Well at the beginning of 2011 the 300 gallon aquaponics system looked a bit empty on the plant life but the fish were doing well. Here is a video of that aquaponics system.
Again this is the 300 gallon aquaponics system. That 300 gallon measurement is the fish tank size, attached to that 300 gallon fish tank are 6, 100 gallon grow beds. In flood and drain media bed aquaponics systems, the max fish low per a fish tank volume can be achieved by providing twice the media bed volume as fish tank volume.
This 300 gallon system seems to me an appropriate size backyard system for an average aquaponic gardener (keeping in mind that few people remain average after getting involved with aquaponics.)
As has been noted in previous posts, all those fish you saw in this video are dead 🙁 They have been recycled into the food system via the ducks/chickens/worm bins/ and compost bins but sadly we will not be eating them directly ourselves.
It is always a terrible bummer to kill fish but I don’t really want to dwell on it other than figuring ways to avoid doing it again and help others avoid doing it too. The reason for that last fish kill had to do with the automatic feeder not noticing that the fish had quit eating because the water was too cold.
I have a plan to help combat such a thing from happening again in the future. In the video was a shot of the repeat cycle timer that I made, well that little computer chip in there has more capacity to control things so I will hook a temperature sensor to it and add another relay that will control the output from the feed timer. Then I can program the chip to shut off the circuit to the feeder whenever the temperature is too cold. This isn’t quite a substitute for personal observation of the fish but I think it may be the best I can do on short notice.
Will post more details about the upgraded electronics when the parts come in the mail.
And your point is? A 300 gallon stock tank is suitable for a fairly large size channel catfish (provided you don’t go polluting the water with excess feeding they way I did inadvertently a week or so ago.)
Rubbermaid stock tanks are at least “feed” safe and they are definitely fish safe as well as being plenty sturdy enough to stand up to the pressure of water and even gravel.
However, fish tanks don’t provide oxygen, that is a function of air to water contact as well as aeration, flow, circulation, splashing, bubbling, agitation as well as temperature of the water.
In this system water is being pumped 54 minutes out of each hour (or 9 out of every ten minutes) and water is continually draining back into the fish tank as well along with additional aeration provided by air pump and air stone on battery backup in case of power failure.