I ain't eating Koi or goldfish.  I can't give the damn goldfish fast enough and must have 40 of the suckers that are 4 to 6 inches along with her dozen or so Koi.

The point of aquaponics is for the plants (and bacteria) to clean the water so water changes aren't necessary.  Hook a grow bed up and fill it with plants.  They will suck up the nitrate.  If you still have ammonia and nitrite problems, increase the your grow bed / bio filter volume to process the waste.  If you are asking if the fish waste pose a danger to being able to eat the veggies, I've never heard of such a thing.  Everything I have read suggest fish shit is relatively benign as far as transmitting diseases to humans is concerned.  I wouldn't want to swim in a vat of it, but as long as you are talking about reasonable levels, I wouldn't be concerned about the safety of m veggies in an aquaponic system.

Just to add:

1) Have you measured ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels?  I'm guessing yes since you mention that the bio-filter is working well.  

2) Are you doing water changes because of high nitrate levels?  If so, then as Corporal_Chaos notes, any additional media in your plant grow bed you filter the water through will act to make the conversion from ammonia to nitrate even more efficient and the plants you have growing in it will absorb nitrate.  If you have enough plants, you may not even need to do water changes at all.  

Plants are much more tolerant of ammonia and nitrate than fish, likely by several orders of magnitude in terms of concentration.  Think about when you put Miracle Grow (which contains lots of ammonium nitrate) on a plant.  Just a fraction of the concentration you use in a fertilizer solution would kill fish quickly.

3) Have you thought about adding an edible species to the pond?  Catfish usually do well with other fish as long as they aren't significantly larger.

If you are in Georgia, you could run your system year-round.  

If you have other questions, please post them up!

Update 04/21/2013:  Filling the fish tank, sort of, p.8

I had an odd experience.  I hadn't checked levels of ammonia in a while and one of the catfish was looking a little peaked as in it was swimming with its mouth near the surface and rolling.  I have been straight out with work and the family so I didn't have time to measure levels.  I changed the water slowly over a few days and everyone in the tank looks great.  I also put a different bubbler as there may have even been too little oxygen.  It's not likely, but it does agitate the water better now.  

So I am filling the 550 gallon fish tank.  I had to work this weekend and between that and helping to take care of a sick kid (stomach flu) I am not going to get the water flowing in the grow bed just yet, probably in a few days.  I'm getting this >< close to starting things up though.  We're still getting nighttime temps around 30 or 31 so water on top of the sump tank in a little puddle is still freezing.

I did have an epiphany of sorts:

1) I was going to leave the catfish in the garage, but the 100 gallon volume is a little on the small side now that the water is warming up and I'm still not feeding them.  So what I am going to do is fill the 550 gallon tank and, when the water temperature equalizes with the garage tank, I will transfer the 25 catfish to the 550 gallon tank.

2) This is where the epiphany comes in.  I am not going to connect the fish tank with the grow bed and sump tank.  I will put a pump in the sump tank and run it into the grow bed.  I will cycle the system by adding bacteria and a few cups of household ammonia.  

3) I will then monitor the system and when the only thing I can measure is nitrate and there is zero nitrite and ammonia, then I will move the water pump outlet to the fish tank and marry it to the rest of the system.  I can then start the feedings again.  

This is the fish tank filling outside:



Picture of the entire system though not flowing yet:

I'm going to be trying to build one of these. It's small and not a big investment to start. I don't have the room to start a full sized system but I hope this will let me get the basics which I can apply later in full scale. Thinking a few goldfish or "koi" (the Walmart ones that appear to just be fancy goldfish) and some herbs or a strawberry plant.

That looks cool.  I notice that it doesn't use media but I'm sure nitrifying bacteria will nicely coat the plant roots.  

You may need to run the system with some ammonia in the water first until you get the lettuce or herbs growing.  I would add bacteria from a well-cycled aquarium.  You can get a gallon of water from an aquarium or see if someone can give you a used filtering sponge.  Once you can't detect any ammonia in the water you can conclude that the system has been cycled and there should be enough bacteria covering the roots and surface of the system that you should be able to handle fish.  I don't know where you live, but I would see about using channel catfish if you can get them at your local pet store, although when I had an algea overgrowth disaster last summer, the only fish to survive were the goldfish!  So they are very hardy and may be better to experiment with.

Quick update:  The fish tank is filled with water.  There is some debris on the bottom I am going to siphon out and then I'll move the catfish in it as long as the temperatures are good.



One thing that is strange is the reported temperatures are not supposed to be freezing, yet in the last week I've have the water on top of the sump tank frozen over a few times





Oh well, life's little mysteries.  The weather should be warm enough to start the system.  I've going to finally get to it after work tomorrow.  I'll cycle for a day and then add the ammonia.

Your nearest reporting station may be far enough away that there is a temperature difference. You could get an outdoor thermometer and place it next to the tank to see what the temperature actually is right there.

When I start up the system, I will do exactly that.  I am going to try to be a little more 'scientific' this year ie. measuring ammonia/nitrite/nitrate/pH more often, measuring temperature, weighing the fish when I put them in so I have an exact weight of fish, etc.  I think you're right that reporting station is probably a couple/few degrees higher.

OP thanks for all your info.
heres a little info that may help you out with your fish.
I have a small fish pond (16ft.x16ft.) I leave my Koi and goldfish in it all year round and it can get quite cold here too.
for the water freesing issues get a pond deicer like this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Farm-Innovators-P-418-Aluminum-Floating/dp/B000N2ABJU/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1367107629&sr=8-3&keywords=pond+de+icer
I use 2 of them in my pond to keep a couple of spots open to allow CO2 and CO to escape from under the ice.
also I run 6 airators one 4 stone and a dual stone these run year round too, the airaitors will help keep the pond from freezing although in extreme cold the bubbles can freeze..looks like frozen foam.. but the hole will remain open.

as long as you keep a hole in the ice for the gasses to escape the fish should be OK. you did good by not feeding them in the cold weather their metabolism slows way down and any fod they eat will spoil before in their stomache they can digest it.  

In the last couple of years I have only averaged 1-2 fish lost during the winter months.