Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Yeah but do four of them get together and cooperatively poo?

Or does the caterpillar have four anuses (ani?)

yep thats right... thats the poop umm Swed my entire system volume is 1500 L.. 750L is FT and 750L are GB. GB is about 6 (m2) in total. hope this info helps you out

lol Stuarts that one caterpillar that did that... put a whole new meaning to shytin bricks..

Thanks cookie I was just trying to figure out your feed to grow bed ratio to fish weight

so ok Updates time... well I harvested one of my tomato beds got about 40 pounds of fruits in total.. I also did some conversion to my filters.. converted 2 of my mineralization tanks to RFF. the outlet of one of them flows into a mineralization tank and the other flows into a GB. I didn't believe how effective this series of filters removes solids.. the water leaving is so clear I can see the difference between bottled water and the water leveling the filters... one big difference is that a made a lil chimney on the pipeline entering the MT and introduced a lil air stone to aerate the water before it enters the tank... thats did wonders.. see pics

o well..
amm 0ppm
nitrite 0ppm
nitrates 20ppm
ph 6.6
EC 620 micro siemens

ok pics of my filters..



aeration before MT.



RFF



MT



water exiting MT

ok pics of harvest and replanted















stay tuned for more... HAPPY GROWING!!

Filter system looks to be working a treat Cookie.
I'm confused with your harvest, why so many green toms and why pull the plants?

Cookie, When you said you added an air-stone to the inlet of your mineralization tank. What made that setup better? So you have abandoned the idea of using mineralization tank as a denitrifying tank?! I am getting confused. Any explanation would be greatly appreciated.

skeggley well with the heavy rainfall did a number on the plants and diseases were stepping in so I taught it was best to remove and restart..

Swed to your question no I didn't abandon denitrification. I decided to separate from each other... the water enter the RFF where the solids can be left to settle and decompose or can be removed to be digested offsites... the the mineralization tank after the RFF is aerated to encourage aerobic digestion of the solids that may slip through the RFF.. I can still control denitrification if and when I need but without the expense of my water quality... I got two book I found online about waste water treatment plants.. when I refind the link I'll post them up. sry for later reply for some reason I unsubscribed my own thread...LOL

So let me make sure I got this..

1. You actually now remove some solids from your system through the RFF and let the finer solids enter the mineralization tank?

2. The Mineralization tank that you have is never emptied, but with this last update you aerate the tank to provide aerobic mineralization of the effluent?

3. Degassing is happening just the same as before. (I assume you are still going to have pockets of anaerobic zones in that mineralization tank as long as you don't clean it out)

4. You actually don't use a raft bed but a bed with gravel is that correct?

So just one more questions Have you actually measured the DO in the water leaving the mineralization tank before and after you added aeration to it?

The water leaving my mineralization tank has a DO of 4.7-5.0 mg/L my FT generally has about a 7.1-6.5 mg/L DO.

Thanks for taking the time out to answer

nope don't have any means of DO measurments... for your previous questions you are correct. I do leave the finer solids to go to the mineralization tank but the MT isnt for denitrification anymore.. I leave the denitrification for the RFF reason being that I read that anaerobic bacteria can even overpopulate your aerobic bacteria.. but more so is that my pH never seems to drop.. for some cases this iz a positive but eventually you would be able to add caustic materials like Calcium into your system and eventually lead to deficiencies signs.. I always read that aerobic digestion releases Ca. Mg. PO4. NO3 where as anaerobic digestion release NH3. K. and Fe. in large amounts. so from these information I can control the amounts of which one I need the most... but for the aerated MT is really for pH reduction and nitrates atm because my nitrates are extremely low which is much of a prob.. but I really at this time I need that pH drop for calcium additions especially with the amt of tomato trees I got.. they suck up nutrients quickly and show deficiencies even faster as well.. if I left out anything let me kno... any more questions well be welcome as well. [SMILING FACE WITH SMILING EYES]

How do you achieve denitrification in rff? Also where can I find the info on nutrients released during mineralization when aerobic vs anaerobic?

You may have already read this article, it's a good one with some good info
https://srac.tamu.edu/index.cfm/getFact ... sheet/259/

Don't get me rong Swed.. I really just experimenting on different environment to see which release the most nutrients... to this date I saw.. when I increased my nitrates levels within my system I began to see lots of calcium deficiencies in most of my plants even though my pH was dropping and I was suplementing Calcium it was still getting deficient... from what I noticed with my offline digestion of solids.. I saw that the conductivity of the water in the anaerobic digestion increase from 400 micro siemens to 790 micro siemens particularly over the night.. the conductivity of the aerobic digester actually decrease but the nitrates levels was elevated. I came to de conclusion that within the aquaponics system that filters that accumulate solids to mineralize should be left to become anaerobic because it's only anaerobic area that literally reduces the mass of the solid waste. but with saying that immediately after those mineralization tanks should have a bio filter to convert the excess ammonia release by the digestion into nitrates quickly before entering the Grow Beds. the excess nitrates leaving the GB will eventually re-enter the MT where the nitrates is used by the anaerobic bacteria to further reduce solids mass and again reintroduced nutrients and ammonia back into the water. and Hence reducing overall nitrates levels and increasing over minerals levels.. I also hypothesize that the only reason Ca and Mg is released into the water in higher amounts in aerobic digestion compared to anaerobic digestion is simply to do with pH environment. aerobic due to acidification from nitrification will quickly dissolved any caustic materials compared to the high pH due to ammonification in anaerobic digestion... o well I'll continue researching and will update you. but what I will before I leave is that I removed all aeration from the pipe entering the MT. you will understand y I did this.. see ya.

im still on work so I didn't get time to find the book links.. tomorrow I'll upload the links for you to read.. mind u its 300+ pages in total combine