hydro/aquaponic gardening

[carlyai]

On 11/12/2020 at 4:26 PM, carlyai said:

@Timetogrow  Hi. Got some questions for you about the size of the fish waste that goes down the drain.

Is it like keko poo or smaller? Smaller than 1mm or does it break down in the water and particles are very small?

 

I've got some pics coming up of the new drain covers. These are made of different material and not warped so will fit flush with the bottom of the fish tank and drain.

As you can see from the pics, the drain cover has fairly large slits in It, so I was going to cover it with 2 layers of fine white mesh, but, maybe this will restrict the drain flow too much and possibly could just use 1 layer of white mesh.

Have a look at the pics and see what you recon. I know your drain setup is different, but I am not sure if the fish waste will filter through 2 or 1 layer of mesh.

How did the reporter visit go?

All fixed.:)

[carlyai]

Got a new source of tilapia and put them in a week plus ago. Too many fish for 2 x 1000 L tanks, and just circulating the tanks, filter and back to the tanks.

I initially overfed them which caused a toxic ammonia spike up to 4.0ppm so fish very unhappy.

Over the next days I didn't feed them, did 2 water changes and 2 salt baths. Lost a few but now everything is settling down. 

Trying to keep the PH at less than 7.0 as read with these cold temps and PH less than 7.0 the TAN is mainly non-toxic ammonia. So system is cycling and Nitrates are up to 10 ppm or between 5 -10ppm. It takes my system 3 to 4 weeks to cycle so this is week 2.

Learnt a lot over the last 2 weeks and now moving on to the greenhouse to get that sump tank in the ground.

 

[carlyai]

Sump tanks finished. Electric next. Not having pic posting luck so just send 1 pic. When I try to send more than one pic, sometimes the response is 'low memory' and the post disappears.

[Smithson]

Carlyai, coming along nicely. Looking forward to more pics, when you're able to post.

 

Besides Fe, what do ppl add to their systems? My toms are doing great this year. I ground eggshells and sprinkled them round the roots, as well as over ripe bananas for pottasium. That, combined with nice weather is providing a good yeild.

[Smithson]

Forgot the pic:

[carlyai]

5 hours ago, Smithson said:

Forgot the pic:

Looks good...lots of food. You trained them to point all the same way?

 

I'm going to have a go at Dutch Buckets for my tomatoes.

Just did another filter backwash and going to use this tank backwash water, airater for the buckets supply. See if pic. Will go. That's the filter backwash tank yummy stuff.

[carlyai]

5 hours ago, Smithson said:

Carlyai, coming along nicely. Looking forward to more pics, when you're able to post.

 

Besides Fe, what do ppl add to their systems? My toms are doing great this year. I ground eggshells and sprinkled them round the roots, as well as over ripe bananas for pottasium. That, combined with nice weather is providing a good yeild.

Egg shells are iron?

[Smithson]

20 hours ago, carlyai said:

Egg shells are iron?

Egg shells are calcium, which I think tomatoes like and can be deficient of in hot weather. I also add EM and molasses.

[carlyai]

UPDATE: 

Fish are growing like mad.

So, all the fish part is sorted right out to the greenhouse and sump tank.

Had a bubble bead problem as all the beads were clumping together but sorted that out.

Still got too many fish (about 70 in 2 x 1000 L tanks) and they produce lots of waste, so have been regularly brainwashing the filter into the mineralization tank, and topping up the 200 L of water in the fish tanks that keeps the ammonia at about 2.0 ppm.

I've installed a UV filter to help with algae control.

Next job to be completed is 4 Bell siphons. This has slowed me down as there is a lot of theory to cover to get these sipons to work properly. So for mine, I have a 2.5" to 1" reducer into a 1" stand pipe exiting thru a Uniseal to a 90  degree bends to help cause water turbulence to break the siphon action.

This goes into a 2" drain pipe to the sump. 

The Bell is a 2.5" pipe and the shroud is 4" pipe.

Should finish installing the Bell's tomorrow.

Pics and more updates when I finish.

 

[sirineou]

I have been following this thread with interest. When we were building our house four years ago  I included a small pond halfway under the staircase.

It contains a few fancy bubble head goldfish and at that time a few fancy guppies. For the past year we gat trapped in the west with this covid situation, bun now it looks like we should be able to return soon, and I have been thinking about projects I will like to do when we get back. One if them is to build a small Waterfall on the side of the pond, and the other would be to assist the filtration by using  the water to feed some vegetables, something like what "Smithson " posted in his above picture, but I think I need to use some sort of pea gravel for the substrate because My aim it to also keep the pond water clean. I will appreciate any advice , and will keep reading this thread for ideas. Do you think the bioload of my small pond would be sufficient to feed a few vegetables? 

PS:we  live  in Khon Kaen.  

 

[carlyai]

10 hours ago, sirineou said:

I have been following this thread with interest. When we were building our house four years ago  I included a small pond halfway under the staircase.

It contains a few fancy bubble head goldfish and at that time a few fancy guppies. For the past year we gat trapped in the west with this covid situation, bun now it looks like we should be able to return soon, and I have been thinking about projects I will like to do when we get back. One if them is to build a small Waterfall on the side of the pond, and the other would be to assist the filtration by using  the water to feed some vegetables, something like what "Smithson " posted in his above picture, but I think I need to use some sort of pea gravel for the substrate because My aim it to also keep the pond water clean. I will appreciate any advice , and will keep reading this thread for ideas. Do you think the bioload of my small pond would be sufficient to feed a few vegetables? 

PS:we  live  in Khon Kaen.  

 

Hi mate. Welcome back shortly. Place looks lovely.

I don't know of advice or answers to your questions, but I am in an aquaponics mob who will.

Thailand Aquaponics . not Aquaponics Thailand . 

Andy looks after Thailand Aquaponics and Robert looks after Aquaponics Thailand.

I think Andy and the mob would be best to answer these questions but they would probably need more info.

I don't live far from you. Maybe see you when I visit KK.

 

[sirineou]

24 minutes ago, carlyai said:

Hi mate. Welcome back shortly. Place looks lovely.

I don't know of advice or answers to your questions, but I am in an aquaponics mob who will.

Thailand Aquaponics . not Aquaponics Thailand . 

Andy looks after Thailand Aquaponics and Robert looks after Aquaponics Thailand.

I think Andy and the mob would be best to answer these questions but they would probably need more info.

I don't live far from you. Maybe see you when I visit KK.

 

Thank you For that suggestion. I found Thailand's aquaponics on FB, and indeed I see that Andy is an administrator. and I requested membership. 

As soon as I get vaccinated and shut the house down here in Florida, I am thinking mid to late April. I am out of here, First a stop in Greece to take care of some business and see some friends,  also break  up the long trip. and then straight to Thailand with plans to stay there at least two years perhaps more.  If things work out we will shot down the US and just do Thailand an Europe. The 24 hr trip from the US  is becoming a bit too long for me.

I saved this page and will PM you when we are there, we would love to have you over. 

[Smithson]

You are correct about the coco coloring the water. Another idea I had was to use broken bricks, not sure if this would affect the PH. The bricks I was considering are the small orange ones, with holes running through them. You can often sees piles of them broken on building sites.

 

[carlyai]

On 3/8/2021 at 4:07 PM, Smithson said:

You are correct about the coco coloring the water. Another idea I had was to use broken bricks, not sure if this would affect the PH. The bricks I was considering are the small orange ones, with holes running through them. You can often sees piles of them broken on building sites.

 

I was considering those red clay Thai bricks too, on the bottom of the grow beds to save hydroton balls,  but the feedback I got from long time aquaponics guys was to used the tried and tested methods that have been proven over years. Just use the hydrogen for growth beds.

[Smithson]

On 3/10/2021 at 2:02 PM, carlyai said:

...but the feedback I got from long time aquaponics guys was to used the tried and tested methods that have been proven over years. Just use the hydrogen for growth beds.

This was what ppl said about coco, using it has saved me a fortune. While it has both pros and cons compared to other media, it's a waste product making it sustainable.

You could try the bricks on a small scale, the may still color the water and could affect the PH, but we won't know until someone tries.

[KingofPattaya]

interesting topic to follow..