TCLynx's System

TCLynx

So I brought the salt up to around 4.2 ppt yesterday (knowing that with more rain it would be back down a bit shortly.)

A couple of the catfish fingerlings have what looks like worrying wounds but I could not easily catch them to separate them out. The one had the buldging eye which now appears to have a wound all around that eye now. And there is another with a wound on it's back between the head and the dorsal fin.

As far as I can tell on the rest of the catfish, they only seem to have bad damage on their fins around the barbs and one might have some tail damage. Some look just fine with no injuries.

I don't know if catfish get fin rot, the tilapia in the same system don't seem to be showing signs of any illness though.

I'll be watching and waiting to see what happens.

If things go really pear shaped, I think I'll be doing a major overhaul of the system in order to turn the current in ground fish tank into the sump, then lowering all the grow bed not already on the ground and looking for a fishtank to turn things into CHIFT PIST.

Outbackozzie

Makes things a lot simpler.

TCLynx

I am so kicking myself lately for not making my system CHIFT PIST in the first place but I still don't know how to safely do a sump here in our wet climate. We have been getting some heavy rains almost daily which would collapse a lined in ground sump or float a hard in ground sump. The only way to do it would be a gravel filled sump I think and that reduces the usable volume of the sump tank by too much I fear for this particular situation.

Then again, perhaps I pretend that the monster bed is one sump and the big fish tank is the other sump, then I have plenty of capacity I guess. I just need to get my head around how to make it work without overflowing one place or another. And then I would also need to figure out where the heck to place another 600-1000 gallon fish tank where the height would work out to feed grow beds with a SLO.

hydrophilia

TCLynx wrote:

I am so kicking myself lately for not making my system CHIFT PIST in the first place but I still don't know how to safely do a sump here in our wet climate. We have been getting some heavy rains almost daily which would collapse a lined in ground sump or float a hard in ground sump. The only way to do it would be a gravel filled sump I think and that reduces the usable volume of the sump tank by too much I fear for this particular situation.

How about a rigid in-ground sump, supporting a growbed? The GB would hold it down..

DecalsbyJT

thats what I am doing at the moment...

my ST is in the ground and has cement board bottom and the cement board sides are attached to 4 x 4's at the top...

the legs of my GB will sit on the ST 4 x 4's which will prevent it from rising up...

TCLynx

hydrophilia wrote:

How about a rigid in-ground sump, supporting a growbed? The GB would hold it down..

It is an idea, I currently don't have the money to afford a tank sturdy enough to support one of my grow beds. I've also become less keen on the idea of having a sump tank so inaccessible.

I'm thinking, if it comes to it, for about $300 I can make a cattle panel/tarp/pond liner tank that I can fit in where some of the "quarantine" wing is currently. It would be like 6' diameter and 4' high (probably only fill to between 36" and 42" deep though.) This would give me between 630 and 740 gallons of fish tank. And I can add that easily without having to re-arrange too much stuff (only the quarantine stuff and some plumbing.) I'm just not quite sure what I would then do with the current waterfall tank since I wouldn't want it, with it's fish waste washing directly into the sump tank (old in ground fish tank half filled with gravel.)

TCLynx

I managed to catch a few of the fingerlings (well not so small really since the cook insists that the ones I caught were big enough to eat.) The one with the freeky eye, the one with the bad wound on it's back, a larger one with a bad looking patch on the tail and one other one. The cook cleaned them, checking them over carefully. There are still many with a fin looking kinda bad and the barb all naked but I'm hoping that most of them will heal with the salt added to the system.

Current fish numbers
4 very large catfish in the large tank
79 smaller catfish in the cage in the big tank
5 small catfish in the large aquarium
1 lonely catfish in the indoor aquarium

74 tilapia in the waterfall tank
4 tilapia over in the duckweed tank

I estimate that I could build the new CHIFT tank for $250 but I would probably spend a little extra on some insulation for it as well. All up with plumbing, I expect it would cost me around $390 to do the conversion.

steem

Hi TC,
a couple of thoughts I've had:

http://www.svpindustries.com/products/patss.htm
these guys do a small scale sewage treatment setup which consists of PVC slats holding an edpm liner. the slats keep out soil but allow water through, and the liner simply floats up without damage if the water table rises. it's a neat idea.

another idea is just use a hard sump, calculate the bouyancy and throw some weight in there to make up for it - bricks or steel or something. Obviously you need extra room in the sump.

TCLynx

If I do add the new tank to make the system CHIFT PIST, then I'll just run my old in ground fish tank into the "sump" and I'll throw the rest of the gravel I have on hand down into that tank to take up some of the space in it and keep it from collapsing. I'll probably also add as many jugs filled with water as I need to keep that tank fluctuating in the upper levels of it to further reduce the chances of the sides collapsing.

TCLynx

Knock on wood........
Things seem to be doing ok in the system for now.

I don't think I'm seeing any new wounds on the catfish fingerlings and the injuries to their fins/barbs seem to be looking a bit better.

Been getting rain daily so I've been doing some work on the dirt parts of the yard so maybe I'll be able to take advantage of some of the rainy season to plant without irrigation.

BatonRouge Bill

I live in a similar climate and last year was so frustrating. My fish were fine I just couldn't keep any nutes in the system. This year I have just been lucky this spring with rain all around me but mostly missing my house! I did think about putting poly over the top like a gazebo just to help control the water input.

hydrophilia

TCLynx wrote:

I estimate that I could build the new CHIFT tank for $250 but I would probably spend a little extra on some insulation for it as well. All up with plumbing, I expect it would cost me around $390 to do the conversion.

Insulation is not terribly effective on sides of tank as little heat is lost there compared to the huge heat lost from open water surface. Best solution might be to cover the water surface during the coldest weather, especially when the water is already so cold that the tilapia need very little oxygenation anyway. Side/bottom insulation might be good as long as you also deal with the effective insulation of the open water in tank and growbed (about R0.125, far less than a single pane of glass).

TCLynx

in my climate I actually want as much connection between the tank and the ground as I can get (ground temps stay really good for tilapia here.) Yea, during cold weather I do throw a blanket or something over the tilapia tank.

TCLynx

Baby tilapia

TCLynx

Argh. Lots of catfish are showing signs of a problem now. Many have white patch on them like they have been scraping themselves hard on the bottom/sides. This happened in the past after extensive handling or harvesting, the ones that were left got all stressed and scraped up. Salt is still over 4 ppt. Hopefully if I leave them alone and reduce feeding for a while, it will clear up a bit as it did to some extent in the past.

I'm not entirely certain what caused it this time but I'm wondering if some critter was involved right around feeding time this morning since most of their food was still floating in the tank when I checked on them. I couldn't see any major signs of an animal getting into the tank but something stirred up the fish. (some discussion on this in the nasty catfish injury thread.)

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TCLynx's System

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TCLynx's System

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