BYAP Trials

RupertofOZ

Indeed... once the bed surface area is covered by plant growth... virtually no evaporation occurs.... losses are entirely due to transpiration...

Interestingly.... they would typically be about the same as the values currently reported (system #3)... about 10%...

Which makes me wonder if in fact the water loss in the trials is actually primarily "evaporation"... or more "transpiration"... :wink:

IMelting

EB,
Probably a dumb question, but did you do a fish count on #3?

You mentioned ammo and ites slightly above zero on #3 where the other systems were at zero. Also, all three systems have similar ates despite #3 obviously using more. Maybe there's a small dead fish hiding out, providing more nutrients? :dontknow:

Thanks for going through this effort and sharing your results.

TCLynx

Since the plants in the constant flood system constantly have their roots in the water, they probably transpire more because they don't fear running out of water so to speak. The plants in the siphon system probably also have far more contact with the water than thus transpire more while the plants in the timed system may actually experience some slight drying in their surface roots and perhaps a bit more heat getting further down into the bed and so they hold onto their moisture a bit more, thus less transpiration water loss from that system.

With the Temperature stabilization advantage of the CF system, I'm thinking I may convert my 300 gallon system to CF for the winter so the fish are not exposes to such extreme temp fluctuations from the flood and drain through the freeze danger months. I'll go to my 300 gallon system thread to explain that one more. :oops:

earthbound

Haven;t done a fish count but the fish are very active and hungry. I would expect that if one had died it would have floated up and we'd see it.

Food&Fish

No doesent always happen

earthbound

Yeah I know, sometimes they can be under the pump, stuck to the pump etc... :puke:

Wazza

earthbound wrote:

Wouldn;t mind doing top up water but the only water meters I've seen cost about $600, and other methods involve a fair bit more time. Might have another look for some cheaper water meters.

Hey EB,

Just saw this advertised on TV, have no idea if it's any good, but it's only $20, so probably worth a try (maybe).

Link:

http://www.hoselink.com.au/buy/flow-meter-guage/5815

Cheers
Wazza

TCLynx

Just an fyi. after pulling lots of dead fish and excess feed out of my 300 gallon system (my fault for leaving town with the feeder programed and it got cold while I was away) After pulling fish out of the system I switched the system over to constant flood for a couple hours and then did a water test, the ammonia and nitrite were back to 0 only hours after starting the system on constant flood.

Definitely think running constant flood when initially cycling up or when problems/spikes happen seems like a good trick. To switch a indexing valve system over to constant flood I simply flip my stand pipes over and pull the stem disk out of the indexing valve, then of course I have to top up the system with more water to compensate for so much water staying in the grow beds.

Joel, I hope you guys can leave this trial running for more than one year. I would like to watch it for at least two years.

RupertofOZ

Indeed TCL.... we've always advocated continuous pumping to clean up water problems... especially after fish deaths/overfeeding..

Exactly what I did at Holmes-A-Court after a recent "over-feeding" incident...