Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Thats how questions bring forward the world...

After I have answerd the data logging question I started searchin for stg that has the knowledge of a computer, cheap, and power efficient.
I have found a solution!
http://arduino.cc/en/

Arduino is a small computer with a lot of diy and premade hardver options and well documted easy programing.

The target is to build a greenhouse + aquaponics monitoring and operating system that features:

measurement:
- airtemp. outside
- airtemp inside
- system water temp.
- thermal mass water temp.
- humidity inside
- humiditry outside
- sunlight
- window open status
- door open status
- system water level measurement
- flow rate measurement

other inputs needed for fish feeding:
- food conversion curve for the fish specie to water temp and fish size
- fish avg. weight
- pieces

system should be able to controll:
- greenhouse ventilation according to temps and hummidity rates
- automatic fish feeder with close to ideal feed rates
- artificial lighting in case needed
- alarm in case of low water flow or low system water level

aditional features:
- save data SD card or to your computer
- serve data to web for real time monitoring
- send alarms to your twitter/email/cellphone

Want more?
- live webcam possible
- LCD display/TFT/touchscreen
- measure anithing
- controll anithing
- the limit is only our imagination!
- Sized maximum like a bigger cell phone.
- Energy efficiet. It can be run from a 9V battery or power adapter, max 5W/hour
- Fail safe. No moving parts hard to fail it.
- Modular. You can start from measuring only a temp up untill the hole list above and more.
- Low cost, a basic system starts from ~45 USD


This is my starter kit i have ordered:
- Arduino mega2560: Its a big and fast base board thats more than enough for the everithing I can now imagine: ~35 USD

- Ethernet shield with micro-SD: This extra enables the arduino board to be a little webserver, and record data to micro-SD card: ~25 USD

- RTC clock: This extra enables the arduino board to record the real time and date to all data that it records: ~10 USD

Need to by:
Need sensors (3x thermal +1x waterproof thermal, 1x photocell for sunlight, 2x humindity, 2x magnetic contact switch) wires, reducers, battery box, casing: ~30 USD

So excited! Yeah!

some data on Greenhouse performance :evil3:

Meanwhile the weather got back to normal path. Both days and nights are colder than what I would like to see inside the greenhouse. Unfortunately I'm still missing most of the thermal mass as the barrels that I have ordered not arrived.

Yesterday outside was min 5C, max 15C
I fead the fish at 6pm yesterday when the sun was out for the GH.
out:14C
in: 21C
water: 19C

Today morning at 8am cloudy weather:
out: 10C
in: 14C
water: 15C

You have any idea how much impact you think the barrels will make? 1, 2, 5C over the night?

It a base to calculate with but these are just approximate calcluation because they miss some elements.

I assume:
- The whole system and the thermal mass acting the same.
- The temp of system was equal of the thermal mass (Thats not true for sure, but I have no measure of the thermal mas, so we need stg to calc with.)
- I have 500l thermal mass, 2500l system water, 2000 kg of stones = total thermal mass. 1C temperature of this mass equals ~16000 BTU energy loss.

Now we can calcutae how much temp would have I lost. Again Im assuming a lot of things, and the result is just slightly better than a deliberate guess!

So here we go:

Im only calculating with the water temp because thats what heating the greenhouse.

I lost 4C during the night > 4 * 16000 BTU = 64000 BTU

With the 2000 l extra thermal mass the system capacity would be ~24000 BTU

The lost 64000 BTU, with the experimental 24000BTU /C system capacity > 64000 / 24000 = 2,66C

Bottom line, according to this calculation, I would have lost 2,7 C instead of 4 C.

As the thermall mass, and the system heat up and cool down differently, I guess the actual loss with full thermal mass capacity should be even smaller than the result what the calculation shows.

Really interesting stuff,thanks for the detailed reply!

I just got home and feed the fish.

Today it was cloudy all the day, no sunshine at all. Temp had't rise over 10C.

outside: 10C
inside: 16C
water: 16C

Why? Howcome? Scattered sunshine

I remembered what I wanted to ask you, do you get really heavy hail showers where you are? And if so, how has the greenhouse stood up to them?

Luckily, no hail showers this year but it regularly occours in summer time. However policarbonate glazing stand it really good, its much better than PE foils or glass.

Braking news!

(Ok thats too strong for the topic but couldnt miss this title.)

Here is the video (sorry for pure sound quality):



I have found a fish out of ballance today morning. Its rolling from back to belly. Netted him out to quarantine, I called the supplier for advice. He sad it could be a gassy belly or a swim bladder inflammation. The seccond case is not funny...

I hope he gets better if not its gonna be dissected by the end of the day.

Long weekend, lots to report.

Firts of all, the fish.
It was getting worse, and by the afternoon it was just lieing on the bottom, soI took him out, and anatomized on thursday, to get some clue what happened.

Here are the pics:

http://www.aquaponics.hu/image/IMG_1359.JPG
http://www.aquaponics.hu/image/IMG_1360.JPG
http://www.aquaponics.hu/image/IMG_1361.JPG
http://www.aquaponics.hu/image/IMG_1362.JPG
http://www.aquaponics.hu/image/IMG_1363.JPG
http://www.aquaponics.hu/image/IMG_1364.JPG

Please feel free to comment, if you see anything.

What I found is:
1. No gas in the belly.
2. No signs of any abnormality in the guts, or in the swimming blader.
3. No external signs on the fish.

So I sent the photoes and videos to the supplier, for further analysis. And here is what I recived.

"The only sign is a little bump on the forehad of the fish - that could be a bone growing abnormal - that may push the brain. In could be the result of warmer - these RT subspecies live in 9-11C water all year long for centuries - water and accelerated growth. "

Also reciveed some advice on feeding method, because the growth rate is too differented.

Bottom line, no infection!

System data:


PH: 7,5
Amm: 0
N02: 0
NO3: 10

The system is doing fine, I would like to see more nitrat dough. I still have extra capacity on the GB and filter side, but looks like the current fish quantity and weight cant support more plants.

Welsh Catfish
I havent gave up on wels catfish, and as authumn selecting comes I can buy some again. I have ordered 50pcs of ~500gr sized. I will open the 3rd and 2nd sump for tham, with some additional cover agains cats. Also try to organize some ford Molj.

GH performance
We had the first dawn frost of -2 today. The greenhouse welcomed me today morning with a confident 12C air and 15C system water temp!
All we need is sun between 10am - 3pm.

Woahh! Huge WTF yestreday.


I was home as early and checked a GH at 14:30 after a whole day of full sunlight.
Outside max temp was 12,5C.

So walked in 14:30 and the heat shocked me!

inside air tem: 36C !!!
system water temp 17C !!!

Yeeehaaaa!

I'm after a busy weekend, especially saturday.

The barrels have arrived, early morning.


I have painted half size of the barrels, with mate black paint.


While they where dying, I created a stand for tham, from the same heavy duty wooden beams that I used for the GB stands.

Puting tham in and filling tham up was quite a job as you have to walk on the GB-s. I made some damage in the greens as well, but it couldnt be done anyway else.


By filling up the barrels with well water (10C), I cooled down the system a bit. Im expecting some direct sunlight today, and hoping for heating up a bit.

Bottom line, the long awaited thermall mass is in!

Way to go zsazsa...

Something new is happening!

We had a full sunny day on tuesday, so the thermall mass could pick up some heat, and the system got warmer as well.

One of my friends called late yesterday. He has a motorboat on the river Tisza and was hadding home from a duck hunting. He caught a bighead carp accidentally, and he wanted to hand it over to me as he was allready looking for a busy evening cleaning the ducks.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypophthalmichthys_nobilis

The bighead carp is not a native fish, they where introducet to our lakes and rivers in 1963, to eat up algea. As algea eaters they are uncatchable with traditional fishing methods, but still with some tricks you can catch tham.

This time of the year the water temp of the rivers fall bellow 8C the algea dies, the water cleans up and the hungry bighead carps come to the surface. They got distracted by the motorboat and jump like this.




So I got the fish. But I was not willing to go and pick it up empty handed, so I decided to pick a handfull of fresh green onions form the AP.

And here comes the point!

It was dark allready so I took a torch and walked out to GH to pick some onions. I felt a strange thing when I closed the door behind me. Its the same what you feel standing by the oven when ist hot. Radiant heat. It was not that intensive but still I could feel the radiation from the back wall.

I was not sure about it so today morning I got out early , befor the sun hits the GH, and felt just the same. Also noticed that the climate has changed. Till this point it was humid and warm, now its warm and humid.

I cant for the arduino to arrive and start measuring all the data!

Temperatures:2011.10.29 - 7:05 am

Things seem to be working pretty good zsazsa...