Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Paul- Tsjakka....does it translate to "good luck", "knock on wood", or something else? How did a dutch boy end up in Thailand?

Tsjakka is an expression launched by a guy named Emile Ratelband, a kind of NLP guru in the Netherlands. It became popular in our language for a while and can be translated as "Go, get them!" or "Go for it!" or "Attack! (a problem)". It's a crazy ADHD guy, funny in a way but certainly there is enough truth to be found in his hyper active seminars. He's also a kind of coach one can hire if one gets stuck in one's career.

Never been to one of his seminars though, too much money for knowledge I already had and have. He's getting old now.

If my memory is correct it was with Thai Airways business class some time ago.

I think I should hurry up now with my AP system….

http://rt.com/news/202311-nasa-drought- ... oundwater/

I once shifted 10,000 kg (I think it looks better like that) of clay (dry crumbly and easy to shovel) from a footpath into a shed, and it took me all day. I was vomiting for the last hour or so. I drank 8 litres of water (didn't pee until just before midnight after another two litres of water), and lost 2kg during that day.

Any one who can DIG 16 ton of dirt will get a large beer if I ever met them. That's insane.

Is there a time limit on this digging?

Yep, it expired a couple of months ago with the vanishing of Chris.

Got any new pics of your system Domani?
How did the wood replacement go...

Well, the dodgy plywood we got our money back including 3 different stupid "justification" stories, one more dumb then the other.

In the matter of the workshop roof, we had to arrange a mediation session in the local court. With the court involved the little people couldn't keep it from their bosses any longer and so we had a 10 minute mediation session, with the GM of the company already taking responsibility within the 1st minute! They agreed to pay all damages and pay fro replacement of the roof.

But then we ran into the problem of finding a proper contractor to do the work. We got offers from 1 day work for 20,000 Baht up to 20 days work for 150,000 Baht (while my wife and me did the work in less than a week!). None of the offers were realistic, and the ones that were acceptable wanted to have payment upfront! Well, than you know how it is going to be. Once the pre payments are received you won't see them back again.

We're now at the point that with the help of the counter party there might be a contractor willing and able to do the job starting beginning of January 2015. Let's see how that works out.

Except for building a CNC router and do some work on the interior of the workshop (on the good side of it, that is) we were pretty busy with wrapping up some business matters and had not a lot of time left to continue with the AP system. The AP system is anyway only a part of the whole project and our priorities are at the moment focussed elsewhere.

The solar system is working excellent however and in the planning is an extension of the storage capacity so we can use more energy overnight. I'm thinking about adding a capacitor bank to increase the storage capacity. Anyone who has constructive thoughts about that?

In the last weeks temperatures dropped considerably here and we ran into icy shower waters after days of hard work. So, we had to find a solution to heat the water for the shower.

Since some times I'm looking at the interesting concept of rocket heaters and thought; "What the heck, let's give it a try and see what we get."

This is the result.

The first picture shows our 'temporary field shower'


This one is of the heating coil on the outside wall


Here I'm finishing of the rocket heater that surrounds the heating coil


The rocket heater is build of light weight blocks that happen to have an excellent insolation characteristic. Keeps it cool on the outside, while the heat goes up like crazy inside the heater.

The whole thing costed us less than US$ 40 and a couple of hours of work. It works great as it is, but I already found some improvements that could be made to make it work more efficient. This same heater can also be used to make a hot tub setup, which we'll do somewhere in the next weeks.

Can this be used to heat the water of an AP system? Yes. Let the water run along the coil ends (not thru it!) and it will heat up the water slowly. It's very fuel efficient (wood and burns a long time, very hot, no smoke!) and can be run of pieces of scrap wood and offcuts out of the garden.

I wouldn't use it for an AP system in colder climates, but for here in the tropics it can help to get thru the cold periods (which can be devastating for tilapia).

JACK FRUIT!!!

Can you grom that in your AP?

grow^

What's the sauce with it? I've always had it on its own as a fruit, and for those that don't know, it's a bit like perfect custard!

Coconut milk with sugar (coconut milk syrup).

No, it grows right next to the shit tank. Seems to work excellent, and tastes great!