Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Nice - bit of lumbar in that. OMG starting to sound like a yank

picture didn't work for me

Alc. the thing that i dont get is why dont people that want to run NFT or floating raft simply do what our members do in that situation. Run the water though a gravel biofilter / solids trap before the nft / floating raft.

you could even keep your filter screens there post gravel to catch and really fine solids if you wanted to be pedantic.

Not sure exactly what you're running, but the general commercial crowd could do away with the swirl seperators and the biofilters, save on the filter maintenance and have a complete range of fruiting plants (or fresh cut flowers combined with say basil). The gravel bed can take many forms from vertical barrels to standard growbeds..............

obviously the ratio of gravel needed would need to be worked out emperically, but would NOT be the 2:1 ratio professed here. That ratio in my opinion covers biofiltration, solids trapping and mineralisation AND sufficient planting spots for nitrate removal. the latter you will have no problem with, and bio media for bacteria is often over engineered esp. when using high porosity materials, so you're left with the minimum required gravel for solids trapping and mineralization.

Steve

Once the system has been going for a while - plenty of solids still make their way through the gravel. Granted these are very fine - but enough to reek havock with plant root in NFT I would think.

Solution to this is to let it settle out in a sump or something. This happens in my system just as an incidental advantage of the design. Cleaned out the sump last night and removed about 20 litres of sediment.

interesting note................i saw this at jims on sunday, but i pointed out to him and stuart that while the was very fine sludge on the roots it in NO WAY smelt foul or anerobic, actually a sweat earthy smell. And as you can well see the AP nft tommies (with the sludge) were going great

I have no experience to comment on why nft/floating raft people don't do that. I have a UVI type system but no swirl separator or clarifier and pretty simple bio and solids filters. The pic didn't come out for me, either so I will try again.

The guys are getting into some of the things I'd hope to discuss with you when I come over Alchemie.... especially what bio-filters you're running for your fish load and the fact that you're only basically doing lettuce and herbs.

Do you do any water changes?

Very impressive results TT. I had a look at the latest on your system, nice pics...but haven't perused the whole 38pp or so....yet.
On that score, at the risk of setting off a small war...for newbies like me it would be easiest to be able to scan 2 to 3pp to get the gist of the story from experienced operators such as yourself...and thereby gain the main learnings of immediate relevance to the reader...but, having said that, I know creating a summary as well as preserving the whole narrative is time consuming and is it worth the effort??

HEAVY STUFF COMING I'M AFRAID............

My proposed product range is governed by:
(1) The raft system, notwithstanding a gravel filter might widen this.
(2) The fact that I was hoping to sell some of my produce as remarked in the first thread.

(2) being the case, so far, I did enlist the help of a consultant who was involved in a viable commercial operation of this type to get a small system built and underway but it will stay small until commercial viability is demonstrated and it will be converted to a purely backyard operation, with a wider variety of plants and vegetables, if it is not.

This being my circumstances, I deliberated for some months before joining this forum which clearly espouses full sharing and open innovation since one can read all the stuff without registering (as I'm sure many do) but I thought I could still offer up an acceptable amount of my own learnings while withholding my consultant's IP which are not mine to share.

I've said all this because in their genuine attempts to help, correspondents may in the future ask questions which I can't respond to, at least in detail, because they are someone elses IP. I hope that they will be able to understand this. If not, I might need to pull my head in again.

lol... intially I read IP to mean the IP address... couldn't figure where you were going with that

I assume you mean "intellectual property"....

If you're bound by a confidentiality agreement Alchemie, then so be it understood.

These days I think that most of the principles of aquaponics, be they "floating raft" or otherwise, are widely known.

Certainly the "floating raft" techniques of UVI are public knowledge and I doubt that anyone or any consultant could lay any legal claim to "proprietry" information.

Unless of course they had "adapted" a new and improved methology or techniques as part of their processes.

One would think that in such cases the "consultant" would have been savvy enough to have applied for the relevant patents and trademark protections.

Don't think you're treading on anyones toes too much, but understand your concerns and position.

Chances are that a lot of people here both know the "consultant" and his basic design principles anyway... and where he basically copied them from.

There's not much in the field over the last few years that hasn't been adopted/adapted from other sources (including aquaculture) or that is new or innovative....

If there was... then yep, we'd want to know about it

I don't imagine there is too much that Wilson would have told you that either others haven't done before him and therefore is widely known or alternativelly that he has told people at lectures, field days etc. The beneifts of having the consultancy would have mainly been to do with his knoweldge/experience enabling advice on adapting all the principals to your circumstances and needs I imagine.

Anyway - is good that you have finally made it here.

Hi again Steve,

Here is a photo of two tomato plants that have grown from plantlets over the last eight weeks. I suspect that the foliage has shown a good growth rate since they cover an area of about 2m x 1m as well as growing upwards and overflowing into both corridors. HOWEVER, although they have a lot of yellow flowers they have no fruit. I'm thinking of culling them since they are taking up so much room but my nutrient level measued as EC has mainly been below 1 during this time period. Do you measure ECs and if so I presume you operate considerably higher?

I dub thee AC

So, AC, thanx for posting that about the IP. Its all good, and i'm of the same mind as VB, a few of us have even been out to wilsons place for an open day.

Nice to bring it up into the open though. I'm sure you'll share any of your own experiences as you gain them.

On the tomatoes, thats exactly what i would have expected, phenominal vegetave growth but flowers not setting into fruit.

But then again, they are in a green house, did you try any manual polination methods on the flowers? people have used paint brushed or electric tooth brushes (dont ask LKB he's suggest a chainsaw)


I assume you'll be buffering ph with KOH as wilson was? (atleast i think he was) if you feel like making it less work for yourself you can use CaCO3 instead, AKA shell grit, AKA sea shells. you might be able to incorporate large pieces into your biofilter. it will buffer to around 7.4 with no chance of overdose and many months between re-application.

Thanx to Rupert, VB and Steve for your comments. I may well be being too careful on the consultant knowledge but if I were him I would be hoping clients showed some sensitivity over what was passed on. Anyway, enough of that.

Steve, upon consulting my wife, she says that she has "tweaked" some of the flowers but nothing more. We'll give them a couple more weeks(I will be off-line for a week from this weekend). Apart from your suggestions, I believe a much higher level of K might do the trick but haven't followed that up because my main goal at the moment is to investigate the diverse world of fruitless green leaved veges..

As far as buffering with KOH, this "Olchemist" regards KOH as a strong alkali only good for neutralisation, not buffering as CaCO3 (and maybe better still CaHCO3) are. Thanx for your suggestions on shell grit etc and yes I agree a genuine buffer will stabilise pH.

You didn't respond to my query on measuring conductivity. Do some of you guys do that and, if so, what range (say EC units) do you like to work in?

sorry AC, i knew there one was question i missed! kept scanning the text for it!

I dont measure EC, i would put money that JIM does, as he runs hydro too, he should be able to give you an indication.

Joel may have measured EC, i saw one of those wands over at his place.

PM them both incase they miss this thread and then post the answers for us all


Right you are about the KOH not being a buffer

The way i figure, id prefer not to put anything into my AP that requires safety glasses, not that there is anything really wrong with the KOH except for its strength.

What does the calcium bi-carbonate buffer to? i think the K bicarbonate was around the 10 mark, Na bicarbonate high 8's? thas why i'm in love with the CaCo3 MADE for AP

Nope Ac.... very few bother... except for those that may have done so with hydro stuff and maybe happen to have a spare truncheon laying around..... like Jim

pH is something that we monitor regularly, although those with mature systems can often tell by smell and sight... and fish behaviour... if there is something awry... and might not actually test otherwise.

EC is a measure of "salt" concentrations... constantly checked in hydroponic operations to reflect the state of the nutrient solution, match to specific formulae for different growth stages....

And quite often to measure against temperature... as temperature has a marked effect of precipitaion of salts from nutrient solutions and/or with pH the available uptake of certain elements to the plants.