Should we have fish shelters in our fish tanks? Or should we leave the fish tanks
empty? This is what we're going to see together in this video.
[Music]
So today we're
going to talk about fish shelters but before anything if you are new to this
channel really you are welcome. Here you're going to learn about aquaponics
how to build an aquaponics system and how to make it sustainable to grow some food
in your own backyard, the food that is tasty and healthy. So today we talk about
the fish shelter. A shelter is a place where the fish will be able to hide so
do we need to place one of those shelters in our fish tanks or not? If you
look in the natural environment, you will find that in a river, in a lake, the
fish are in a lot of place where they can hide. First,
there are some plants in a lake or in a river aquatic plants, where
it forms the kind of forests and sometimes the fish hide between the
plants. Also you got roots you know roots in the natural environment, wood,
pieces of wood, rocks. So there are a lot of different elements where the fish can
hide. There are also some pots sometimes that are in the rivers, in the
lakes, pipes, all those things that are basically wastes from humans that are
sometimes used by the fish as well to hide. It creates basically an artificial
reef, and that's where the fish can hide if they feel stressed. So when the fish are
in their natural environment, if you walk along a river or a lake, most of the time,
you don't see the fish because as soon as they hear you walking on the
on the border of the river or the lake it creates some vibrations and the fish
feel the vibrations. They get scared and they either hide under a shelter either
they go away, very far away. In our fish tanks, the fish tanks in aquaponics
are quite limited in size. So obviously, when you walk around the fish tank, the
fish have no place to go. That's why it can be a good idea to add
some shelters, some places for the fish to hide. In aquaculture, you would very
rarely see shelters. The fish are just grown in tanks in high density. So when
the fish are in high density, they feel a bit more comfortable when there is a
stress just because there is this cool effect. In aquaponics if you are growing
fish in low density, you don't have the same effect. So it may be good to add
some shelter sometimes to allow your fish to hide and to decrease the level
of stress when they feel some people around or where there is some noise. A shelter
can also allow your fish to hide if there is a predator around. So if you
have a pond outside, or fish pond that is open and you got some birds that are
coming and that are fish predators, putting some shelters in the
pond in this case, is very, very important. It's going to allow your fish to hide,
especially true if you have some nice, colorful fish such as koi carp or
golden trout or goldfish. Those type of fish they really need to have some
places to hide because there is a big contrast between the color of the fish
and the background, and the big predators when they fly around, they really see
the fish and so there is no place for them to hide. They're going to be
eaten very quickly. So see, that's the positive point of putting a shelter in a
tank. But now what are the negative points because yes, there are some
negative points, and the real one, the main one is that when you add something
in your tank, when you design an aquaponics system, when you design a fish
tank, you're going to put a water pump inside and it's going to create a
nice current into the tank. This current is going to allow all the particles, all
the fish poo or anything to go, to move into the tank, into the water and to
finish, sucked by the pump or blocked by the filter of the pump.
So then when you clean your pump, you can clean it, or if it's sucked by the pump
it's going to finish either in the filter of the aquaponics system or in the grow bed.
Now, if you put a lot of shelters, what the shelters are doing most of the time
we are using pipes but you can use pipes. You can use pots. You can even use pieces
of wood. You can use roots. A lot of different things can be used as shelters,
but pipes are the most -- the easiest ones. So what happens is that when youput
those types of things in your aquaponics system, most of the time, it modifies
the Currentology, the current of the water that is just around the pot
and inside, or around the pipe and inside the pipe. And so because the current is
modified, the particles or the waste, the fish wastes are just falling down just
close under the pot, under the pipe and it creates some layers of particles, and it
can turn into mud. So that means that you will have to sometimes clean, siphon
the surrounding of those pots. So that's a bit of a problem. It's not a
real issue but it increases the maintenance that you have to add in your
tank. But on the other way, it's going to allow the fish to live well comfortably.
And if you have fish of different sizes so if you have a social fish, not trout,
right, but fish that can live together with different sizes or even different
species, it's good to add some pipes because then the small fish can
sometimes hide from the big one, and it's going to allow them to live well
together. So as you understand, I am really keen for a few shelters in the
tank but not too many. Otherwise, it becomes a bit
tricky to manage. If you are new to this channel and if you haven't done it yet, you
can get the free aquaponics training from the description of the video just
below, or from the "i" like information on the corner of the video. In this
step-by-step training, you will get some crucial, critical information to build your
own aquaponics system in good conditions and to maintain it properly to basically
allow you to grow some sustainable, healthy, and tasty food at home. So it's in
the description of the video just below, and it is completely free. So you get it
and build your own aquaponics system. If you are new to the channel, you can also
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I really hope to see you soon and I wish you a fantastic success with aquaponics.
Have a good crop!