Smatthew,
I was thinking of draining tanks in the winter and throwing the fish in the pond (they would be big enough) to finish growing out.
One thing I noticed is that duck weed is quickly consumed by my bluegill so I might use that for a food source as well. Hard to find nutrient information on water plants. Hog shed usage is a good idea.
I’ve drank roof water before. It’s pretty clean or I should say cleaner than what’s in the pond.
That’s a great idea on taking with a longer handle. Bet that was pretty effective. Might use that trick. Sometimes what’s been working is the simplest solution. We know that works.
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I collect the roof water from my barn to water my orchard. The system involves two 500 gallon food-grade containers. You’re not supposed to collect for three years after putting on a new roof because of loose fibers and chemicals. After that, you’re good to go.
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I was thinking about putting on a metal roof so I would not need to replace it again. They are pretty nice. The corrugated thick ones I see now look pretty good. Clay tile looks good as well but it seems like it would be heavy.
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I think he pulled it across the pond with a tractor and a really long chain, I really don’t know for sure. I should ask Dad sometime, I bet he remembers.
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With any kind of wind that would put a ripple in the water, the stuff moves.
Mike
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Roof water is full of bird poop!
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Just run it through charcoal and call it good. Water that cities use has dead animals and other undesirable things floating in it sometimes. Lots of medicines, chemicals etc. in city water. Roof water is cleaner than that stuff.
Ok…Enjoy.
It’s all the same the bird poop on roofs or creeks, rivers, lakes, oceans goes in the water supply and is filtered with rock and charcoal then chlorine, fluoride etc is added to it http://m.watermanengineer.com/industrial-filters.html. This is a real simple filter they use in other countries http://www.cdc.gov/safewater/sand-filtration.html. If ever in doubt boil it.
I tried to get some duck weed started in my goldfish pond and they ate ever last one, lol.
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Derby,
That’s been my experience to. You can raise duck weed on another pond and use it for fish food. The fish won’t let me raise it on their pond either. I have some really small ponds that are dirt catchers that I use to raise fatheads, duck weed, crawdads, blue herons!?, frogs etc. . When I put my filtration system together pc11 is amazing sealing things water tight!
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Lids,
Very nice setup thanks for sharing! What do you use the rain water for? Just curious because if there is a better purpose than using it for the fish I could reuse the fish water in the system and clarify it through a true hydroponics system. What additional solutions do you add to your aquaponics for the plants?
We use the rain water (which unfortunately is seasonal) for the trees just in case the roof water would be harmful to the fish. The system is my husband’s baby but he supplements iron, calcium and potassium. The veggies grow really quickly and we harvest the tilapia, so far we love it!
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Potassium and iron are definitely the biggest additives needed in aquaponics. Fish only need trace amount of potassium, while plants need more potassium than nitrogen! Iron has issues with availability at normal pH levels - i use sprint 330 DTPA chelated iron.
If you use only rainwater, you might need to add a whole heap of other stuff that’s normally in groundwater. Off the top of my head - calcium, magnesium, boron, manganese, copper, zinc. My tap water is fairly clean, so I have to supplement quite a bit.
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If I go that route I will use county well water then. Our water is very hard water and it sounds perfect. I need to go harvest a couple hundred pounds of fish from my current pond setup but having trouble finding the time. Do you put the fish remains n your next garden location for next year for tomatoes, corn etc.? I will reuse the fish remains but in small quantity over a large area. You might look at this thread from last year explaining my past problem with reusing fish which may have been a fluke A fish per Stalk of Corn - #39 by clarkinks. I’m also planning to harvest moss from my current ponds Pond Moss as mulch. I could harvest some smaller bluegill from my current setup to test the system instead of buying fish http://growingfruit.org/t/fishing-on-4th-of-july-weekend-how-is-your-weekend/6470/13
This is a nice aquaponics build
The type of fish is another decision that needs to be made How to Raise Catfish in an Aquaponics Systems - Go Green Aquaponics
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