Members of NCKWS gathered Saturday, February 21 at the North Carolina Fish Barn of NC State University. We were treated to a very informative presentation by Dennis DeLong who works at the facility. A brief history of the facility, what is produced and the aquaculture industry in general, was held before we got to see all the cool stuff relating to aquaculture.

We then proceeded to the area where there were 15,000 gallon tanks containing 12,000 lbs of tilapia. Wow, and you thought your pond was overstocked! 

We also got to see all the components of this massive filtration system such as these solid separators that were on timers to purge every 3 hours.

Dennis caught a couple of fish to show us that they are growing and thriving very well under these conditions. (I'm getting hungry!)

We were fortunate to see all types of filtration components from DIY to the latest in technology that had us all dreaming of how we could incorporate it into our home ponds. Here is a 12ft tall trickle tower buried into the ground. Now, that's a serious trickle tower!

The tour concluded too soon with all of us loaded with more questions and ideas of how we could use this at home. We would like to thank Dennis for his very informative talk and tour. This is a must see place for any serious koi keeper because the principals can all be applied on a smaller scale. I don't know, I could see 12,000 lbs of koi in my new pond!