Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I hooked the new GB into the system this morning. I had hoped to get it all in and running before it got too hot. Of course there's always one fitting you don't have so that trip was all it took to put me in there finishing with the temp over 100(38C)...

Anyway it's running. I need to let some of the water evaporate as the quantity of water I pump out of it is too much for my already full FT's. I've raised my low level sensor wire so it only pumps down about 1/2 way. As I loose water, I'll lower it until I'm eventually around the bottom of the GB.

Has anyone ever grown lemon grass in their AP system? I have a friend that is a chef and owns a restaurant. He's asian and used a lot of lemon grass. He asked me to try it and it appears to love the AP setup. I only put if in a week ago and already it has new growth coming from everywhere. Just wondering if anyone has tried it.

Here are some pics.

Here's the lemon grass.

Wonderful!!

So are your fish tanks now gravity draining to the 1/2 barrels or are you still having to pump from the building out to the greenhouse? With that heat in the greenhouse, it shouldn't take too long to get the water levels back in balance.

Leman grass should LOVE` AP ..... I don't have a system going , but the basics of its preferred conditions that I've seen in Thailand suggest YES YES YES.
make sure you take a peice to your Chef friend to taste ,, their are a lot of varying cultivars and some cause heart-burn , some just don't have the really truly Thai flavour.
Once you get the good one ,, easy to propogate from dividing ,, sheesh , i had to dig out a clump over a metre ( 3 feet) diameter as we just had TOOOOOO much.

I think the gene pool is ok on this grass. It came from the chef's garden. He just doesn't have room to grow more than one small clump at a time.



TC. I'm still pumping from the fish tanks. I would have had to either raise them a lot of lower the 1/2 barrels to gravity feed. So I'm pumping to the 1/2 barrels, gravity feeding to the new GB, then pumping back from the new GB to the FT's.

So far the new 3 wire controller is working fine.

My fish are off their feed all of a sudden. Only one group is still eating well. Chemistry is pretty good:

Ammonia: .25
PH: 7.6
Nitrites: 0.0
Nitrates: 20

The only things that have changed are:

1. I just put my new GB into service. It's 50% of my total GB space and is NOT cycled.
2. My water temps have come up to 88F(31C) during the daytime. I have only Tilapia and I thought this was the range that keeps them happy.

I'm wondering if my Oxygen levels are being reduced by the higher temps? The one group that is still eating gets the most aeration of the bunch.


Any ideas are appreciated.

The lemon grass is going nuts in AP, not so good in dirt. I just moved my four dirt plants into an AP GB this morning. You can see the difference in the pic.

Here are some new pics:

Red will definitely make the plants grow faster, it's a known fact.

Aeration is a good bet, are the water temps swinging between night and day?

Yes water temps are swinging but they always do. About 80 night to 88 late afternoon.

I think I'm going to hook up some temporary aeration and let it run through the night. I have an extra 3500L/hr pump and plenty of pipe. We'll see what happens. I'll update tomorrow.

I would guess aeration as the warmer water can't hold as much DO so the fish will deplete it faster. Perhaps you just need to increase the pump cycles a little for the hottest part of the day if it is the heat causing the issue. That way you get the aeration action happening more often to refresh them.

Then again, perhaps it is the ammonia level though it isn't that high, it could put the fish off a bit.

Hope they are back to eating soon!

More pumping in the heat of the day will raise the water temp even more though. I would concentrate on more pumping overnight to reduce the daytime temps. Aeration or splashing water required.

I just discovered that my system wasn't cycling long enough to fill the GB's. I have a sensor that's supposed to shut off the pump and set the alarm if the GB's try to overflow. I guess it would have helped if I have hooked the light up to the alarm.. duh.... I've been putting it off because the mounting is going to be a pain and it's really hot now.... Guess I'm just going to have to suffer and finish it. The system did just was it was supposed to do, detect stopped up siphons... If I had finished the job I would have known about it too... duh again......

Anyway, the siphon clog is fixed and the cycling is back to normal now. Hopefully that will take care of the problem... I'll do a follow up later when I see if this fixed the problem.

My fish are eating again. It looks like my system is just barely providing enough oxygen for the fish and it's time to add some real aeration. I thought I'd have enough with all the cycling and spray.

Has anyone tried to build an air supply using fans(to build a blower). I know I'd need at least 2-3 PSI to make it work. I have an old HVLP paint sprayer that would do it but I think it draws about 500 watts. That's too much to run continuously..

How big is your pump Jazz.... if you've got plenty of flow, you could tee of and have some returning to the fish tank to provide extra oxygenation...

Might have to adjust your flow into the growbeds to re-tune the siphons.... or alter your timer if you're running one...

but cheap and easy way of getting extra aeration.... maybe even ditch the timer and pump continuously....

Thanks Rupe. I've been thinking of going to continuous flow. Maybe this is the time to do it. Right now I'm running off a timer. I just changed it to run more often. I have a ton of aeration when the return pump is on, but it only runs a few minutes/hour.