Cowgirl's Country Life: My little windmill pond

Sunday, August 24, 2008

My little windmill pond

This is my little windmill pond, where I raise shrimp.
Not much of a breeze last night, but the water keeps the little pond full.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...: Absolutely beautiful! Your a lucky girl cowgirl.; August 26, 2008 at 6:28 AM
cowgirl said...: Thank you anonymous, I do feel very lucky. :); August 26, 2008 at 9:57 AM
Anonymous said...: Cowgirl,

Wonderful blog!

For your "windmill pond" does the water from the windmill constantly flow into the pond. Also do you have any type of mechanical aeration?
-Brian; January 17, 2011 at 10:45 AM
cowgirl said...: Thank you Brian!
The water does flow constantly while the windmill pumps. The only time I set the brake on the windmill is when it's really windy...those 40 mph days, so the head won't be damaged.

There is no aeration in the pond. I had thought about building a unit that I saw online one time, but have not needed it.

The aerator that I was going to make was a 4" dia. piece of pvc about 4ft tall..with another pump rod in the center...(something to make it airtight)
An arm that would attach to the windmill rod so that as the windmill pumped up and down the center rod in the pvc would also pump up and down...
pumping air into a hose stretched out into the middle of the pond and weighed down with a diffuser of some sort.
lol This probably makes no sense at all. lol
I can see it in my mind but can't explain it. lol

I've seen the little windmill aerators but would rather use the windmill that I have.

Thanks again Brian, I appreciated you checking out my blog...; January 17, 2011 at 11:16 AM
Anonymous said...: Cowgirl,

You make perfect sense...

I seen a post somewhere that talked about using a old oil-less air compressor pump, with a homemade crankshaft that would attach via an arm to the windmill rod. Then attach to the hose going to a diffuser in the bottom of the pond. Could probably find a old compressor for free on Craigslist.

I like the idea of a dual purpose windmill, more aeration should equal bigger prawns!

Have you thought of raising some Tilapia in a cage?

-Brian; January 17, 2011 at 12:22 PM
cowgirl said...: :) Thanks Brian...
might be one of the few times in my life that I make sense. lol

I like the sound of your air compressor with crankshaft arm idea. Bet that would work great!

I've not thought of raising tilapia in cages.. I know I can't keep them loose in the shrimp pond but keeping them caged should be doable.
Thanks again for the idea. :) I'll do some research.

Do you have a windmill pond too? Are you raising fish or anything?

Thanks again Brian.. :); January 17, 2011 at 12:36 PM
Buck in the Heart of Texas said...: No pond, no fish, I am still trying to convince the wife that we need to buy 20 acres... I live just north of Ft Worth, but currently am in Kuwait, doing a military deployment.

The Southern Regional Aquaculture Center at Texas A&M has some great papers on ponds, Tilapia, shrimp, as well as a lot of other stuff. I was reading one on having a homemade gravity self feeder for tilapia, you just have to put feed in the bucket once or twice a week.

Here is the paper I was reading:
https://srac.tamu.edu/index.cfm/event/getFactSheet/whichfactsheet/51/

https://srac.tamu.edu/index.cfm/event/viewAllSheets/

-Brian; January 17, 2011 at 9:20 PM
cowgirl said...: Brian, thanks so much for your service, I appreciate what you are doing for people like me...

I hope you are able to convince your Mrs to get those 20 acres... you won't regret it! :)

Thanks for the links too, I will check them out. I did a little bit of research on tilapia today after visiting with you. I'm not sure if my pond is large enough. The center is only about 6 to 7ft deep in the middle and during the hot part of the summer it goes down lower.
I read that the cages should be floatable... not sure how much damage my cattle and horses would do to them.
Maybe I could fence off a section of the pond for the livestock to use when needed and I'd be able to keep them away from the cages.
You've got me thinkin' a lot about it. lol

I'll read up on that gravity feeder, it would really be handy to have.
Thanks so much Brian! :)

jeanie; January 17, 2011 at 9:32 PM
cowgirl said...: Just checked out your blog Brian... Great job on that pergola!! :); January 17, 2011 at 9:45 PM
Buck in the Heart of Texas said...: Jeanie,
You welcome, although I hate being away from the family, I like what I do over here.

And thank you for the comment about the pergola, I appreciate you reading. I found a wood shop over here, and I have a few more posts I'm going to get up in the next few days, so please check back.

For the cages I envision 3'x 5' and 4' deep, 3/4" mesh, this gives 45 cubic foot to work with (depending on how much the cage floats out of the water.) From reading you can get a two, 2-2.5lb fish after four months in a 1cuft space. So this could possibly be big enough to yield 60-90 fish in the 2lb range. Inside the cage around the upper perimeter install 4-6' square Styrofoam, to keep the cage and feeder rig afloat and also act as a feed ring to keep the floating fish food in the cage area, which is delivered by the gravity feeder.

I hope my above ramblings help out!

-Buck(Family nickname); January 18, 2011 at 1:45 AM
cowgirl said...: Thank you Buck, your "ramblings" do help out! :)
I like the sound of your cage...I didn't know you could raise so many in such a small area, that would help me out a lot.
Have you found a source for the fingerlings?
I've been checking out the aquanic.org site for info on cages.. they have a few good ideas.

So glad to hear you like what you do over there Buck, It makes the time away from home a bit more bearable I would think. I'm sure your family will be so happy to get you home.
I will definately keep track of your blog. Looking forward to seeing your new posts. :)

Thought of one more thing... have you checked out the Mississippi state U site? It's listed on the right side of my blog page..
or you can google msucares they have some great info on aquaculture. I didn't look for tilapia but have checked it for prawn info.

Thanks again for everything Buck,
Take care and talk to ya soon. :)

jeanie; January 18, 2011 at 10:10 AM

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