Fish Farming At Home

[blacks]

23718.jpgiconDA_691098239_thumb.jpgHi

I Would like to start raising tilapia at home here's what i have plan

4 250 Gallon IBC Tote Tank for the tilapia when they start getting big

Then i plan on getting 1 150 gallon aquarium and 4 30 gallon aquarium for the breeding and nursery room

For the recirculation system i think i got it now i'll use a koi pond deluxe aeration kit and
6000 Gallon Pressurized Pond Filter For Koi Fish Pond

The only thing i think that i'm missing would be the temperature control or heater

Can anyone refer to me where i should get those from ?
I would also like to know where can i get some usefull formula's for raising tilapia ?
How many tilapia can i raise in one of those tanks ?
how much time a day do i feed them ?
At what age do i put them in the grow out tank ?
What do i give them to eat when they are just born ?
At what age do i harvest them ?

These are the links to my items for the fish farm

http://cgi.ebay.com/275-Gallon-Recon...#ht_1319wt_905
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...#ht_2466wt_905
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...#ht_2227wt_905

[GaryD]

Hi blacks,

You can certainly grow fish in an IBC - the plastic tank in a cage.

I wouldn't bother with the canister filter - it won't be able to cope with the waste from a 250 gallon IBC tote full of tilapia. A koi pond is a very different environment to a recirculating aquaculture system.

In my opinion, you need a mechanical filter like a swirl tank or a sedimentation tank to trap the settleable solids.....and a mat filter or a packed media filter to trap the suspended solids......and a trickling bio-filter or a moving bed bio-filter to convert the dissolved solids into nitrates. You can build most of what you need yourself.

Of course, you can achieve a similar result by just attaching some media grow beds and cutting back on your stocking expectations.

Gary

[blacks]

Hi, Gary

Thank you for responding but i dont know how to about this where the recirculation system is concern i was trying to look for a diy on it for the tote tanks and i didn't find any so i was wondering if someone from in this forum would be willing to help me setup my system ?

[ande]

Try here http://www.koiphen.com/forums/forumd...ration-Library

[RS_]

Blacks,
using conservative numbers for a max stocking density at 1Lb fish for 5gal water for a 250gal FT = 50Lb fish, that can be 50 1Lb fish, 25 2Lb fish, or 100 0.5Lb fish.

in the Caribbean, if the water will stay over 80F year around, you should not need any water heaters,

harvest at over 1LB to 2LB

feed 3 or 4 times a day

setup 10 fry tanks, put all the fry from a week into a tank, so that the older fry can't eat the new born's,
at 10 weeks, thin out the smallest ones , and put the biggest ones in the grow out tank, i feed the smallest ones to the 6 to 12" catfish...

I use a egg yolk, yeast and flour mixture to feed the tilapia fry, along with store bought fry food
I am also planning a Green Water production system to help feed the tilapia fry, using several IBC's.... will post about it in my system thread when am ready.

get more IBC Totes and make them into a flood and drain grow bed biofilter CHOP system, by cutting them in 1/2, and add Bell Siphons to both 1/2's, fill them with grow bed media, and use 4 of these GB's per 1 IBC FT, then use 1 or 2 IBC's for the sump. you could put floating biofilter media in the sump, i am going to do this when i get some pot scrubbies....
4-5 IBC's setup like this, will create a nice size grow out system, that will support that 50Lb of fish with out any problems. and grow lots of veggies.......

you also need a biofilter system for the fry tanks, so depending on the size of the fry tanks, use a 1/2 IBC GB for them

[Rockwell]

We've been raising tilapia in 2-250 gallon nursery tanks, 2-500 gallon grow out tanks and 2-4,000 gallon harvest tanks for over two years now. The small tanks run on regular aquarium filters without a lot of work (we clean the filters and exchange water weekly) but the other tanks are running just fine with a recirculating system made of repurposed 80 gallon syrup drums filled with bags of strand media that act as a dual purpose settlement tank/biofilter. If we failed to follow protocol on what we need the fish don't seem to notice it. Of course we are also a farm so we have use for the water we exchange by pumping it to drums that we take out to pasture and orchards to spray with a small gas transfer pump.

Our fish are very healthy (tilapia) our fields are extremely fertile and have very high brix content in the grasses and our maple orchard had one of the highest sugar contents we've ever seen this year.

[GreenFin]

Rockwell, sounds like you have a nice setup.

What max densities of fish weight per volume do you run in your 250, 500, and 4k tanks?

[Rockwell]

Rockwell, sounds like you have a nice setup.

What max densities of fish weight per volume do you run in your 250, 500, and 4k tanks?

We stock about 400-500 fry in the nursery tanks at any given time, half that number in the grow out tanks and maybe 1,200 in the big tanks, although we harvest regularly.

[Earz]

Blacks -

i have seen a system to cool the water if heat is a problem. The system is very simple and can be sized to meet any demand. For my system here in Louisiana, where we light things on fire to cool off in August, I will use a small dorm fridge of about 2.0 cubic feet. I will drill a hole in the top of the fridge and one in side. I will get a small pump about 30 gallons an hour and connect the tubing through the fridge where I will put a roll of say 60 feet. I will draw the water from the bottom of the tank and empty the water into the top of the tank allowing the cooled water to float to the bottom. Use some foam sealant and viloa you have a water chiller for little to nothing. If your needs are bigger simply use a full size fridge and a larger pump. with a lot of tubing in the fridge it allows the water to actually get cold enough to drop the temp, but not a a rate that would stress your fish.

Just an Idea anyways.

[GaryD]

Hi Earz,

I think a similar idea was proposed by one of our Australian members....but, if I recall, it was relatively inefficient in practice.

To achieve a short term cooling effect, you can drop a block of ice into the fish tank.....and you can buy purpose built fish tank coolers.

If the fish production side of your system is able to be disconnected from the plant production side, you may benefit from isolating the fish tank since pumping water through hot grow beds will only exacerbate your temperature problems.

Gary