frikkiedeboer

Well who knows what to do in that situation, sounds like a plan to me though.

Of course he's gonna be liable for prosecution for that isn't he? Whether he bought the house or not it's more than likely to be in her name .

in thailand, it seems that the house can be owned by a person other than the one in whose name the land is registered. if he paid for the building, technically it is his own property. he might have an issue with bylaws about setting a fire/endangering others, etc but i doubt that he would be prosecuted for burning his own property.

hope she was inside at the time................

frikkie

Report from Kamphaengphet:

CP is selling their Nile Tilapia, Pla Nin, for B25 and the hybrid, Pla Top Tim at B35/kg.

rgds

Hi Somtham.

25baht/kg...that is under the production cost !!! Do you know how big the fish are to that price ???

Regards.

Tilapia.

hi, tilapia.

our area: about midway korat-buriram- thb 50/kg for live fish. price radically lower for dead fish. can drop to thb 25. and i am sure the above quoted price was for dead fish.

unfortunately your fish are difficult to keep alive for any length of time- that is why i stick with pladouk.

if you can keep them alive for long enough, you will get your price, so you need to work on this.

good luck

frikkie

What if I had it disembled and shipped- part by part and put it back together in Isaan? Whatta ya think a/b that IDEA????

Still the same problems with custom and registration. But the additional hassel if all parts will arrive.

i managed to bring in my '69 triumph bonneville in pieces, without customs noticing. have tried to find out how to make it legal, with mixed reactions. all sources return to the pay tax thing. this will not be a problem, coz they wouldnt think it was worth anything-even stripped the paint off! but where to go from there- no paperwork was brought in, so how do i go about it. used to build my own bikes in my home country and it was no problem getting them registered as long as had not been on the computer system before.

i understand there is a 100% import tax on motor vehicles, but i see a lot of secondhand stuff coming in from japan, and i wonder how this all works.

i also had an idea. since most of us do not have residency status, could we not "temporarily" import a vehicle into thailand,? ie: as in vehicles brought in to tour the country and which are then re-exported back home? it should be possible to get your vehicle in and keep it here for as long as you have a visa- or am i pushing it a bit?i who knows, we might even start a whole new demand for "motor vehicle visa runs" are there any farang out there who can help- motor vehicle reg. here has me as confused as the new visa law thing (and the old one, for that matter)

frikkie

Thanks guys the info will sure help... I am a bit daunted by the idea of going to such a quiet rural area after being a city boy all my life!!!

in these parts, nangrong IS "the big city" why, it even has a set of traffic lights! next nearest set of traffic lights is about 30km away. can really recommend the c+c (cabbages and condoms or c-bird as they call it) but i think you will be bored in any one of the resorts or "hotels" in this area. rather stay in the basic stuff the family has to offer. there is never a dull moment in the villages, and though you may not be too comfortable, at least you wont be bored. gotta get used to using a squat-toilet and waking au at 4.00am, but it is worth the experience

welcome to isaan!

thanks frikk

but i omitted something. the impregnator is not thai boy but farang boy. will the girls family take him in and love him and show him to the rest of the villagers . or is he doomed coz he poor young and farang.

<edit>

really not sure, in this case. he might simply be chucked out, the girl looked after by the family until the baby is old enough, then mama looks after the baby while she goes off to find a farang who has enough to afford the sinsod, or they will accept whatever he can afford to pay, then wait for his visa to expire...........and he calls it a day, cuts his losses and goes home . (and wifey goes off to find another farang,etc)

Why is it so common for some message board folks to assume the worst? Didn't say I was in favor of the policy. Would like to see one of the creatures is all. And this might be the last chance to do so. Wasn't aware that they were on display in public aquariums either? The sad and rampant destruction of wildlife populations is caused by habitat destruction and improper or nonexistent management. China is blowing up the rapids where they spawn and as stated above the Lao's are taking all they can. Would love to be able to do something about it and 1000's of other examples of our natural world losing out to developement and human population growth. How about contributing to family planning education worldwide? Oh and go ahead and be a vegan. And convince yourself that you are now pure. And that the land your food is grown on was never wildife habitat, and that your dwelling is on for that matter. How about the energy and infrastructure we use just to be comfy and entertained. How about the jets that fly us around. Gee listen to me, sounds as though I'm turning into one of those nitpicky message boarder's, apology's, sincerely.

check out this link: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/20...antcatfish.html

now THAT is a fish!

the only thing that beats fishing often has a tendency to smell fishy,too!

Frikkie, im trying to think of the word for this, it was on the tip of my tongue {last night!!]

heh,heh, good one,lickey! now i know where you got your name!

frikkie

I think that your fairly safe with beef given that the kitchen facilities are hygienic. However, pork is a different matter. I had some undercooked laarb moo at a stall in Petchabun last year and couldn't travel further than 10 metres* from the toilet for a week! Gastroenteritis they called it.

* I moved the fish closer to the toilet.

raw pork is very dangerous as it carries all sorts of nasties like liver flukes etc

ALL raw meat is potentially dangerous, and getting "the squirts" is probably at the lowest end of the scale.i love raw, or semi raw beef, but would not dream of eating it in isaan, where animals are generally not slaughtered in an abottoir with regular inspections of the carcasses. no matter how fresh, or "hygienically " it was slaughtered or prepared, make sure anything you eat has had the shit cooked out of it!!!

by the way, did you see the news clipping on the thai wedding guests who died recently after eating raw pork?!!!

The locals up there made a recent pledge to stop attempting to catch the giant catfish up there. As I recall...?

Yes they did, providing that a conservation agency buys their fishing nets and finds them new jobs. According to the news, funds for all but one net were cleared and given to the fishermen (and these nets were into the hundred thousands I think), but due to the slow payment for the last net they didn't waste much time catching another Pla Buek as soon as the 5 day "open season" began. Luckily an American documentary team were there studying the fish and agreed to buy the doomed fish off them for a few hundred thousand baht before it was killed. They let it go but filmed the whole experience, which should be interesting to watch.

there was a drive and incentives-buying nets,education etc some time ago , but from what i heard, most of these guys went back to fishiong "plah-beuk", because they saw that the guys on the laos side of the river simply carried on with the practice. sadly it seems that fishing for these rare giants will never be banned, or policed properly. the good news is that the fingerlings are now being made available to the public, and one would hope that as a commercially available version emerges in the markets at a cheaper price, fishing for them with nets would become a less economically viable, thus less attractive occupation. i have personally seen these farmed fish offered for sale at some of the roving talaats in isaan- (no, i am not getting confused with the smaller cousin, the "sawaai", which is more commonly available.) i stocked one of my ponds with a few and they have done really well. the fingerlings cost me 250thb each, from a fishfarm in Non-din-daeng. doubt if ,at this price anybody would be able to conduct a viable aquaculture business, and i know i was ripped off, but i just could not resist. mine will serve the purpose of providing me with really good light-tackle fishing, right on my doorstep, and any i catch will have their growth-rates and condition recorded and released to fight another day

frikkie

So the Thai men at a Thai + Thai wedding who pay sinsod are fools too?

Actually, using your logic they would be MUCH BIGGER FOOLS because 100K baht is a LOT MORE to a Thai than to a farang.

I'll forgive you for this blunder.....no longer are you "unforgiven".

no, the thai guy is not a fool. he knows how it all works. he will pay far less than what he will get back out of it. he looks at how much money or what kind of lifestyle her family will provide for him. mostly the sinsod will be paid by his family, and he will not have worked for it himself. if her family has land, or his prospective bride has land or money, the price will go up. mostly, thais do not marry for the same reasons that westerners do. of course there are exceptions, and the more educated ones are more westernised generally,thus are not stuck in this cultural rut, and the practise of selling off your daughter to the highest bidder-(and this is exactly what it is-and by paying sinsod you only help to promote this disgusting form of human trafficking) will slowly die out as education spreads.

isaan women are often taken out of school by their parents-four years of education being seen as enough,-for this very reason.

i did not suck this information out of my thumb- i was told this by a thai friend, and had it confirmed by a woman who paid another thai woman 200000thb to get her daughter hooked up with a farang. she figured borrowing the money would be worth it , as she would get far more out of the farang than what she had paid out. so there you have it- thais not only sell their daughters, they trade in farang,too!

frikkie

hey you issarn experts.

if a 23 old boy who has no money gets an issarn girl pregnant will the girls family take him in to live with them and support him.

said boys financial prospects dont look to bright. he he a good heart man......lol.

of course he will be taken care of and probably will not be expected to work, either. the very thought of having to work would usually send the average isaan guy scurrying down to the local "mom- and- pop" shop for a bottle of laaw khow, so he doesn't have to "think too much"-perish the thought of actually having to take responsibility for your actions if you come from isaan!, or the girl will simply have the child and hand it over to her mother to raise .as soon as her &lt;deleted&gt; recovers enough to get back on the job, she's off to pattaya to sucker some poor farang guy into sending back money from his home country to support her, so she doesnt have to do this "job she hates so much, just to support her baby and her poor mama."

sound familiar,guys?

frikkie

There is hope in a hanging line as we say at home :-)

Sorry all, but i really cant think of anything more mind numbingly boring as FISHING! Come on lads there must be more to life than that.

not much more to life than that, but apart from drinking, the only thing that beats fishing often has a tendency to smell fishy,too!

Frikkie,

I am visiting Korat next month and driving from khon Kaen, staying at Royal Princess. This fishing park that you mention..does it have rods for hire or should I bring my own ?, does it have resturaunt i.e. food and beer ? and most importantly as never been in Korat can you give me directions from hotel

Thank you

KK boy

sorry, i forgot i had made this post- the forum has me totally addicted and i read and post all over the place. so i hope you get to read this before your trip

the "fishing park" i mentioned ,i found accidentally while i was waiting at the used car lot for them to process the papers for the pickup i had just bought.

i could not possibly direct you from your hotel, as i never spent much time there except for fishing and buying cars, but i can tell you that if you are travelling out of khorat towards chok chai-(the main road that will eventually lead you past the dan quien pottery village thing), you will see a "big c" on a road intersecting from the left. there is also a shop selling tropical fish (at grossly inflated prices) on the same side of the road. get the taxi driver to take you up this road and look for used car sales places on the right. there is a traffic island right down the middle, so you will have to do a u-turn. the last used car lot going towards the main road-i.e. the first one you passed on the way in, has a small sign with: guess what?- a fish and some thai writing on it. it probably says "fishing park"-cant read thai but this is possible, even in thailand!

it is not a large pond, simple rectangle, and quite boring, with no trees, but quite a pleasant "salah" built on a simple attempt at a jetty. the owner and his wife are very accommodating and he will rent you his personal rod for something like 50baht. they will serve you beers and good, clean,and very reasonably priced thai food at the waterside.

they regularly stock with all sorts of different ,mostly small fish- i was very surprised to be catching pirhanas there! since they are not indigenous i made enquiries and was told that they are the fruit eating kind, but i still didnt take any chances!

the "sawaai" can be seen early morning and late afternoon making huge swirls on the surface as they feed. they are very large, and although i caught my first on artlure (a rubber worm fished weightless), they seem to be suckers for catfish pellets, moistened and then kneaded into a stiff dough of white bread kneaded together with some of the water from the pond. the longer you knead it the stickier it becomes and the stiffer it is the better it strays on the hook. the catfish pellets are available at almost any corner shop or talaat. after loading the hook, i roll the ball of dough over some dry pellets , which slowly disintegrate in the water and act as an attractant. fish it off a float , the bait hanging 40cm from the float.

please do release your catch- there is plenty of small stuff you will probably catch for the pot on the same bait that will keep the thai family members happy

enjoy your trip, and "tight lines"

frikkie

[ Almost no one cares that I'm 50 and my sweety is 26; in my home country this would cause a lot of "talk". I like that people are left alone to persue the sexual lifestyle that appeals to them.

no offense, but this part of your post has me confused.... it seems there is an underlying tone,here. could you clear it up and tell us if your "sweetie" is a woman or a man? if a man, please take note that the posts you have been replying to ,all refered to thai women, and that is possibly where you are getting confused. - or more confused!

frikkie

Good words. This person is a complete idiot. Pay nothing , if she loves him, she'll get her benefits by marrying him for nothing. Thai women are nothing but a bunch of Farang exploiters and any Farang that gets taken in by them is destined for doom.

I am married to a Thai but I made it known to her, from the start, that one error and she's history. She knows where she stands ! Make sure your in control, or God help you.

have to agree with you,coventry- anybody who pays even one satang in dowry is a complete idiot and is setting himself up for future rip-offs by the "family". you will drive yourself crazy trying to "fit in" or "do the right thing" or "respect their culture".they know that you are a farang, and no matter how much the family may let you think, or you fool yourself into thinking that you "fit in" or are "accepted as one of the family",-the sad truth is that as long as your wallet opens easily you will be regarded only as a milk-cow, and will be a target for all the scams they regularly use to extort money from the farang.( granny fell down the stairs; small brother need to go school;need money tio buy fertiliser; brother used mommy's house paper as collateral for a loan, now she will lose everything if you dont help, etc etc etc)

you will earn more respect by showing them that you are not a fool; stop trying to be a thai-be yourself and act as you would in your own country. if you do this you will soon notice that the thais will try to fit in with you and you will manage to live a far less stressed life in thailand, and you will earn more of their respect this way!.

hey, coventry- just figured out who you are- maybe you should give old brian some of the same advice!

best regards

frikkie from south africa

Hi,

I have a small courtyard (4m x 8m), which will ultimately have a pergola roof. My intention is that this roof will carry creeping plants of some sort, and with this idea in mind I recently bought a couple of grape vines at a local agricultural show.

I am not sure that the vines will thrive in my area (they don't look very happy), and recently a friend suggested passion fruit as an alternative. Where he is (but that is in Indonesia) they thrive, and form a quick climbing and attractive canopy.

My questions are:

Does anyone have any experience or knowledge about Passion fruit in Isaan (near Ubon Ratchathani)?

What is the Thai name and where can I buy them? Can I propagate from the seeds of supermarket fruit (which I can buy in Singapore if I need to) ?

Any other suggestions for "vine" like plants on a pergola? The roof will get a bit of partial shade around midday but otherwise will be in full sun. I intend planting in large pots on a tiled floor.

Thanks in advance,

Mike

P.S. Sorry if this is more of a gardening question than an agricultural one, but I reckon you chaps will know the answers :-)

edit> typo

the stuff grows like hel_l in isaan. i got a fruit from one of the thais (most of them didnt know what it was, but the old lady and her family had a huge vine and they ate the fruit green and sour as hel_l!) i really didnt think it would grow, as all i could get was one unripe fruit. simply cut it in half and threw the pips on a patch of soft soil and watered it in ,and every pip germinated. they seem to like full sun, and i must admit i neglected them badly after the plants reached about six inches high, but they all thrived. i have never seen passionfruit the size of the fruit produced in thailand- i would not be lying if i told you that some of them were the size of a decent apple! dont think that there is much of a market for it in thailand, but there could be export opportunities, and by the way, the vines produced all year round.

good luck

frikkie

oh, if you cant find any to plant, i can put you onto a friend of mine who has a few vines and maybe he could let you have a few.-he is near to korat (nakon rachassima) but i am sure he could dry and post you some seeds. email me if i can help

Frikkiedeboer,

Thanks for the great links!!!

One question: I've been reading about Bakki Showers with Biohouse media (I think that's the name of the ceramic media they were using)...and they claim it is a completely stand alone system with complete removal of nitrogen.....where does the nitrogen go? There doesn't seem to be anyway to remove waste material from this system.

Chownah

the one thing all the links and all the info available on the net or in books, is that the more you know, the more confusing it seems to get! experimentation and evolution in your own system will be the key, as it was with mine. you will know when you got it working when your fish stop dying!

in my system, i started with what i thought i knew, then added on until i got something that worked for me. there is absolutely no point in spending huge amounts of money on media, iif you missed the point in the first place. i set mine up ,plus my tanks,hatchery etc at the time when my money was almost finished-had only 10000 baht in the bank after my wife did her little "number" plus a few hundred kilo of catfish in my pond, and i managed to set this all up, and support myself and my two sons for a farther three years,reinvesting and improving as i went along.

the pump and the first couple of months of electricity should be your main expense-the media is available for free! once you start turning over enough fish on a monthly basis, the electricity bill becomes irrelevant. eg:

the first ton is going to cost 9000thb to produce and thereafter only 1500 to 3000thb per ton depending on how clever you get!

the idea is to start small, and grow both your stocking density and your filter and as you see it beginning to work for you, you can start to push the limits. remember that any biofilter you use is going to take about 5 weeks before it works properly so do not think you failed after you set up and your overstocked tankful goes belly-up. also: never clean your filter!

the nitrate removal still seems to be very vague in all the biofilter systems i have studied, and i do not believe there is a biofilter which actually removes all of this waste product. i am told that this is not very harmful -at least to catfish, anyway, and most farms are replacing a percentage of the water daily to reduce nitrate levels.

there is, to my mind only one way to remove these nitrates, and that is by way of a plant or so called "vegetable filter"

in nature, wetlands provide this function, and are in fact simply a natural biofilter. nitrates are used by plants in the growing process. you do not have to set up an hydroponics system to make use of this system- a large tank or pond filled with water weed will perform this function,as will a pond full of algae. i used both. my filter pumped from the pond through four tanks, aerated by spraying the surface. first tank- no media,-a simple baffle system allowed trapping of solid waste plus aeration allowed for sludge activation. second tank with large media, then finer media, and then to my tank full of oxygen weed-hydrilla, i think they call it. crystal clear water flowed from here to my rearing tanks, after which adjustable standup pipes-(outside the tanks) allowed the waste to flow to a small settlement pond back to my large pond, always green with algae-full sunlight and nitrate laden waste water facilitating this.

i do not know enough about biofilters to tell you if any part or component of my system was designed or built correctly, or was the key to sucess, but it worked very well, and i believe that the "vegetable filter" plus vigorous oxygenation were probably the key to the whole thing.

good luck and please let us hear about your progress

frikkie

i have noticed that there are more and more people posting on filters and biofilters.

i am no expert on the subject but over the years have spent much time researching and building my own systems for koi rearing and high density cartfish farming.

]Before constructing a biofilter it is very important to know and understand the principles involved,and the various processes and their effects. Here are a few links I found which might help.-and good luck, once you start getting interested in this subject you will spend many thousands of hours researching - and hopefully get to the point where you can build yourself a system that will suit your needs, without spending all your money.

The one thing that you will notice is the importance of high levels of oxygen in the system to make the process work, and even though each author will tend to push his favourite design, the common thread is oxygenation- the single most important step in the process of water purification using aerobic bacteria. Note that anaerobic bacteria do not perform the primary function and can be harmfull in your system

.

http://www.biofilters.com/webfilt.htm

http://www.biofilters.com/webfilt.htmhttp://www.madaboutkoi.com/cgi-bin/dcforum/dcboard.cgi?az=read_count&om=12234&forum=DCForumID9&viewmode=threaded

http://www.tampagov.net/dept_Wastewater/Advanced_Water_Treatment_Plant/Virtual_Tour/Post-Aeration.asp

hope this proves useful- great to see that there is more interest in high density rearing of fish and that the importance of using biofiltration to do it has been recognised

frikkie

Tilapia,

This link:

http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=15274199

Talks specifically about,"Three kinds of locally available plastic biofilter media with different configurations (plastic rolls, PVC pipes and scrub pads) were evaluated for their efficiency in organic waste removal from the effluents of an intensive recirculating tilapia culture system. "

It recommends PVC pipes because they are cheaper.

Chownah

P.S. Also found a site that suggested that coconut peel (hulls I guess) made a good biofilter medium for removing nitrogen....which makes sense because you need some carbon available along with the nitrogen for maximum bacterial growth I think...at least this is what you need in a compost pile....and coconut hulls are very porous and are primarily cellulose I think so that would provide the substrate and the carbon...I guess....they weren't too clear on just how this was done.

Chownah

the point that everybody seems to be missing here is that, no matter which filter medium you use,without OXYGENATION the AEROBIC BACTERIA-( the one we are trying to cultivate, and this bacteria is heavily dependent on oxygen to do its job correctly ), will die. the idea is to have as much of the bacteria exposed to as much of the BACTERIA-not just the media- as possible.

almost all the media suggested by posters here are good. sure, the larger the surface area the more bacteria can be accommodated,and the more water can come into contact with the bacteria, and this is very important but oxygenation is critical.

you will find big paddlewheels on some of the rivers,canals and ponds in thailand.(i am not talking about the ones they use in the shrimpfarming industry). these are used to stimulate the growth of aerobic bacteria to clean up the contaminated water. this system i have seen all over-from the canals in korat to a huge one in the pond in lumpini park,bankok, and they work in the absence of commercially available filter media,although they would obviously be more effective if they did use media.

it is also very important to use a system comprised of different,seperate chambers.as,depending on nutrient load,the first stage can change over between nitrification and denitrification and back. forget the expensive commercially available medium-each supplier claims his is the best and what is best for your situation is the one which does the job for you and fits your budget and available space. even professional filter suppliers disagree on which system is best- some push the trickle tower concept and others tell you this is not a good system and that a three chambered system is necessary.

i suggest you experiment with what is available. the bottlecaps,broken pvc pipes, sand,stone,broken pottery shards etc all will work well. coconut husk will probably be good too, but most media seems to be made of inorganic material , although i read an article claiming that sphagmum moss had tested as the finest medium available.

good luck,

frikkie

i tried fishfarming pladuk for three years

we had 8 ponds of 25 by 35 meters

stocked them with between 25000 to 50000 fingerlings each during these years

fed them the right amount of fishfeed

we never had fish death because of sickness or bad water

other thai fishfarmers out of the area used to visit our farm and make compliments about the health and growing rates of our fish

the fish would be harvested by our wholesaler when the size was about 5 to a k

we would normaly stock 2 to 3 ponds at a time and leave 1 or 2 ponds with water to be used for adding and waterchanges

we also installed a deepwaterwell at 120 meters for adding water during the dry season

the harvests overal were good

for example: a pond with 40000 fingerlings would yield around 7000 kg fish

in february 2004 i was at the farm while harvesting was going on

it took 3 weeks and 27 tons of pladuk went to the market for between 32 to 38 bath per kg

to cut the story short

we stopped with the operation because of the following reasons:

1- incease of energy prices(diesel aerationpumps)

2-wholesale prices of pladuk fluctuating between 26 and 38 bath per kg(dayprice)

3-breakeven price is around 32 bath

4-when average size of the fish is 5 to a kg you need to harvest

for large size fish is no market and price is 3 bath below the dayprice

5-fishgrowth slow during cold and raining season (fish will not eat)

6-energy price up so the fishfeed prices went up, dayprice not

7- wholesaler not able to harvest when fish is the right size,because of other fishfarms harvesting at the same time and sometimes not able to get rid of the daily catch because of not enough market

8- fish keeps on eating and growing while waiting for the wholesaler( to big, less money)

there are more reasons i'm not able to think of at this moment

we even tried making fishfeed to cut costs but because of the birdflu this was to risky

we also tried the maggots, but thai people dont like maggots and pigshit

so after making some money when prices were good but in the end the average prices were to low to run a good operation i decided to call it quits.

at this moment we are using the fishponds as waterstorage for rice farming

Selling to a middle-man is always a losing road, they have all the excuses in world for not paying the right price, I had the same problem before when I did catfish, I told them to take a hike and never come back. Then I started our own wholesale, first with catfish and now I have change to Tilapia, with the catfish it was to hard to compete with Supanburi, they sell them very cheap, so our margin was to small, with Tilapia it is better and the market here is more constant than with the catfish.

One question : Why did you use aerationspumps ? Normally catfish in your pond-size dont require additional oxygen.

Best regards.

Tilapia

the clarias catfish can survive in water with 0%dissolved oxygen. many of the sites you will find on the net suggest oxygenayoin of th water, but most you will have visited will be on the subject of raising the american catfish which does not have air-breathing capabilities. aeration will help at high densities as aerobic bacteria will thrive, which will help to remove the ammonias from the water,but to make maximum use of this you should consider building yourself a simple biofiltration system, thus allowing you to increase stocking density ,minimise losses due to diseases and improve profits.

frikkie

Somtham,

Good idea I guess....I am concerned in that since I want to pursue the idea of using a slow sand filter for cleaning water for intensive fish farming and since the slow sand filter topic has nothing in the title to attract intensive fish farmers that it won't attract much attention and so my input will be limited. Perhaps I can post here to ask questions about how the typical filtration system using bio-media work. Might as well start now: Does anyone have a good link that talks about bio-media and its use in recircution filtration for intensive fish farming? Is a settling pond usually used in recirculating systems and if so does the water exiting the settling pond usually have no suspended solid....as judged by visual obvservations...does it look clear or can you see suspended particles or is it cloudy?

Chownah

there is plenty of information on the net about biofiltration systems, but i have never found anything you could use which has a formula for waste produced=volume of filter/filter medium/exchange rate/stocking density. this is probably because each system will vary in its efficacy,depending on oxygen supply and bacteria population. the key to any biofiltration system is OXYGENATION- the population of aerobic bacteria you need to use to clean your water need oxygen. the filter medium you use is irrelevant to the equation, as long as it supplies the surface area to keep as much of the bacterial film in contact with as much of the OXYGENATED waste water as possible. sandfilters work well, but if they are used in the first phase of filtration, they will clog very easily. best bet is at least a three chambered system, removing and activating sludge, then passing thru progressively finer filter media. only a single pump can be used if you allow the pressure from the outlet to the first oxygenating stage to spin a paddlewheel system to oxygenate the other stages,too. you do not need the so-called professional plastic media. ordinary granite chips, or broken bits of "yit-daeng" (those small clay bricks with the two holes thru the center, which your local hardware supply will be only too happy to let you have for free) are both excellent media. my personal favourite,-nature's own- is a "vegetable filter". you can try to create your own mini-wetland as one of your filtration stages,or even use a rice-paddy to do the job for you. there is huge scope for running the waste thru a gravel-bed in which vegetables could be grown hydroponically- any vegetation will benefit from the wastes, and help to clean the water ,and will thrive in such a system.

the hydroponics thing is a great way to recoup some of the costs of running the filtration system, and could well be the key to making the whole high density system work in the thai situation. "pak-boong" is one of the water-loving crops that comes to mind as having great potential for one of thes systems. do not forget that a single ton of pla-douk will be producing probably in the region of 50kg per dey of waste,if feeding correctly and this is all great fertiliser for any crop you care to grow.

good luck

frikkie

Hi, I know there is already a similar thread going on blood pressure, but my case is a little different, so thought it better to start again.

I am 60 years old, have been diabetic and a chronic alcoholic for over 30 years, inject insulin 4 times a day, and have had angina and high blood pressure problems for many years, for which I take a whole team of medication.

I am now on day 67 of total abstinence from alcohol, and am committed to quitting for the rest of my life. I also stopped smoking some 25 years ago.

My blood pressure has not been good for many years, and was as high as 170-180 over maybe 80-90, reducing with substantial medication to maybe 135-145 over 80-90 in recent years.

Yesterday, I checked my blood pressure, for the first time since I stopped drinking, as I wasn't feeling well. I was shocked as it was 105/43. and even went as low as 99/47. My pulse was around 38 - 40.

Yesterday evening it went up to about 123/57, and late evening it was 145/55, pulse 45.

I take all my medication in the morning when I wake up (Tritace - 10 mg, Amlodipine 10 mg, Natrilix 1.5 mg, Atenolol 100 mg), so can only assume that the pressure increases during the day as the medication wears off.

Today, on waking, my pressure was 134/67, pulse 52, and by 9.30 it had dropped to 99/60, pulse 41, presumably as thre drugs kicked in.

At 11.30 a.m. it was 104/54, pulse 40.

.

if there are any experts out there, my questions are:

Is pressure of 100/50 too low? If so, what is the lowest I should be having and still be OK?

Should I reduce my medication? (I decided to take only 5 mg of Tritace this morning instead of the normal 10 mg)

Should I split my medication - some in the morning and some at night? Maybe I should take the other 5 mg of Tritace tonight?

Clearly the absence of alcohol has had a dramatic effect on my condition, and I'm not sure how to proceed. I really don't trust the doctors, they just say what I want to hear most of the time, and say: try this, or reduce that and come back in 2 weeks.

i was diagnosed as suffering from hypertension about 25 years ago and was told by my doctor that i would be on the medication for ther rest of my life. cant remember the exact numbers,but let me just say that if mine had dropped to the highest figure you quoted as being worrysome,my doctor would have been happy that the medication was working!

when i got to thailand i gave up trying to find my medication or a local generic thereof and simply stopped taking it. at the same time i stopped drinking-simply because i couldnt find anybody in my village who could have a conversation -after two quarts of beer they puked on themselves and/or passed out!

moral of the story is: after a few months i took my son for one of his innoculations and asked the nurse just to check my bp at the same time. was really surprised when she told me that at 120/80 i was doing ok for my age (approaching 50)

started monitoring it every month and it remained stable. i have since returned to south africa,where all my friends are heavy drinkers and after a short while and back into my old drinking habits, i am back in there with the hypertension!

i really love the booze, and should stop,and as a diabetic, you have even more reason not to drink than i have-you have really made the right decision and i envy you for your will-power and dedication.

i cannot offer medical advice as i am not a doctor, but it seems to me that,just as i do,-you know the cause of at least a good percentage of your hypertension problems. i have no right to lecture you,either,since i have the same habits and suffer the consequences for my actions.

obviously we should both monitor our condition carefully, and neither of us can blame our doctors for our own damaging habits.

i got really great, dirt cheap medical care from the local government hospital - even in the remote isaan village i stayed in, and if we remove the cause of our medical condition, obvioiusly we would need to alter our use of the medication to suit. regular monitoring and following doctors recommendations should help=and if you are not happy with a diagnosis or medication,-get a second opinion.

good luck

frikkie

Thanks for the replies.

LP, I did search before and also emailed to a few of the sites which gave information on cultivating them. But to date, none of them replied. And the ones that did reply, replied in the negative. So, I was wondering if anyone was cultivating them here in man-made ponds.

i found quite a few vietnamese and chinese suppliers of dried spirulina powder while searching for suppliers of artemia and earthworm powder. they make some interesting claims as to its beneficial affects as an additive to animal and fish feeds. this could be the low end of the market-my daughter is a beauty therapist and is continually pushing products containing the stuff and she really believes in its benefits, so there is another marketing opportunity there, and probably at a higher price than as sold as an animal feed additive. it should be easy to produce and thailand would definitely be suited to this type of farming but you would probably battle to find a market in thailand for it and you would have to undertake a proper study before committing yourself. all you need is water,nutrients and plenty of sunxhine to produce the stuff-thailand has an abundance of all of these. did not find any details on yields,profitability or farming methods either,but if they are exporting profitably worldwide from vietnam,it may well be worth it to persevere.

good luck

frikkie

Let us not forget that PTV is the TRT. I trust that you can see past the facade of what is going on here. I for one would have to agree that putting emergency rule back into place is the right thing to do. You need to ask yourself who would be arrogant enough to do this self serving thing and you will find the only answer is the TRT. I would also say it fits what I am calling Thaksin's plan "B".

Punishing TRT members, well that's one for the books. Again all meant to make the appearance it is not the TRT, and if you think about Thaksin and his opposites, it fits exactly his style and what he would say.

Slow? The issue about the constitution is for what I can see still more or less on track based on the initial time frame, and I certainly would be annoyed at someone who would be bitching and complaining about something that was still not done. Although I do agree putting the underlying infrastructure back together seems to be a impotent attempt at this point, we must not forget it is a two step process, undo what Thaksin did then rebuild. As far as I can see undoing has never been done before because noone has ever taken thing to this level. I have been watching demolition next to the Asok BTS station for a while now, obviously clearing the way for a new building, this is no different.

Remember the "under currents" talked about early on and mostly centered in Thaksin country, you are now seeing that was not a false statement. This has much bigger ramifications than the appearance of infringement of freedom, and only will serve to further divide the country. Emergency rule is the correct call.

you seem to forget that thaksin was put into power by the ballot, as is the case in all democracies. his critics were allowed to protest and gathered support (relatively) freely in the runup to his demise. the trt is a registered political party (last i saw) and if they wish to protest ,then it is their democratic right....

whether you agree with trt policies or not,-they should have a right to be heard. i am not necessarily a supporter of the trt, nor even a supporter of democratic rule-(i am a south african and have seen "democracy" bring about the demise of many african countries,including my own) i am simply saying that everybody should have the right to voice an opinion, and the right to hear that of others