Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Thanks!! Excellent thread with a lot of key info!

Yes, Charlie! how bout an update and some snaps?

CB

This is like reading a suspense thriller with the last ten pages torn off! Come on back!

I noticed the shop section of the commercial site (aquaponics,UK) has a few piccys of the greenhouse with growbeds, plants and tilapia
http://www.aquaponics.org.uk/shop/greenhouse.php

Thanks Hex! The suspense ends!

ya might have to send a pm to the author if you want an update, they might not be spending much timer reading on the forum so might not know their thread has been bumped.

Hey TCL, I am OK with what I found on the site that Hex linked up! They are doing some verrry interesting work. Noticed an Indian connection on the site - might follow that up though.

Hello everyone......



firstly sooo sorry for not keeping you all up to date with this, its been a crazy, all consuming period of my life, thats been both the most painful and rewarding 12 months... so in an attempt to update you...

Last november i got a millenium award to set up Aquaponics UK - a not for profit organisation, operating as a social enterprise, to develop aquaponics both here in the UK and contribute to networking and building educational resources.

The greenhouses at the Able project were finished in June, and we're now busy on a wide variety of projects (our website needs updating)

here goes with a few pics to wet your appetites, and i'll be back on the thread again soon with some further updates...



as you can see we ended up going with fiberglass in the end, after the polyethylene welding had tiny pinehole leaks in 2 areas that didnt show for 2 days, but caused endless headaches and really the result of having the wooden structures with slight intolerances, as a result of having been made with the kids etc, but in the end the plastic had to be taken out and used for wormeries and a 250g mat and gel coat applied to the wood structure to fully seal...

some more pics....

some ruby chard, pic taken on the 15.05.09 at around 9.59am.....

the same plants four days later on the 19.05.09 at 11.49am...

and another very brief timelapse - again apologies just going through loads of pics picking some out as i go....

here is some lollo rosso lettuce... this first pic taken on the 21/05/09 at 12.24pm


then this picture taken 10 days later on the 31/05/09 at 10.20am


some nice visible growth i think you will agree...

incidently you'll see on the above pictures that the rocket cultivar that we tried (as seen to the left of the lollo rosso, did very little in terms of growth during the same period...

a hands on approach to commissioning the system...


and some of the products of a synaptoman style strawberry towers that we put either side of the end door....


we also trialled marigolds for companion planting.....

right folks, thats all i can manage by way of an update for tonight...

i'll been at a DEFRA/CEFAS workshop/think tank, looking at stratergies for sustainable aquaculture and food production, and was invited to be one of the speakers, i'm now in devon having vistied some really interesting innitiatives (in devon and dorset) that we looking to help support in the coming months/years.

but have to write lots of emails still, so just wanted to say hello again BYAP and thanks to andrew, for giving me a poke to get back on the case...

will send a more comprehensive textual update in the coming days..

best wishes to all
charlie

one final thing, not sure where i got to with the last post interms of the controls/monitoring system, but as a result from some very useful support from a collaboration between PRIVA and Ecotech and Thermotec Ecosystems we developed a very natty air source heat pump system, that stores solar gains during the day and converts them through the ASHP to store the energy in the 16000ltrs of the system.

here you can see a pic of the touch screen display, located in greenhouse 1 and controlling both greenhouses (it could actually control the whol ABLE project site!) this displays the last 24hrs of data which is sent to a remote accessable PC which allows of data logging.

this picture, shows the system temperature falling from 26.8oC to 24.8oC over a 19hr period, and the heating cycle of 2.5hrs raising the temp back to 26.8oC.
at this point we are exploring the energy cycles over a complete growing season before any valuable data can be established... also acting to "smooth" out these curves to ensure efficient energy recycling as well as nutrient recycling... but we have the tools...

and a shameless publicity shot...

me and George Alagiah during the filming of the BBC2 Future of Food Series


ok well thats all for now, look forward to hearing your comments...

charlie