Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Thx for the comments guys!

I'll do as you recommended!

Hey szasza... more elbow irrigation tap questions... is the level of the fish tank overflow the same as the level of the pipe that has the elbows coming off it? In other words does the irrigation pipe come out horizontally from the fish tank and not have a drop down in level. I would like to adapt to your method but fear I would need some kind of leveling tank. perhaps a pre filter to get the level right. Otherwise I need to lower the fish tank which would not be a bad idea or too difficult to do. Would just need to empty it almost completely lower it and fill it up again. My irrigation pipe comes out the tank and then goes down about a foot and then runs along to the grow beds. If i do the elbows I will just get loads of water at the first bed and bugger all at the last one

The pipe is leveled. The tank overflow is some 20 cm-s higher. It can be clearly seen in the elbow taps video that the FT water level is ~20cm higher than the pipe!

This way the water has some preasure, and can flow back to the FT.

The pipe can be lower then the FT overflow (minimum 15 cms required, more is not a problem) and if your pipe is leveled, all the taps would give the same amont of water, first, last, and all in between.

Hi all!

Lots to report, but Im short of time. So here are the most importent ones:

Yesterday afternoon:


Finally nitrit level hit the floor!

As ammonia and nitrit is 0, I added 2,5 dl of aged hummonia.

Today morning:


Amm and nitrit is back in action. Also to be noticed that nitrat level also dropped, thats probably because the lovered ph level, plants now able to take nutrients.

I now see that not only paprikas suffered from clorid toxicity, but we are read for a new start.

I made a short video on elbow-taps vs algea. I will leave one tap un touched just to see what happens. But let the video speak for it self:

A few minutes ago:


I created the earth grading on the north and west sides, constructed some woodens steps, inside, to defend the sump connecting pipes, and progress can be found over the fight agains algea (some of the most effected surfaces are covered with black foil).

Next time I'll take some fresh photos to demonstrate.

Cycled!

cool test kit, havnt seen those before. I would recomend BYAP's kit of course though

I may look nice but its not fun to use.

For ph you have to use 1 test solution in 5ml , for nitrite 2 solutions in 5 ml, for ammonia 3 solutions in 10ml, and for nitrate 4 solutions in 10ml. More over for the nitrate test, there are two liquid solution, than a solid (powder), and finally an other liquid.

Thats not user friendly.

Yea go BYAP test kits, they are the bomb!!!!

yours sounds painful.

Monday morning I added ~2dl of hummonia.

This is the monday afternoon measure:


After this I added an other ~ 2d of hummonia.

And here is the tuesday morning measure:


Nothing added today morning, Im doing the hard way just sit and wait...

I got fish news, but first I have to coordinate with molj, we are planning to bring together the first Central European Aquaponic Jamboree

Pfff...

Its been a busy week in work, aquaponics is ticking along nicely, mostly by it self.

- I got back to measuring one per day instead of twice a day, meanwhile I ran out of ammonia test.

- The ph is now down to 6,5 so its about time to drop in the collected eggshells.

- Plants are growing nice, except sald which where only just out when the clorid spike were on high so day couldnt recover. I took those out, as well as the 4 biggest paprikas that where effected most from clorid.

- I got some aphis on the radish

- I bought salt, its mined salt, not seesalt but ist natural hope that will do.

- I made som test with the SLO, tried to create a whirlpool in the fishtank with the water inlet and the SLO. Had minor success. This is part of the process of geting the system ready for the fish.

- The 1st Central European Aquaponic Jamboree with molj is beeing organized the exact date is unknow but it shold be within 10 days.

No pictures this time, but will get you some, I promisse!

It was a long weekend but I spent most of sunday inside the greenhouse, so made some visible progress again:



I wrapped the GH with heat mirror foil. This helps to distribute sunlight, also helps the isulation, and gives a more technical outlook for the building. Also I could tie the back row plants (tomaoes, cucumbers, beans) it was time to do so, because they grew out of controll.

I try to find some goverment money on starting a commercial scale later, so I talked with some application specialists. One was planing to meat me this weehend, but he couldn't becaues he had pump problem. He has a commercial scale vegetable farm. The story he explained to me veirfies my efforts.

The guy said: - Sorry I had a pump failure, this weekend we where busy, to get some water for the vegies.
Me: - No problem, thankfully we had some rain.
The guy: - Well normaly its not raining in a greenhouse.
Me: - Yes, you are right. Rain doesnt help grennhouses. (Notice it rained all day sunday.)
The guy: - More over we had 40C inside, had to repair the pump.
Me: - Oh yeah, 40 is way to much for the vegies.

After we dropped the phone I was just smiling because:
1. I dont have water problems with watering even if the pump fails
2. My greenhouse stayed 22-25C all weekend, day or night, rain or sunshine. And I have never seen more than 31C at any weather...

I'll meet him today, try to look for some government money.


I noticed strange differences in growth, it has to be stg with the nutrient availability.


These are my zucchinies. They where planted form the same set of seedlings same time same gb. They grew together untill a point after that the one that is closer to the water inlet grown bigger. Distance form the water inlet is inversly propotional to the plant size. And not just zucchinis do this. All the plants in all growbeds act the same. There are differences in the scale but they act the same way.

I think the bacteria are concentrated on that part of the beds (still very young system), so the nutrient conversion is there, and the lucky ones close taking up more.

Any other tips? Whats that? Why is that?

I pulled the siphons, so the system is running CF now, may be that will have an effect.

Yeah, tomatoes that are close to the inlet are fruiting.



Here is a pic about my fishtank, with the floating seedling starter. Cellery, Peas, Brokkoli, and Kolhraby in it.

Notice I turned the FT water inlet so it makes the water flow arround a bit, but its no enough. Currently I'm creating a smaller SLO pipe to make bigger suction and maybe help the whirpool.

This wek should be fish week, but I have huge lack of info from the fish supplier...

Ohh, this became a giant update, and I forgot to mention 2 things:

- Ph is between 6,5-7 for a few days now, eggshells are doing their job fine!

- I added some worms shorly after starting the system. They lived in my compost pile, and When I moved the pile to a new place, I picked the worms. Later I was worried about tham because I havent seen tham and was worried about the clorine poisoning. But yesterday they left a message for me that wasy clear that they are fine and living happy. I found a baby worm - about 1cm - swimming in the fishtank. He was lucky this time, he made it, as there are no fish

What a good idea on that seed starter using empty bottles as floaters. I've got a few of those short crates that I was loath to throw away.
Cool. I'll have to borrow that idea soon.
Thanks.