Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

As I make coconut oil I tend to have a few husks lying around. I was thinking of trying them out as a gravel substitute figuring that if bacteria grow on plant roots they should grow on the husk fibers. If i pack in the density I should have more surface area than gravel. Any comments?

Matt
Coconut husks would probably need a good soak and rinse to remove some of the salt content. Cocopeat a product made from coconut fibres has the water retention of vermiculite and the air retention of perlite. You would need to sterilize the coconut fibres.
Has a pH of 5.7 to 6.5.

LB

Matt as LB said you can buy cocopeat as a medium for hydroponics so i'd say it would be worth a try, but as LB said, watch the PH.

LB why do you say it would need to be sterilized?

Steve
Was thinking that the cocunut husks might have some nasties within the fibres..
Reading that the cocopeat product is fully sterilized...have to confirm why..
LB

Matt, how do you make the coconut oil? Do you use a screw press or hydraulic expeller? What sort of scale?

I am interested because I spent years messing with cocnuts in the UK.

I LOVE this place, SOOOOOO much information

LB, might be a marketing thing, i know that hydroponics is usually REALLY big on sterility and stuff. Aquaponics however is the opposite.

Might also be for quarantine?

But let us all know if you find out

sorry johnnie, i'm in one of those moods LOL

LOL the cocnuts

ROLF
can always count on steve...

good topic matt trevatt,

ive been thinking about this myself reciently. as mentioned i think ph could be an issue. i would soak for a few days with water and flush thoroughly then add a good amount of lime and alow to sit for a while until ph stablises a bit. i also think the larger block like coconut husks could be a good option for some people.

what i find appealing about using coco as the medium is that it can be put straight into the worm farm and used as a bedding and feed source. the worms can then be fed to the fish and the waste be used to feed the plants.

Great topic Matt: We use alot of coconut oil at the ministry I run. It has wonderful healing properties. I am very interested in how you process it.

Healing properties!?? Do tell!

There are so many uses of coconut oil. Coconut oil is rich in vitamins and anti-oxidants. We have so intigrated our systems with unhealthy oils and fats. Coconut oil is a stable saturated fat that does not elevate cholesterol.
Here are some sites to read.
http://www.risingstarlc.com/coconut.pdf
http://win-edge.com/ExtraVirginCoconutOil.shtml
http://www.coconut-info.com/coconut_oil ... or_you.htm
http://www.virgincoconutoil.co.uk/

Wow didn't this thread get large over night.
Check out our website for more info. www.campbali.com
We dry and expeller press the meal to produce the oil. It's high quality cold pressed oil. The other method is to produce coconut milk and then let it ferment. We can do both methods but believe that the expeller pressed oils have a higher antioxident quality. We also produce Kukui oil (candlenut) which is a fantastic oil very high in omega 3 and 6 oils. Great for the skin for after sunburn care.
The by product is a meal high in protien but minus the oil. Vegetable oil evidently is not good for fish but I thought enough may have been extracted to use the meals in fish food. Or at least to feed a worm farm. The coconuts we use come from local farmers away from the coast so I am not sure if we need to leach out the salt from the fibre. We had looked into producing cocopeat but we werent producing our oil regualrly enough to look into using our by products. Hoping that will change soon.


We are a small operation located in rural Bali running as a business with Aid work focus.
20% of our profit goeas to Aid work primarily to an Childrens home we manage. www.salambali.com is the website for the home.

Matt, it looks like we have a lot in common. My husband and I run a home for women with or without children. We currently have 52 people of which 29 are children. I have started the aquaponics to help bring in fresh fish and vegetables. It may also be a way to help fund your home.

One method we tried to extract the oil was to make dessicated coconut by drying the finely divided coconut meat. We then used caulking guns to extract the oil.

On a larger scale we used hydraulic presses and a big Simon Rosedowns expeller. The residue can be mixed with other wastes to feed pigs and chickens.

WE ran a generator on a diesel - coconut oil blend (up to 90 % coconut oil!) Ran like a dream for over 1000 hours, when it was stripped for inspection and measurement. The wear was better than with pure diesel. Only thing we had to do was to be ultra careful regards filtering the cocnot oil and flush the fuel system with pure diesel at startup and shutdown.