Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Working like a charm!

You're doing it by the book, good job!

Thx guys, I'm amazed day by day about it..

Arduino Mega has arrived, its electronics and programing time!

The arduino based datalogger is up and running.

I was a littel affraid of wiring, soldering because I have huge deffciencies there also I never programed in C or wiring languade, but it all came together pretty easily.

Its so well documented online, tonns of tutorials, examples, detailed DIYs I'm amamzed.

After 4 hour of work it measures 3 temperatures, and amount of sunlight. It logs all to an microSD in CSV format.

Todo:
- I need to buy a thermal/ hummidity combo sensor (or some replacement)
- Solve power supply
- Casing
- Finalizing wiring, soldering.
- Put it into the GH.

Hi!

Time for some pictures.


Fishes are fine. They eat well, they grow well, the leaders should be aroung 250gr +.


The back row features, onions carrots, sorrel, lemongrass, basil, marjonram, chilies and I recently added, cucumbers (trying again, two different type beans, spinach (the first set was unsuccesfull), new set beetroot, new set of paprika and tomato.


The front row features, strwaberries, salad, come onions, radish, carrots, two types off kohlrabi, peas, and some spice greens. The brown rods are grape rosds form the dirt garden, they should be the support for the peas.

This is my the best huge tomato tree I have. Right now I have 3 types of tomato this one produces best. A jungle of beetroot and paprika on the lower left. Note that the window is open to controll humidity, still the temp is 15C higher than outside.


ph: 7
Am: 0,25
No2: 0
No3: 50

Need more vegies!

Todays harvest. Tomato anyone?

I'm have reached an other milestone.

After some heavy lobbiing, and networking, I have found a link to the the local university. On tuesday I had a special guest in the GH, the head of the aquaculture department of the university. We had a great chat and I returned his visit the next day. A possible cooperation started to form, but in the short run I helped tham to refit their ongoing systems to be more energy efficient.

They have ongoing researches with barramudni, and hybrid striped bass, both require massive water heating on our climate. I recomended a cheap but very effective improvement on their heating system, wich will save a lot of money on heating bills and will also help them in the realisation as well. They are scientists and not so handy man, and currently they really do heating the wrong way. They saw the problem and the sollution, but where not sure about it.

They have about 50kg of 1 year old barramuni. Nice fish, I love those beasts.
They also have a set of new barramundi spawn (1-2cm sized) aprox 10 000 pcs and a somewhat less hybrid striped bass (2-4cm sized).

Cool laboratory!

Quick update.

Im busy like hell. Got absolutely no time to work with the aquaponics. The daily routine is 5 minutes feeding in the morning, checking that pump is running and 2 minutes system check in the dark when I get home late in the afternoon.

The system is working fine. Three days ago I noticed that 2 GB-s not getting water, I most likely had some cloging in the irigation pipe. I was in a rush that morning, so I decided the system can handle going with only 7 GB-s till the afternoon, the mallfunction is not that critical. I was hoping to repair it in the afternoon, unfortunately it was allready dark when I got home, so I grabbed my tourch and got ready for pipe cleaning. For my biggest surprise there was nothing to repair, all 9 GB-s where going fine, no sine of clogging.

I refilled the evaporation loss of the last 3 weeks (~800l), and thats it. The system is self repairing.

Haven't test the water for at least a week.
The weather is not funny at all, daily average is around 1-2C with a minimum of ~-6C and the daily max of ~7C.

Temps today morning: 8:30am
Outside: 0
GH air: 9C
System water: 12C

Trout are happy and growing, how ever I have to select tham because the difference between their size is still growing.

Yeah I hate this time of year when it's dark all the time. I'm curious how your biofiltration will work in the cold.

17:23 pm, aquaponics by night


Dave you are right! Reading your words I started to worry a bit. The efficiency of the biofilter highly connected with the temp. So as temp drops, biofilter slows down as well.

I did a water test after 9 days, and it shows perfect data. The biofilter is handling the current load on the current temperature!

Cool beans!

Tomatoes for breakfast, outside temp -3C


Friday afternoon I finally had some time. I cleaned the pump, taps, airator, and harvested.
One of my tomatoe tree died while putting in the barrels so I had to take the green toms. A half bucket of sorrel, some carrots, green onions, hot paprika, basil, and marjoram.


Let me introduce my new friend. Just found him at my fathers place, and brought home. He's honna take care of the little insects that found a living in the AP. They are plenty, food should not be a problem for my new friend.

Really nice stuff Zsazsa....