Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

yeah, you will need to experiment with the hysteresis to get it right.
A little technique to find the right number...
If you need to use trial and error to guess a number say between 1 and 100 always pick the middle number (divide by 2).
so first pick 50, if it is too high then pick 25. If that is too low, halfway between 25 and 50 is 17 or 18. If 18 is too low, halfway between 18 and 25 is (25-18=7, 7/2=3.5, 18+3.5=21.5) 21.5.
So in only 4 steps we are getting pretty close to the correct number, a couple more steps and it will be exact.

This is much quicker than just picking a number then if to low just adding some random amount, then just keep guessing, before you know it you have tried it 20 times and still not sure where you are.

Ok SV. Will give it a go... Like i said big learning curve tomorrow. I don't know how this thing worked with my branding die. Probably the reason why the thermocouple kept bombing out on me! So it did not really. I did not set it up right at all. I guess with a fan you are kind of alerted to the on off nature and sense there is going to be a problem but with the element one is blissfully unaware. Oh well at least I can use the thing for something now. I just use a plumbing torch to heat the branding die now. Simple.. yet effective

Ok. Well marginal success. I got it set up so the probe reads temps pretty well. I am 37/8 a magno from the fridge is 5 and boiling water is 102. But I seem to have locked the target temperature at 19. Now I can't figure out where it unlocks. Output 1 is icing in when the probe temp goes over or under the set temp. Output 2 is now kicking in and out on a 200 second cycle. An alarm I guess. Its pretty intense for me trying to understand this thing

Well tried calling the technician today but he was out. Will call again tomorrow.

This controller programming is not easy. I feel really dumb!

it doesnt look that easy from looking at the manual...
don't feel dumb, its the designers fault for making it hard to use.
I could make a widget that requires 9 hours studying the manual just to figure out how to program it too, or I could put some effort into making it easy
Maybe their business model is technician callouts

Bite the bullet Brian.... how much is a couple of days of headaches worth...

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

Is this type of catfish what you are talking about?

We have these in intesive systems in Hungary, they even put them out to lakes for sport fishing, nut only in summer. They cant make it through the winter.

- They can survive on the dry, they can crawl from one lake to the next.
- They grow extremely fast.
- They tolerate extreme crowding, and poor water quality.
- Ideal water temp 25-30C, breading temp 21-22C, minimum temp 10C!

Hi Zsazsa. Yes that's the one. Sounds like the ideal ap fish hey?

Got the gefran working to a degree. Its just weird as I cannot adjust the freaking setpoint. If I switch it on at then it sets it's setpoint to the temp at which it was switched on at. I was fiddling so much with the settings all over the place. Wish I could default it back to factory settings It is currently attempting to hold the temp at 31 degrees. At mid day with the fan running it was 41. But it was probably 38 outside. Water temps where up from 20 to 25 last checked, and tilapia quite a bit more active. It will probably take a few days for water temps to rise?

If you have water over 20C they African Catfish are rockets. Go for 'em!

Have you found a source for fingerlings?

Zsazsa... no. no fingerlings and my winter temps in the big system are around 12 to 15 degrees. I am thinking more about for my greenhouse system if I ever get the tilapia through to edible size that is. I am keen to see what the temps are like in there when I get back with the temp controller having run all weekend. Should be interesting.

I am thinking about solar heating for the tank for winter. I was thinking about making a copper pipe system with some kind of heat ex-changer but now I am thinking to simplify it to a poly pipe coil in a poly carbonate covered box of sorts... Just controlling it so water only pumps through there when its nice and sunny is the problem. I wonder if you get a solar switch that could control a relay for the pump. One which is sensitive enough to tell if it is sunny or not. And then of course there would maybe be a danger of overheating the water so I would need a thermostat of sorts in the tank. What I probably need is a fairly complex controller that can have like 4 inputs and 4 outputs and can do some data logging at the same time...

One of my bigger tilapia died! No obvious reason. I decided to do a complete sump clean out. Perhaps something toxic in there. Took out all the birdnetting and cut up black pipe. So now it is just a nice spotless sump again. Another source of potential toxins... My biofilter. So I drained it and took it off line. So now its just nice and simple ap again. The biofilter could possibly have been harbouring anaerobic stuff pushing up the nitrite. I have run out of test kit so it is hard to diagnose the problem. One thing I can test is pH and it is HIGH. In both systems as usual. I am thinking in the big system to convert one of the wicking beds which are being made into a additives tank, and try and add something acidic on a continual basis. But what? A tank of charcoal? Or hard wood? Or do you get some kind of solid acid releasing thing that could go in there?

I also lost 3 of the koi fingerlings. There is a string algae problem in the tank as there is no shade. Sorting that out. Could string algae kill small fish?

Also thinking if I remove the painfully slow growing heat loving tilapia and put the koi in the greenhouse system. Then that's less problems as I don't need to worry about heating the water, and the koi would probably be in their ideal range 15 to 25 degrees. Then take away the koi tank with its somewhat dodgy paint and use the blue barrel bio filter from the greenhouse as a charcoal filter before the wicking beds. This would create more space for more wicking beds and just be so much easier ito not having a source of solids before the wicking beds. Hmm. I like it! Could I put the koi fingerlings in with the Tilapia at this point? They may get eaten...

Make a floating cage for the koi in the Tilapia tank? To keep them separate until the koi are a bit bigger...

Ok! 2 hsm's today...

But I'll start with som$e good news. The controlled environment is paying off. It was hot today but the system temps seem to be around 30 degrees this evening with 31 water temps. So yay for that.

Now the hsm's. Firstly and the worse of the two. Arrived back here to find the greenhouse sump totally dry. At first I thought I had busted a hole in it in my cleaning efforts but then when I started filling it up I saw water gathering on the floor. Realized in my cleaning efforts I had knocked a GB drain pipe loose. Plants seem to have made ot through but fish not happy but none dead. Hope my bacteria is ok.

Second hsm. Not so bad... Koi tank nearly to the top of the slo T. Slo blocked up with dying string algae. When I rubbed it alkl lose it headed through and blocked the standpipe of the wicking bed which then got a good soaking. No damage done but it does point me in the direction of getting shot of the koi tank and dumping the koi in with the tilapia or perhaps a small half barrel tank for them for the moment.

pH!!! pH of all my water is now probably 10 in the systems! 8.5 on the well water and if its still the same which it will be - assume the rainwater is off the charts.

Should I be adding acid? Why is it so freaking high. Could it be the media stone? Could be the cement dams in the big systems but the greenhouse is all plastic and it is high there too. Strangely enough the plants are doing fine in the basil tommies and cellery departments. Other stuff like rocket and parsley not so good. Growth in the greenhouse is good although tommies seem to be taking a while to fill out and ripen. Sweet potato growing like mad.

Oh and still losing Tilapia for no obvious reason, could it be that they are suffering from ammonia poisoning due to high pH? but it does remind me I must re-salt as I have lost masses of water now.