Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Pete I try to clean my RFF daily, it doesn't happen all the time but that is what I try to do.

There's no need to disconect anything, I have a garden hose connected to the ball valve that I move around the garden and let it drain there. I have a very big kumquat tree that I leave the hose on for a week and then move it elsewhere.

As Darren says:

direct to compost or onto fruit trees etc....
want to keep all those good nutrients for something - dirt garden or wicking beds will love them.

Pete you'll need to replace the volume of water that you drain off from the RFF, I have an aeration barrel with a hose back to the sump that I turn on and wait until the water has started flowing back into the grow beds again, then I check the water level in the sump, turn the ball valve off off and everything is back to normal and I'm adding a little bit of fresh top up water back into the system daily which can't be too bad.

I've had the same thing Boss, the bigger trees and shrubs seem to do a lot better than the smaller plants.

I have also killed off a few smaller plants in wicking pots by adding fish waste daily, I think the soil got a bit toxic for them. It was also very hot weather so it could have been a combination of both, so now I add fish waste one day and water normally for 2-3 days after to make sure.

As you say it does bring the bigger shrubs & trees to a whole new level.

You Guys make it sound like we should be bottling & selling the stuff!

What sort of waste volumes are you talking about?

Before this drum method did anyone try inline sediment filtration if so what was the result?

I tried to find out if Alaska fish fertilizer was made from fish or fish waste, maybe both, but what is clear is the price, ya. https://www.pennington.com/all-products/fertilizer/alaska-fish-fertilizer

The issue with fish waste from the RFF or SUF is it's unprocessed. It needs to go through the microbes in the soil before it is really useful to plants. That's why I'm thinking I'll run my new RFF waste directly to a worm bin.

I'm slacking on the upgrade to the cone-bottom RFF installation so I can't measure how much waste comes out a week. Currently I'm doing partial water changes once a week through our barrel RFF to clean it.

I really need to learn more about this important subject. I'm reading this which answers some questions I think: https://www.aquaponic.com.au/Fish%20to%20plant%20ratios.pdf
Brian

Hi Pete, I think Dasboot may have tried an inline mineralisation tank at some stage but I haven't been able to find anything on it.

Here's a mineralisation tank he ran offline.

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=16235&p=535802&hilit=dasboot+mineralisation#p535802

Pete your waste volumes match your feeding rates, what put in is what you get back. What you do with the concentration after that would govern your total volume, like Worm Tea.

Thank you! I'm rather happy about it myself. My surgeon confirms that I'm healing on schedule (or even faster than expected) and says some of my residual pain is due to still having the plate in there; that'll be coming out as soon as we can get a date for it. There's still more healing to be done (knees are slow) but it'll never be perfect.


I turn off my main pump, wait for the water to stop flowing (it takes a while because the level in the FT has to drop to the bottom edge of the outlet pipe), then either use a siphon to vacuum the worst of the grot off the bottom into a bucket (if I'm in a hurry and doing a quick-and-dirty job) or else I siphon off most of the clear water off the top into the sump tank (should have put in a second outlet like joblow's design!), stir up the rest, and drain it all out through my bottom drain. I put in a sloping concrete bottom to try to make it all drop to the very edge next to the outlet so I could just open that and drain off the muck without having to do anything else, but it sticks to the sloping bottom if I don't stir it up well.

The muck gets poured around our fruit trees for fertiliser. If we haven't been getting much rain (so... most of the time...) I water it in afterwards to make sure I don't give their roots fertiliser burn; it's pretty strong stuff.


Voltaren Emulgel for the win! The 24-hour stuff is best.

I'm going to eventually need a knee replacement - surgeon says I've stripped the cartilage down to bare bone on one side - but unlike hips, he won't do those on people younger than about 60. The replacement prostheses only last around 20 years and they can only swap them out for a new prosthesis once; after that you just don't have enough bone left to attach one, I guess. So they figure if you get your first replacement before 60, there's a good chance you'll still be alive when the second one wears out and leaves you stranded.

Voltaren Emulgel for the win! The 24-hour stuff is best.

I'm going to eventually need a knee replacement - surgeon says I've stripped the cartilage down to bare bone on one side - but unlike hips, he won't do those on people younger than about 60. The replacement prostheses only last around 20 years and they can only swap them out for a new prosthesis once; after that you just don't have enough bone left to attach one, I guess. So they figure if you get your first replacement before 60, there's a good chance you'll still be alive when the second one wears out and leaves you stranded. [/quote]

Hi Mel,

I've tried Voltaren Emulgel but I don't think I've tried the 24-hour Voltaren, so I will give it a try. Thank you

This is what I have been using for quite a few years now and have had great success with it, I use it daily and if I hurt my knees or get any severe pain then I rub more in and that relieves the pain instantly.

With the Rapigel, I figure horses & dogs can't tell the Vet what's wrong with them or when they're feeling better, but their owners can see there's an improvement after using Rapigel then that's good enough for me

It's pretty common now and there's a lot of people now using it on themselves.

Thanks for the advise and input.

So in summary the filter should:

/separate heavier and largish floating muck from the bulk of the water leaving the FT.
/minimize head loss to GB's
/small floating muck is acceptable although also removable via a finer cloth filter.
/short term (1 week) storage of waste in base of filter.
/be mess free ease of removal of waste from filter with minimal water loss.
/have water re-supply via auto filler in ST.
/overflow to GB's in the event of blockage or over fill.
/quickly and easily cleaned without removing the filter body.
/contents to be visible in filter.


Did I forget something?