The system is complete. Tom and I checked the autosiphon and it worked perfectly. We found a couple of leaks in the drains and caulked those, but otherwise it looks good so far. We will start it up on Monday to see how the pump and flow works.

We got fish in last week. Lots of blue tilapia swimming all over, but only three white tilapia left.

Here are the tanks on the platform with a portion of the plumbing in place. The basic scheme is a 150 gallon storage tank (closest tank) to a pump up to the three raised 100 gallon tanks down to the two aquaculture trays(on the white shelf next to the brick wall) and back to the 150 gallon tank. With some more plumbing we will be ready to start it up.

The deck is now complete and anchored so it doesn't sway in the breeze. Today I began the plumbing of the system. The tanks are up and the pump is in place. Need yet another trip to Lowes for more supplies. Currently we are starting with only one half of the complete facility. I will post pictures tomorrow with much if not all the plumbing complete.

Building the Aquaculture System Continues

Over last two days we have been constructing the deck that the aquaculture tanks will rest upon in the greenhouse. We finished building the frame and raised it up on posts. All that needs to be done is to attach the planks on top of the frame.

Building Aquaculture System

On Friday (May 28th 2010), Dave Chambers and I started to build the recirculating aquaculture system in the greenhouse next to the maintenance building on campus. But, first, we had to do some demolition. Below is a photo of the greenhouse before we started.

The next photo is three hours later after removing the top shelf on the left and the plywood tables in the middle of the greenhouse.



Next step ... build the deck that the tanks will be placed on.