Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Find someone who works with water bores / water wells

They'll know it as filter sand or gravel pack or something along those lines

It will be an inert sand, and available in various grades

Yeah, that does kind of suck. I got a nice ash dusting on my SUV the last time I went to the Central Valley. One of my brother-in-laws has a nice front-porch view of volcán Turrialba blowing ash, etc. with these mini-eruptions of late. However don't fear! I live between 2 of the 6 volcanos considered active in Costa Rica! We've got hot springs and fumaroles scattered around no more than 4 km from my place. ICE has geothermic wells all over the side of our volcano with steam driven turbines generating juice 24/7.

Yeah, we got her little heart repaired as best could be at HNN and now only go back for biannual checkups, but I've spent more time than anyone should living in that hospital's corridors and fighting with the security guards almost daily. I'm really an easy going guy, but I can play a mean berserker Viking type if need be. Thankfully my wife wouldn't let me take my machete into the hospital... Now that little one is almost 5 going on 15 and the docs didn't expect her to live through the 2nd open heart surgery she had in 10 hours when she was only 2 days old. Time flies...

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Sam

Thanks Sean, great idea. Will look into that as well.

Jeff

Hey Sam,

Thanks for that IBC link - great video and reading! Will keep my eyes out for such tanks around here. Maybe the beverage places, like you suggested, might have some.

Would definitely be up for a Cañas at some point and a cold beer or two sounds good as well! I'll let you know when I'm feeling a little more organized. I really need to find that old pickup too so I won't strand my wife back home when I go on these sorts of adventures.

Jeff

I'm so happy baby girl is doing better and your family put the kibosh on the machete idea. It's best for everyone, lol. So they are harnessing volcanoes for power? Sounds like they are literally working on the side of a monster. How many megawatts are they pulling from the dragons?

Thanks! Yes, gracias a Dios, her little ticker is running nicely! Interestingly, we rerouted her plumbing to change her main pump from a double-pump into a single pump. Her circulatory system is just a one loop system now. Instead of the normal, pump to lungs, pump to the body, pump to the lungs, pump to the body. Her's is now a simple pump to the body, detour through the lungs and return to the heart, repeat, sort of MacGyver. The plumbers seem to have gotten it right -- no leaks! And most importantly, we now have an 80-85% Oxygen Saturation level which is so much better than 65%.

The geothermal stuff is pretty neat! The technique used around me is drill a hole until a steam vent is pierced, then cap it and run a pipeline to a central turbine station and spin a big wheel to make electricity. Turns out that just about all the groundwater that gets near molten lava wants to escape with force! We are just helping it do so and along the way we ask just that one little favor -- push the turbine a bit, please...

These are the geothermal wells on my volcano (the PGM's are Pozos Geotérmico / Geothermic Wells):



And here's how it works (steam pipeline coming in on the left, injector wells (hot and cold) on the right):


I think Costa Rica is right now breaking our old record set last year of 75 consecutive days of generating all of our electricity with renewables. June 16th this year was the last day we used fossil fuels for the national grid. In 2015 we managed 299 days without burning oil, coal, or natural gas to generate electricity AND this month we are about to bring online a major hydroelectric plant (305 MW capacity) -- the largest public infrastructure project in Central America after the Panama Canal. I believe the 2015 numbers showed that we generated more than 10,700 gigawatt-hours of electricity and 94% of our electricity needs were met using renewables. Stats from last month show 80.27% from hydro power, 12.62% from geothermal, 7.10% from wind turbines and 0.01% from solar (we have LOTS of clouds above the rainforest!)

That hydroelectric project is supposed to generate enough electricity to power over 1/2 million homes. We might bridge that last 6% next year and get to 100%, all year long, having the national electric grid powered solely using renewables... I only pay about $70 USD / month for electricity, but I'd still like to pay less...

In answer to your question, I think we generated about 1300 gigawatt-hours of electricity from my volcano (and the next one over) last year. The volcano in my front yard has 163.5 MW of installed geothermal and the one in my back yard has 42.5 MW installed.

I know New Mexico has at least 25-30 volcano fields. I always enjoyed the Capulin when driving from Texas to Colorado. I believe you live on the edge of the Ocate Volcanic Field and to the west of you, at Valles Caldera (Valleys of Cauldrons), in the Jemez Mountains, is one of the largest young calderas on Earth. It's a better example of a supervolcano than Yellowstone and is considered active.

Go tap that sucker!

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Sam

Hi Sam,

So I finally found some sand from Holcim (Santa Ana quarry) that I'm hoping might do for the rather specific requirements of an iAVs system. It's a 3mm sand technically, but seems to have enough smaller stuff in it to be a good filter. Still need to check affects on water pH but that will have to wait until I make my October trip to CA so I can pick up a new pH meter. Or maybe I'll just cheap out and go with some pH strips from an aquarium store for now.

I was wondering what you know about importing seeds from the US or elsewhere or if you've found a good place for seeds here. I'm also interested in microgreens but that takes a bunch of seed - haven't seen anything here yet that might supply seed by the kilo. Also it would be great to have some other types of seeds like baby spinach from the US. Anyway, any seed thoughts would be great!

Cheers,
Jeff

Jeff,


Wow! Quite the resourceful one, you are... I was pretty skeptical about you being able to find suitable sand.

Before I gave up hope of finding the API Freshwater Master Test Kit in Costa Rica, or even one of the similar from other manufacturers (like Nutrafin Master Test Kit) I hit about every decent acuario I could find. One of the best was the Acuario Flor y Fauna Tropical in Guadalupe:

Acuario Flor y Fauna Tropical

Guadalupe
Tel: (506) 2253 - 1689
(506) 2234 - 6066
Fax: (506) 2524 - 0603

Dirección: 325 metros sur de la entrada principal de la Iglesia Católica, sobre calle principal.

The old owner guy told me he'd order the Nutrafin Test Kit and let me know when it arrived, jotted down my name and number in his little book and everything, but I have yet to hear back from him about that. However, they did have a good number of water testing supplies -- much better than others that I had seen.


I'll check with one of my cuñados, who is a really good farmer around here, where he buys bulk seed. However I'm pretty sure I've seen some of the common crop seeds (culantro, tomato, corn, beans, green peppers, etc.) by kilo in the Agro-branches of El Colono: Colono Agropecuario. That being said, on a smaller scale, I know plenty who smuggle in hard-to-find seeds whenever they travel and others that have had good luck buying seeds online (in smaller quantities, like 10-12 seed packages at a time) from both Trade Winds Fruit and Whatcom Seed Company. They usually pay about $6 USD for shipping direct to their Costa Rica apdo. (PO Box.)

As far as official import goes... It can be a super pain. A few years ago I helped a group of gardeners in Costa Rica try a group buy of apple tree rootstock with grafted scion from a nursery in the US. It took us about 4 or 5 trips and 3+ months to get our import paperwork for MAG (Ministerio de Agricultura y Ganadería) in order, and by that time we missed the shipping season (Feb - Apr). Then as we prepared for doing the group buy/import the following year, we learned about the special phytosanitary certification we needed to be able to bring our shipment in... and that the nursery needed to know about that requirement way ahead of time (like before the season) to properly provide the paper trail or something or other... Bottom line was that in 2 years of trying we managed to import a grand total of ZERO apple tree rootstock. I'm sure It's much easier to buy a kilo of marijuana than it would be to import a kilo of broccoli seed.

I never have ordered from Trade Winds Fruit before, but their Bhut Jolokia Pepper seed (15 for $3.00 USD) just caught my eye. I think I'm gonna try to order something from them and take a chance on making it through customs.

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Sam

Re: Height differences between Fish Tank, RFF, DWC/Growbeds, and Sump Tank...

I've been trying to find some general rule of thumb for height differences between water level in Fish Tank, Filter(s), Growbeds, and Sump Tank for gravity feed from Fish Tank, through system back to Sump Tank. But besides a lot of folks just choosing 12"/30cm as a nice difference for a gravity drop, I haven't found any real numbers explaining why 30 cm is so often used. Would 40 cm be better? Or worse? I'm planning to put a pump in Sump Tank, which pumps to Fish Tank, which SLO overflows into an RFF which drains to DWC/Growbeds, which drain to Sump Tank, repeat.
I got rid of the chickens and so reclaimed my Aquaponics Zone in the back corner...


Planned waterflow is something like this:


So that is a 2500 L Fish Tank SLO overflowing into a filter (RFF) and maybe a fines filter after that (MBBF), which drains into a gravel Growbed (500 L wet media) and a DWC (1340 L). Everything is relatively close to each other so there are no long pipe runs. I'm planning 50 mm SLO pipe and haven't thought to much about other pipe sizes. From bottom of Sump Tank to middle of SLO output is 1.4 m with the Fish Tank up on 20 cm blocks as I've currently got it drawn. I've got 75 cm legs sketched on the DWC and Growbed so I can easily shorten those to provide a bigger height difference or of course I could raise Fish Tank and/or Filters.

I think my pump, a Rio 20HF, can do about 3500-3600 LPH with a 1.4 m head.



I've got some big dogs (Cane Corso -- that's not mine above, just a good pic of relative size) and I originally planned 75 cm stands to discourage the curious beasts from messing with my growbeds, but I'm leaning to lowering those beds a bit to encourage better gravity flow. Of course 75 cm legs + 30 cm depth is not high enough to really prevent a big dog from jumping on top the DWC, and most of our dogs are well behaved so 50 cm versus 75 cm in the real world won't make much of a difference. My wife is short, so that's another reason for lower growbeds.

Any thoughts on pros or cons of little height difference versus bigger height difference when gravity draining from Fish Tank to Filter to Growbeds?

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Sam

Hi Sam,

I stopped by Flora y Fauna today and to get some expensive (!) pH strips. Saw they had some test kits in as well so I took a couple of pics in case you are interested:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/72508087@ ... 4386452096

At $80, they are pretty expensive - even for CR! Amazon has the marine and fresh water kits for around $22-25. Seems like it would be better to get them sent from the US. Also, if you would like, I could bring one back from California when I go to the workshop (end of Oct). Let me know!

Thanks for the seed supply info. I'll check out Colono Agropecuario, maybe in Cartago. Will be interested to hear if you can get seeds in by mail too. We haven't got a PO box yet but intend to get one. We've been using Jetbox which is okay for packages but not very useful for regular mail. Seems like the official postal service is getting or trying to get more reliable too.

Cheers,
Jeff

Oh, just noticed that the test kit they have is the Reef (marine) version... perhaps you already saw that. The woman did say something about another type but I didn't catch if they had it in stock.

Hi Jeff,

Glad you found Flor y Fauna! However, I didn't have any luck seeing those Flicker fotos with that URL:

404 No se encontró la página

I had to go up to Dallas and Las Vegas in los EE.UU in July so I ordered the API Freshwater Test Kit from Amazon and nobody hassled me bringing it back in my suitcase. So at least I'm covered on basic (Ammonia, Nitrites, Nitrats & pH) for 800 times or so. I am curious about the test kit Flor y Fauna has now, though. I think with the API Saltwater Test Kit you can use it to test Freshwater as well, but the color charts are different.

Thanks for the kind offer to mule in supplies! I used to regularly fly back to my office in Texas (sometimes 12-15 times a year) and I've carted in enough stuff in my suitcases to build a small house! I've never tried Jetbox -- are you pretty happy with them? I don't have any trips planned for the rest of the year, so I just opened an account with Box Correos and have my 1st test shipment working its way through aduanas as I type this. A slightly more than 3 kilo package cost $21 USD to ship from Miami to the nearest post office to me, and on a $300 USD automobile diag code reader (categorized as "AUTOMOTOR / HERRAMIENTAS Y EQUIPOS") I am expecting about ¢6 mil for handling it through customs and another ¢24-25 mil for import tax -- all told, from where I told Amazon to ship it to the freight forwarder in Miami, to about 25 km from my place I'm expect to spend about $80 USD -- and that is without me having to spend a day driving down to a Customs Office to pick up my package. If that is how it works out, I'll be happy enough with the transaction. I've got devilish plans to use K1 filter media like packing peanuts for my next shipment...

I did check with a sobrino wannabe (sobrina's boyfriend) who works at El Colono regarding the bulk seeds and he said they now only sell in packets. However, many pet store / vet supply / feed store type places do carry bulk seed. So you'll probably be able to find ones near you by just asking around.

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Sam

Hmmm, maybe this link?
https://www.flickr.com/gp/72508087@N00/Zg4T56

Great to hear that you got the test kit down here. I think I'll bring one down myself in Oct.

JetBox has been okay for packages although I do want to try shipping something more direct as a comparison. For some reason though Jetbox handles regular first class mail (letters) differently and they seem to go astray pretty easily - or at least take a really long time to get here. One letter took about a month but they didn't seem to know why.

Those auto code devices are very handy - I'm envious!

I also saw your post about height differences between system components but didn't have anything clever to add. Perhaps 30 cm is sort of a good minimum for a decent flow. I can see wanting a bigger drop if you were trying to aerate the water.

That worked fine for me! Thanks! Oh wow, I didn't realize you were talking about the API Reef Master Test Kit. So there is hope then. If they can get that API test kit, they should be able to get the Freshwater Master Test Kit. Yeah, ¢40 mil is a lot for that kit, but I spent ¢40 mil in diesel driving around just trying to find ANY test supplies better than litmus paper.


I've had really good luck using the official post office. The postman from a town at the bottom of our volcano comes up our way once or twice a week on a motorcycle to deliver mail. I once even got a Christmas card that was mailed 2 days before Christmas in 4 days.


I'm about to just try going slightly better than the regular building code sewer drain slope minimums of 1/4 in/ft for 2.5 in or smaller pipe and 1/8 in/ft for 3-6 in pipe, and 1/16 in/ft for 8 in pipe or larger. Those minimums supposedly will keep waste debris moving along with the water. Do less than that and get build up and do more than 3 in/ft and get build up from the water running away and leaving the waste debris behind.

Thanks for the good news about the API test kit. I thought the old man was just leading me on when he told me he usually has one but they had sold it before I got there...

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Sam

Esteemed Plumbers!

I've found some cattle water troughs that I think I can use to get a working system going much sooner than waiting for my ferrocement skills to improve enough to build growbeds -- plus there will be no issue about high pH ingredients of cement to deal with. So I've reworked my plans for our aquaponics zone so that I can start out with 1 or 2 of these stock tanks for growbeds with room to add 2 more. I would start with the 2 growbeds on the lower-left and add the other 2 later. This would be 2500 L Fish Tank, 1000 L IBC Sump Tank, each 1.8m x 1.0m Growbed holds 525 L. So I want to put Pump to Fish Tank in Sump, SLO from Fish Tank to Growbeds which drain back to Sump.


Where the 2 growbeds on the lower-left would go is the best sun spot in the area, so I'd like to keep them there rather than have those beds right up against the Fish Tank. I've got small kids that would love to hang on pipes if given the chance, so I'd like to avoid having pipes cross that open area in front of the Fish Tank in mid-air.

It would appear that my two options would be to run the outflow from the SLO around the long way hugging the wall to get to the growbed in the upper right and then run along the growbeds to get to the farthest in the lower left (about 6 meters) or I could build a little boardwalk and run the SLO outflow under the boardwalk and then back up about 1 meter to the growbeds.


Should I be very concerned about accumulations in the pipes under the boardwalk that would settle rather than make it back up into the growbeds? There would be about 1/2 meter drop from SLO outflow to top of growbeds, so the "U" would be about 1.5 meter down from SLO, 1 meter across to growbeds, and then 1 meter rise back to top of growbeds. With 2.3 meters from bottom of Sump to top of Fish Tank, my pump should push about 3000 L/hr. Is that doable without too many headaches? Or should I forget about this growbed layout and simplify?

Thanks in advance for any insight provided.

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Sam