Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi Ems,
Babies will stick very close to Momma, and return to her mouth when frightened. Even after they are free swimming, she will keep them herded into a corner. As they get bigger, they start ranging further afield.

Fry will pick algae off the walls, and will take egg yolk with yeast just fine. Hard boil an egg, and blend the yolk, a teaspoon of brewer's yeast, and water until smooth. I use mine as a light paste. Take the smallest pinch and rub it between your fingers in the tank water to disperse it over the herd of babies. Be very careful not to use too much as you can pollute the water. I didn't even use up a 1-egg batch before I switched to powdered flake.

Janet,
I understand the adversion to using manure in your tanks inside your sunroom! I did see where one commercial grower had been using piggie pooh to supplement the feed for his Tilapia. Apparently the little devils are also filter feeders, getting some of thier nutrients through thier gills. He recommended removing the fish from the brackish/high nutrient water about one week before harvest and keep them in a clear water tank with minimumal or no feeding to remove any excess fat from thier systems. (I guess it would also remove any distasteful taste from the fish as well.) I believe, from his information, he was using the fish scraps from processing the fish to also make feed for the fish and to supplement the pigs. (He didn't go into whether or not he was just grinding it up to make a paste, or if he was actually going through a cooking or drying stage at sometime in the process.)

The flourescent lights are much more energy conserving than the incandescents or halides that many people use. They don't regularly put out the same wave lengths of light as the sun or the incandescents, but you can buy and use ones formulated to do that. (Personally, I seem to be affected by them for general lighting. I end up with eye strain and headaches whenever I have to work for long periods under them. So I still use incandescents, but will probably switch to LED's when the price comes down on them. Right now the LED's are going in the single to multiple dollar price, per bulb!)
Kevin

Kev,

from wiki.................

About 24% of the energy used by metal halide lamps produces light (65-115 lm/W), making them generally more efficient than fluorescent lamps, and substantially more efficient than incandescent bulbs.

The efficiency of fluorescent tubes ranges from about 16 lumens/watt for a 4 watt tube with an ordinary ballast to as high as about 95 lumens/watt for a 32 watt tube with modern electronic ballast, commonly averaging 50 to 67 lm/W overall. Most compact fluorescents 13 watts or more with integral electronic ballasts achieve about 60 lumens/watt. Due to phosphor degradation as they age, the average brightness over the entire service life is actually about 10% less.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorescent_lamp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_halide

Hey, just as a side note look at this! i didn't even know about it!

On February 20, 2007, the Federal Government announced that by 2010, incandescent light bulbs would be banned in Australia. It is estimated greenhouse gas emissions will be cut by 800,000 tonnes

Sorry for the hi-jack JP

Janet, for a while i've been struggling with how you can have so much crushed coral in your tank and yet need to add carbonate....................

The text below is from of of don the feeders links, thought you might be interested.................................................

"Where do Carbonates come from? "
Well, Baking Soda is nothing but Sodium Bicarbonate. When Baking Soda hits the water, it splits off the Sodium, and the carbonate is left. Addition of Baking Soda (Sodium Bicarbonate) results in a higher Carbonate Alkalinity but does nothing to Hardness. Baking Soda is rapidly exhausted but works pretty well.

Oyster Shell is nothing but Calcium Carbonate and Magnesium Carbonate. When the Oyster shell dissolves due to the presence of acid water, it liberates Calcium, Magnesium, and Carbonates. These mineral liberations increase the hardness of the water (contributing nothing to Buffering capacity) and the Carbonates increase the Alkalinity. Thus, the pH is stabilized.

Crushed Coral is Calcium Carbonate and Magnesium Carbonate but also contains a central structural molecule of Calcium Hydroxy-appetite. (I didn't name the stuff.) The significance of this is that when the crushed coral dissolves, it leaves behind the insoluble Calcium Hydroxy-appetite which is not a contributor to pH stability.

While crushed oyster shell dissolves and vanishes, letting you know when to add more, the crushed coral remains, looking good but doing nothing.

"How do you use crushed oyster shell?"
Well, first, you have to realize it's not how much you use, but how you use it. If you put 300 pounds in a thousand-gallon pool, and run the water AROUND it, there will be no effect. I was reminded by Betty Roemer, that if you bag it and leave it on the bottom, there will form a slime layer on it which will also impede the dissolution of the particles. However, even five pounds of crushed oyster shell in a thousand-gallon pool will work wonders if ALL the water is forced through the bag in the filter. I had one customer fill a five-gallon bucket with oyster shell and supply it's own pump to it. Raised the water to 120ppm total Alkalinity almost overnight.
Powdered oyster shell is easier to use, although it clouds the water to a milky color initially during it's application. I use one cup per thousand gallons as a touch up to total alkalinity.

in comparison to you i have only a small amount of sea shells but they are distributed through out my gravel growbed

Yeah Steve, I don't get it either. The crushed coral is mixed into the bottom of my growbeds. So either it has a slime coat, or only the calcium hydroxy-appetite is left. (Very interesting that it can remain, yet be doing nothing.) You'd think 28 pounds in 150 gallons would buffer things for life, and it did well for a number of months, but now I still have to put the 2 teaspoons of potassium bicarb in every day. If I miss a day or two, the pH starts to slowly drop again. I found more test strips, and did a quick check:

Total Hardness is 250 - 425 ppm (very hard)
Total Alkalinity/Buffering is 80 ppm (rather low)
pH 7

That's pretty much as it has always been, and as the tap water is.

Maybe I should hunt down some crushed oyster shell. Actually, that's not a half bad idea....hmmmm.

Janet, here's a better idea. Find some oysters in the shell, eat the oysters THEN crush the shells

Thanks for that Steve, I have had absolutely no luck with the oyster shells and my pH. It has been 6.4 forever. (Was actually thinking this morning about making a grow bed out of shells instead of gravel to see if that would improve things). I already have a solids filter on the drain filled with gravel - I will change that over to shells and see what happens. All the water flows through it. Haven't yet gotten some potassium bicarb like JP is using.

Janet, i think the look nice and do nothing bit might fit your problem.........

dave, thank don the feeder for his links, thats where i trolled for it

just another thought janet.

You've prolly had your coral in your tank for ages, try turning it over so that the stuff at the bottom now sits on the top

Thank you Don

Janet,

If you are wanting to get oyster shell, and can not get it from a seafood house or processor in your area just go down to the feedstore. Oyster shell is sold to poultry producers to aid in the chickens digestive systems and to help add hardness to the egg shells.

Sorry to go off topic, but Steve, if you re look at that figure; "24% of the energy used by a metal halide bulb produces light", then that will mean that 76% is wasted. Normally that means heat! If heat is not a desired by product, then it is wasted energy and decreased effeciency. (I've also seen the same stuff about the incandescents being removed from the market by 2010, that is why I am thinking of going to LED's. They are much more energy efficient, and last a lot longer than either flourescents or incandescents. The only down side to them at this time is the cost of replacing all of your current incandescent bulbs with them, they do not operate well in cold conditions, and they do not produce sufficient heat to melt ice or snow in outdoor applications. As far as flourescents go, my biggest problem with them is the post consumer recycling that is necessary. Each flourescent tube contains mercury and so requires special handling to prevent the mercury from getting into the environment. Most landfills will not accept them as household waste, and many refuse disposal companies refuse to pick them up. At the present time very few places even take care of them at recycling/hazmat centers.)

By the way, AP, Reuters and most other news services no longer rely upon Wikipedia for a reference source. They found too many errors in the data found on Wiki! Plus it is set up to allow overwriting of relevent and valid information (remember what happened to Dave Donley and the Aquaponics definition/description.)

Kevin

oh oh.. if you eat oysters... remember they can have serious... side effects

Hey Kevin:
I get my oyster shells in a bag at AgWay.
Michael Ferrini had the trouble with the wikipedia editing episode.

Hi Kevin,
I have a friend who keeps chickens, and have sent her a quick email to see if she has a small sack of crushed oyster shell to spare.

Hi McPhro,
I'm aware of the......er.......side effects of eating oysters. Side effects aside, I don't really care for the taste of oysters, although I love any other shell fish that I've had.

Will clam shells do as well as oyster shells? Or is it something special about the oyster shells? I have a half bucket of clam shells from the beach.