Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Muzza

How is the coco peat going? My coir seems to have gone a bit bad. I dug through the system but have yet to find any rot just a bad smell in the water. Hoping you might have some insight.

JT

Hi jtjf_1,

If your water smells bad then you have anaerobic conditions.....your system is completely without oxygen at some point. The smell is the result of bacteria generating bio-gas.

My suggestion would be to increase the amount of air that you have going into the water......possibly a small air pump.

How is your system set up? Is your coco peat bed on flood and drain, contiuous flow.....or what?

Gary

i agree with gary.

are you using the fine powdery coco or the chip like large particle coco?

if your using the the powdery stuff i would advise against using a regular flood and drain cycle or heavy continual flow. the powdery coco holds just too much water to maintain the desired aerobic conditions. i think an on-off drip/ flow cycle would be better then flood and drain or continual flow, as it should allow more air into the coco. with a little tweaking you should be able to figure out the best cycle for your conditions.

Yeah I think Muzza is definately using flood and drain....

I'm looking at coir, but wouldn't think of continual flow due to its water retention properties

ROZ I'm a bit confused( happens alot )
If the water retention of the coir is at maximum wouldn't it just not accept any more thus excess water would flow by, or would it just inhibit the water from flowing???

Not that so much G6, just I think the media needs to periodically "dry out" to a certain extent, not so much as to actually dry out but in order to be oxygenated to prevent anaerobic bacteria build up in stagnant pockets...

... ultimately robs the system of DO (direct oxygen) and turns it into a slimey, stagnant swampy type algae...

Anyways leads to fish fatalities...

I'm sure Steve and others could correct or elaborate...

Edited : Better still... this is Murray's thread and he probably has more experience with coir than anyone... maybe PM him directly

Hey There I am using full coir or better know as coconut husks. check out my system thread here so i don't garble up Muzza's thread

Here

Hi Jonathin,
I have had a grow bed filled with coco peat for some months now and have enjoyed good success with it, except for one aspect, The discolouration of the water. It had actually come reasonably clean at about the 7 week point, but then I added some new fingerlings that brought with them an attack of "Itch". I treated this with a heavy dose of salt to my system which fixed the itch, but was not kind to my plants. The interesting thing is that when I flushed the system after 3 weeks of heavy salt, the coco peat released a heap more colouration into the system, water very, very tea coloured. I wonder about that chemistry.
As Gary D said earlier, I have now isolated that grow bed from the rest of the system and I water it once a day only with water from the fish tank. It takes 8 litres to water the bed . I discovered that amount by watering until I get a very small amount coming out of the drain of the Grow bed. I have cut back the amount a little until I reached a point where there is only about a 1/4 of a cup coming out the bottom. I guess that means that this is the amount of water the plants are using each day.

I am yet to devise a timer or similar that will deliver the required amount of water to the coco peat grow bed every day, once a day. The system is not degraded by doing this because that is the amount of water the plants in the coco peat bed would have taken out of the system each day anyway. Obviously I need to top up the fish tank every second or third day anyway.
I intend to expand my use of coco peat as I believe it is a wonderful medium for Aquaponics purposes.
Naturally the principal grow bed medium will always be gravel as it is necessary and extremely effective in filtering the water back to the fish.

Muzza

Muzz is the tea colour such a bad thing, considering all the other benifits?

Most fish, appreciate the security of not being seen

It is strange that salt had the effect of releasing the colour. I am told that salt added to the wash will fix colours in clothes.

It is a shame that the coco-peat has not worked out in the traditional flood and drain setting. Will have to think about how the 8 litres could be delivered daily as an automated thing - as I'm sure other will here. I am sure somebody will come up with the answer. It would be relativelly easy if you were using automation as you would just use a probe in something where the water runnoff went. As simplicity is the key, I do not think that this is the solution - hopefully there will be one that does not rely on computer componentry.

Quite right and of course for the ammonia/nitrite/nitrate conversion process.

Good point Steve, the fish don't mind at all, but I like to see the fish and so do the visitors who come to see my system. I think some of them (the visitors) reckon I am kidding about there being fish in the tank.

I have thought the same thing, but fact of the matter is that many AP people, myself included, get a lot of pleasure and relaxation out of watching the fish. Maybe in a second system??

Oops - was posting when you were Muzz.

I get that all the time the combination of the tank being buried and having some fine suspended solids make the water look very uninviting...........in a bucket it looks fine. I have grown accustom to not seeing the fish.............every now and then i get paranoid about them and throw the net in

Further to JtJf,
My bed drains very well, perhaps the coco peat being used by others is too fine. I have just landed a heap pf 5kg blocks and I feel it will always be a part of my system/s
Bio Farmer, my coco peat is a mix of about 10 to 12 mm sized chips down to abour 3 or 4 mm chips and strands.
Muzza.