Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

When I read the link you posted on the fish identification if I remember correctly it said these are bottom feeders eating bacteria. How will you or the store you bought them from get them to become fish food eaters? I would imagine that would be a problem.

Hi Brian,

Here's what EOL says "Prefers sand or mud substrata where it sifts for aquatic insects, especially diptera and ephemeroptera and seeds". Of course, I'm not entirely sure if these are the same fish but I think they are close. The pellets I have float on the surface for a while and the fish are staying pretty low, at least when I'm around. However, if I pinch the soaked pellets between my fingers and some drifts down, the fish do go after it. Now will just have to see if/when I can get them to the surface to feed.

In 68-72 I was a Military dog handler in BienHoa AFB, VN and at the Military Working Dog center at Lackland AFB, San Antonio, TX.

There we received anywhere from 5-20 new dogs a week. Each morning they were fed a daily ration of 1.25 lbs of a Scientific dog food, from 7-8 AM. The new acquired dogs would turn their noses up at it, but in less than 3 days they would gobble it down.

Try it for a few days, they will change their habits and come to the surface to feed.

All right that's good then they do appear to be eating. Now I've started typing and can't recall if these are food fish and how big they'll get? I'll wait for this coffee to kick in a little. Thanks for sharing

Good news! As predicted from our Texan friend, a few of the fish came to the surface today to feed (albeit briefly!) for the first time.

Also, my sad tomatoes are coming back to life. Here's an update on a tomato and that cucumber:

Sadly, my plants are looking a little unhappy these days. Growth seems to have slowed/stopped and I'm wondering if it's because I have so few fish (now just 10 2-3 inch Mojarras and an 8 inch pleco) or because they aren't eating much. Here's that cucumber plant that has grown very little over the last 4 days - not what I'd expect. The cilantro looks pretty miserable too.

pH is still high (8 - 8.2) which can't be helping. Ammonia was about .25 today, Nitrites 0, Nitrates between 5 and 10.

I do have a line on some new sand so I'll report back when I get a hold of some to test. For now though, quite frustrating.

Whats the pH of your source water?

From the white look of your sand, says carbonates.

What is the test results from your water first entering the sand leaving the FT?

What is the test results from your water leaving the sand but before your FT?

Don't see how you have Ammonia, but no Nitrites, but you have Nitrates.

pH of source (rainwater) is about 6.2. When it comes out of the sand it's more like 8.2. So the tank was about that when I added the fish. So the whole system is around 8.2 now. A few days ago I changed about 55 of the 250 or so gallons in the tank with fresh rainwater but the pH barely moved. I'm convinced it's the sand as well and will just have to be patient until I can get setup with some better stuff.

Yeah, I wasn't sure about the lack of Nitrites as well but here are the pics... Maybe there is a touch of nitrites?

Just wanted to post an update since I haven't been very active lately. Basically, I've been waiting to get access to our new lot so I can re-build my system, this time with better sand! I finally found a place that apparently has ASTM-33 sand so I have my fingers crossed that it might work. I ended up losing all my 20 fish over a couple of months. I suspect it comes down to them being stressed with the high pH.

I plan to build two systems on the new lot. One will be a replacement for this iAVs trial - hopefully with the new sand. And the other will be a DWC system with a 55 blue barrel setup as a filter. Hope to get going in a month or so. Will update when I have some news.

Good luck with 2.0! Your foray (?) into iAVs was interesting to follow and I look forward to seeing much more. Are you still going to be in the Heredia area? What do you figure for elevation at the new place?

--
Sam

Great news. Glad to hear from you. Best luck on the new place.

Thanks guys,

Yes, we're still in Heredia - just a bit outside of San Raphael actually. The elevation there is about 1450 m if I remember correctly. I'm also eyeing an empty lot in Santo Domingo that might make a good alternative/expansion site if I can rent it for a reasonable rate. Just thinking (optimistically) ahead!

Anything new on your end Sam? I wanted to mention too that I found an amazing fabric store in San Jose (Lazaro http://www.grupolazaro.com/inicio/) that has every kind of fabric and material under the sun. They also have some liner material that seems very close to Dura Skrim type of stuff. They have it in white so I'm planning on trying it out as a liner for some DWC troughs. The supplier makes a food grade version but I haven't yet found out whether this is the same or whether they could order it.


Cheers,
Jeff

Here's an image of that material from Lazaro.

Aquaponics-wise, nope, nada, zilch...
A small office rebuild has turned into a full-scale house remodel and for weeks now I wake up with gritty concrete dust in my teeth. Finally we are through cutting openings in concrete walls so that dust is literally settling down. I've got to head to the US for a conference in a few months, so I hope to be back in top Aquaponics procurement mode before I go. I've got a fairly large aquarium almost set up for a ... (to paraphrase Colum) ... Tilapia Sex Dungeon. I'm gonna keep this in my new office so I can watch and study Tilapia while I muse lofty business dealings...


That's a great find! For years I drove right past that place on the way to appointments at Hospital Nacional de Niños and never knew what was inside. That's got to be so much better than the best I've found at EPA. So is that factura saying it is ¢3750 CRC/metro? Do you recall what width dimension(s) you can purchase?

It looks like that is listed on their website as "TELAS PARA EXTERIORES" so I expect it is sold for making awnings and that sort of thing. Good luck finding out more about the food grade.

Thanks for sharing!

--
Sam

Hey Sam,

Yeah, it looks like it's ¢3750/m (about $7/m for those unfamiliar with colones), and from the rolls I saw, I think you can order 100' or so per roll. The width looked about 6'. I'll let you know when I find out more about chances of getting food grade stuff.

What's the conference you are going to? I'm heading up to Berkeley in a couple of weeks for a Data Science (ed tech) conference. I'm trying to drum up support for creating curricula around aquaponics in schools. I think there's a great opportunity here.