Sunday, January 15, 2012

2011 in Review

This is what the greenhouse looks like today.   All of the plumbing has been operational for most of the past year.  There are two independent systems, one on each side, and I added a fingerling tank to each system.  
First, I cycled the system on the left using pure ammonia.  It worked beautifully.  Ammonia levels went way up, then nitrites followed by nitrate levels.  I put a bunch of plants from my soil garden into the beds to suck up the nitrates and everything was thriving,  until...
Without any shade, my greenhouse was taking in enourmous amounts of UV radiation, and the plants were getting nuked.  The temperature was not too bad, but the plants were cooking.  I procrastinated buying a greenhouse shade for too long, and the plants were dead.
Ultimately, I bought the shade, and found that it worked really well in making the greenhouse bearable during the summer, but during the time that lapsed, I had not introduced any fish.

 
The system on the right has goldfish now, and I am in the process of ordering tilapia for the system on the right.  The main thing that I have been struggling with, that has kept me from ordering the tilapia, is water temperature.  Most of the things I have read is that fingerlings need water temperature in the 80 degree range.  I have added a few aquarium heaters, but they are only keeping the water during the winter in the 70 degree range.  Although this may be fine, I have been in a paralysis about this.  (Anyone with some experience here, let me know your thoughts.)

3 Comments:

Blogger Monday's Child said...

I raise tilapia in my AP system here in Southern California. Where I live we do occasionally get snow in the winter, though not much. For the last few months it has been mostly in the 40 to 50 degree range outside.

Last year was my first winter of AP and I didn't have a bucket heater for my fishtank. It turns out that tilapia can survive the cold, except they won't eat. So it isn't the cold that kills them, it's starvation.

I bought a thermostat to use with the bucket heater, but it would require an electrician to properly hook them together (I bought the wrong stuff and they're not really compatible) so we just manually plug the heater in for a few days, check the temperature, and unplug it again as necessary. We're out there feeding the fish every other day anyway, so it's no big deal.

How big is your tank? How cold are your winters? My bucket heater was (iirc) about $100 and slowly raises the temperature in my 300 gallon tank.

January 16, 2012 at 11:02 AM  
Blogger Jon Ezrine said...

Monday, my tanks together hold 360 gallons on each of the two systems and I have been using a couple of aquarium heaters to elevate the temperature.

What kind of bucket heater do you have?

Jon

January 16, 2012 at 7:31 PM  
Blogger Monday's Child said...

Boy was I wrong, the heater was under $40.
I got this one:
http://www.amazon.com/MARSHALLTOWN-Premier-742G-Bucket-Heater/dp/B000BDB4UG/ref=sr_1_1?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1327093295&sr=1-1

I admit it's an electricity hog. But worth it to keep the fish safe. A friend had recommended putting it in the bottom of the tank in a pot, covered in rocks, so the fish wouldn't rub directly against it. But that was bad advice because
A) the instructions say not to submerse it that deeply
B) it has an integrated heat shield.
Of course I haven't tried touching it directly myself either. But I've got a hanging plant pot hooked to the upper edge of the tank, and the heater in that. It keeps it under the water far enough, but not too far. And since I'm running a constant-height-in-tank system, it remains exactly that submerged at all times. If it came above water it does have an auto-shut off, but I don't like to rely on that.

I had considered putting it into the sump instead, but I think the way my system is set up, the sump would get really warm but the fish wouldn't get much of it.

YMMV of course.

January 20, 2012 at 4:07 PM  

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