Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Your idea would allow use of vertical space, which would be great! If you have the ability to do it I would give it a try. It gets rid of the clutter of trays and drains on the ground.

If I understand this proposed strawberry system correctly, the strawberries are going to get watered from the top, via a spray? Not down their tubes? Will the water on the leaves/berries cause problems?

It could be possible to do the moving strawberry things. I personally would tend away from it unless you really have some great mechanical experts around to deal with the automation. Remember that you need a very strong structure to support such stuff. I also agree that the spraying the plants rather than running the liquid down in the towers could be a problem. Also, it seems that many people doing strawberry towers seem to recommend solids filtering before the water goes to the towers.

I think your idea of sinking the tanks into the ground a bit is a good one unless you decide to do a CHIFT PIST set up and even then you could probably sink them a bit anyway, especially if you were to do something with grow beds on the ground and strawberry towers hanging above the grow beds so that they can simply drain into the grow beds. The towers could be fed by a feed off from the sump pump returning water to the fish tank. Perhaps think monster grow beds (like 1 meter wide +/- and as long as you have space for with walkways in between) on the ground with towers lined up down the centers of them. Just some ideas that could be pretty inexpensive to implement.

They would spray down the tubes. Yes. the weight and mechanism does worry me a bit, but I have a week or two to look at alternatives before I need to make a decision.

Pre-filtered water is a must for strawberry towers. Weight is an issue, also the size of the pipes used- 6" minimum but larger is better- don't go automated with the pipes, just drain using gravity that feeds into drain pipes that all connect up to a main drain into the buried fish tank. Go low tech as much as possible- less headaches. Cover any exposed waterways to eliminate algae growth.
Also the photo of the man with the overhead strawberry NFT in the previous post- his name is Dr. Takeda.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m ... i_16682622
http://www.actahort.org/books/439/439_113.htm
He is a researcher and he is watering those strawberries with trout waste water. I did research on strawberry towers already and if you e-mail him, I'm sure he'll send you information on his research- he e-mailed a PDF of his research papers to me anyway.
He also did strawberry towers but was not satified with the results, hence the reason for the NFT on his second trialing. His tower design would be expensive to duplicate on a commerical level and he had growing and fruiting issues with the low light levels on the lower third of his towers. Spacing the towers further apart may alleviate some of that but shadowing will still be a major concern and you'll also eat up precious square footage in a greenhouse. Another thing to consider is that trout feed is a much higher protein feed than Tilapia so your results might not be as good as his.

Slow but steady progress at the site this last week. We lost almost two days because of rain and I'd like to get the plastic on the tunnels as soon as possible so that we're not so reliant on the weather. It has been very cold (for South Africa) with morning temperatures down to 4 deg and midday up to a max of 14 C.

So far we've concreted in the one tunnel frame and will do the other on Monday. Also we've just about finished wiring the one frame before the plastic goes on.

Once the plastic goes on, we'll construct the ponds.

Being a cattle pasture we are surrounded by cows most of the time.

Attached some actions shots.

Great work there - so glad I found this thread!
Having lived in KwaZulu-Natal most of my life I know that there is a market for almost anything that is food, especially protein (meat, fish, chicken etc)... In the rural areas where I worked for a while the locals would catch fish from the shore of the local plantation dams which were no bigger than 5 to 8 cm in length on average (the fish that is), and would take them home to cook up...
I have family near where you are and the tourist market was big - so there is another assurance that the food will sell... All in all there is no reason this would not work (assuming Eskom has sorted out its electricity woes - or does that not happen in the Cape?)
Will be checking here daily for updates - looking forward to seeing it grow further!

Knowing some of the personalities here I figured I had better clarify that
Now then, off to bed with me!

Ooh, cows! Duckweed fertilizer source? You could run a large worm bin off that source too. The free fish food possibilities are widened by your four-footed neighbors! :jealous:

Mmmm, STEAK, make sure he follows you to the freezer

The job is looking good synapto, well done

Amazed at how you have brought AP to the SA ppl, keep up the updates as we are all enjoying your success

And thanks to you guys (and gals) Even your "Gates of Ell" are famous here and all the locals are talking about them.

We got the plastic onto the one tunnel today before the gale force winds came. Attached some images.

Having had 3 weeks to ponder over this site, I put the proposal to the client today. attached a sketch of my proposal.

PLEASE COULD SOMEONE WITH A BIT OF SPARE TIME HELP ME OUT WITH THIS SKETCH IN GOOGLE SKETCHUP. I'm working 12 hours a day on site and haven't got around to learning it.

Here is a key to the symbols and a summary;

GH1, GH2

Two 30m x 9.5m greenhouses.

P1 – P4

4 x 7m diameter mesh ponds, 1.2m high. Capacity 46000L each, holding Tilapia.

S

Sump. 7M x 3.5m, 2m deep constructed with blocks and then plastered and water- proofed.

G1 – G16

Grow beds consisting of 500mm diameter PVC pipes cut lengthwise, endcapped. Each grow bed eg G1 is two pipes side by side ie. 1M wide and 6m long.

ST

Strawberry towers consisting of 110mm to 150mm PVC pipes notched and suspended from the centre of the greenhouse.

A1 – A4

Aerators consisting of 80w blowers and heavy duty air-stones.

SF1 – SF4

Solids filters.

PU

1.5KW pump.

Workings.

Water cycle #1

The pump pumps water from the sump to the 4 Tilapia ponds
Water flows into a centre standpipe down a 80-100mm drain..
Water passes through solids filters and then to the vegetable greenhouse.
The grow beds are irrigated on a flood and drain system by 20mm valves.
Water drains from the grow beds back into the sump.
This cycle runs for 1 hour on and 1 hour off.
If an individual pump is used for each pond the system will run 1 hour on and 3 hours off per pump.

Water cycle #2

A submersible pump (+- 200w) in the sump, pumps water up.
The water passes through a solids filter.
The strawberry towers are irrigated from above by 20mm valves.
Water drips out of the bottom of the towers into a central drain and the water flows back to the sump.
This cycle runs 1 hour on and two off.

Summary

The system can support almost any vegetable, fruit or flower crop as well as the strawberries grown in the central towers.

I have separated the fish and vegetables into separate greenhouses In this way we can control the two environments throughout the year. Heating/Cooling will be simpler and disease and pest control will be easier to manage.

The sump is housed in the vegetable tunnel, but can be covered and the vertical space also utilised.

I have tried to work as efficiently as possible with energy and excluding heating or lights, the proposed system uses under 2KW of electricity to move and aerate over 180 000 L of water !!

Comments ??