Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Nope.... always (supposedly) good for heavy metals... and a few other "nasties"...

Zeolite works in the same way .... binding a wide variety of cations, such as Na+, K+, Ca2+, Mg2+ and others... although loosely, exchanging ions with other chemical ions to form compounds in solution quite readily....

That's good to know, thanks for the info Ruperto!

Cool, thanks for the info, I wasn't very certain about what I had herd before. So sounds like the charcoal should still be pretty good for this purpose.

Just read through some of your threads. Love the Grow Burrito and the constant flood air lift. I may end up using some variant of these ideas.

One disadvantage of charcoal I found is that some of it floats. As you've shown with the burrito though, there are ways of dealing with that.

Yep it floats like a champ and it hasn't stopped floating yet, even after a couple weeks. I have one planter where I forgot to drill holes in it and when I put that one into the system the planter fills up and all the charcoal tries to float out of the planter.

Pictures of "Rendezvous Mark I"

20 gallon aquarium
Air pump, air stones in tank, in biofilter, and in bottom of air lift
White plastic trash can, tall enough to just reach water line
Inside trash can are plastic scrubbies and Scotch Brite pads (will buy more next trip to Sam's Club to fill it up all the way)
Plastic drain dish from medium-sized planter for the socket drain to sit on, held up by the Scotch Brite pads
Socket drain is square paint dish from Lowe's, the kind you use to hold paint while you are painting trim with a brush
3/4" electrical conduit fittings on socket drain
3/4" PVC to bottom of trash can
Little plastic planters from Lowe's, about $2.25 apiece, drilled more holes in bottom of them
1/2" air lift from PVC pipe 1" to 1/2" adapter fitting on bottom to hold air stone with slots in it
1 black fancy goldfish + 2 small koi
Probably two bags of hardwood charcoal, broken into small pieces

Pots gather sunlight on our kitchen table, have several seeds sprouting and have transplanted a couple of plants too. There are 14 total, swapped into the system for 12 hours per week each. Still planting them up.

I had taken a planter to work a week ago and forgot to bring it back for vacation. It was here all week with no watering and the sprouts look great still!

Wow!

Will be great seeing how this turns out, growth wise and labour wise.

This hole rotational idea might also work for those who wish to use the coconut fibers and other things that would stay too wet if used continually in flood and drain or getting constant water in a normal AP system.

And you could do things to the plants that you might not do if it were in the AP system, like spray soap to kill aphids or something. The things added (seaweed extract, iron?) would have a week to be soaked up before the pot goes back in.

Abdul the labor so far is negligible, just grab a planter on the table, and swap them while my morning coffee is brewing and when I feed the fish anyway. I do need a little area though to set the planter on to drain for awhile before putting it back on the table, otherwise it overflows a little as the media becomes fully drained. I don't plan on going bigger than 5 gallon buckets because of the need for portability.

This setup is a complete AP system, nothing is missing, but for larger needs like to raise a bunch of vegetables I imagine there will be a mix of permanent beds and portable planters for ramping up and down or to hide from Mr. Frost. It could be a useful extension for anyone's AP system IMO.

This little setup has actually rekindled the joy of AP for me.

Christmas theme today

Well it's the end of another year and I'll need to sum up my thoughts again tomorrow. Have lots of plans for getting things underway in time for Spring this year.

Today I was able to use sage and basil from the little Rendezvous Mark I to season the traditional pork roast! It's going to be good luck for AP this year!

One more update for the past year, here are the plants from the Rendezvous system today. The closeup is a houseplant that was ruined practically, only had two leaves left and a stem, all the leaves you see here were made since it was put into the AP.

I need more full-sized plants to draw down the nitrates, I added two small shubunkins and a pale goldfish and the water is pretty yellow. The plants from seed are pretty long and thin, I think because the sunlight is weak and pretty unreliable this time of year (and short days). THe sun is stronger by the day and they are doing better - the coriander is actually starting to look like a normal sized plant now.

Six planters are still unplanted - I have put seeds in some of them like green beans and others but they didn't come up. I am putting lettuce seeds in all of them now, we'll see how that goes. A full complement of good-sized plants will help this system stay clean indefinitely.