Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

The stuff is fine - having gone through the grow-beds. Really an accumulation of very fine particles. Accordingly - would be very easy to pump out by just stiring it all up and pumping out all the water from the pump. This happens to me periodically when I add some water to the sump (ie all the shit gets stired up), but it gets pumped into the fish tank and then into the grow-beds again. Always ends up back int he sump though :-)

That is classically because you had a successful product - but didn't have management who realized that after 3 versions, it is time for a overhaul. These products in time because dinosaurs because you can only patch so much.

Anyway - this is definitely OT (off topic) and belongs to a life I walked away from. (not that they don't keep asking me to return which is gratifying to the ego but irritating none the less)

Know any php CRTD

yeah... sorry OT is like an addiction for me. I do try, but keep slipping. Sad you walked away from it, that has a negative sound to it. I do hope the change to owning your own business was a positive one.

You would be hard put to name a common language I don't know - but I wasn't really a webdeveloper (hard core developers don't think of web developers as real programmers )

Most of my work was in very large database (self healing, etc), mission critical systems - and Digital signal processing - with a view toward voice.

No - just didn't need the money anymore - and after a while, it got boring after awhile and I was more interesting in other things.

CRTD, the php question was a loaded one... I also know php, but don't let VB know, we'll be re-writing and modding this board 24/7 for 3 months I would imagine

Signals processing, is as you mention hard-core. I'm more into control and automation, degree in robotics and software eng. Yes I despise web too, but SOO many ppl are doing it now for everything, and it is getting pretty fancy now. I think it's a change we have no control over. we're all going to be web based before the next decade is out.

We do a lot with databases (not linked to web pages) too. I LOVE database design. These days not much programming is dependant on efficiencies, we have plenty of processor, plenty of disk space, ppl are lazy. Database allows me to exert my 'anality' and find quirky ways to make is faster and better.
Anyhow as you said, OT huh? and as I said, I'm addicted

I love your reason for going AP, spread the bug!
And yes I think no matter how much you try you will have different size fish in your tank. The greedy fat ones just get eaten first I believe, not having done that part yet myself. Unless you will be totally destocking the fish and restocking again a fingerling tank most likely will be desired.

Speaking of lazy programmers. I just installed sony vegas and it uses dot net because they were to lazy to write their own interfaces. It takes 30+ seconds just to start the screen and the managed memory management is dog slow. I miss the good old days when people tried to write the best code that could be written. When assembly and C programs would defy hardware limitations. But I digress..

You're a man after my own heart DanD.... to think my first systems management job hosted 40 concurrent users processing business accounts on a system with the then ginormous amount of 16Mb of memory.... you could actually run the entire accounting module off a floppy.

I still have a floppy os around here somewhere that boots in 10 seconds and browses the internet (pre flash). Then I look at vista and choke..

TreeDude, Flood and drain is better than continuous flow in that it keeps dead spots from developing in the growbeds. While my pump runs continuously, the beds flood and drain using autosiphons. And yes, you want a media with high surface area in the growbeds to provide places for the bacteria to live. Most of us use 10mm gravel.

All, As Rupe mentions, we often do quote the optimum numbers on fish:tank:bed ratios (1 kg:100 liters:200 liters or 1 lb:2 gal:4 gal), and it is probably easy for a newer member (or even overly-optimistic older members) to think they can push the boundaries and squeeze in that 7th kg per 100 liter. The optimum numbers are something that we think could be acheived by a very motivated and expert fishkeeper. For the record, I just did the math on my system. I estimate that I am at <2 kg/100 liters right now, although I have exceeded that a bit at times. My system is about 1:1.2, tank:beds. If I had more space for growbeds, I think I could get up to 3 kg/100 liters. (Although really, I always based things off the size of my growbeds, not the fish tank, since my growbeds are small.) The system is now a year old, and I am comfortable with the stocking level given the time I have available to spend on it.

Maybe all of us experienced folks should stop quoting optimum numbers, and should start quoting the realistic numbers of (3 kg:100 liters:200 liters) or (0.5 lb : 2 gal: 4 gal)? I'm just as guilty as the rest of us on this. It is very easy to think one can push the limits, and in truth, I hadn't realized my stocking level was as low as it was. I simply adjusted the fish load and feed level based on the water quality.

In gardening, often they use the term "optimal" to mean that if you want to do twice as much work, you can achieve the optimal level. Often it just makes more sense to plant another row of beans.

Just got back from the builder supply. A tank (used for holding liquid concentrate) 1,000 liter will cost 120 dollars. 250 liter barrels (bigger than 55 gallons) are 24 dollars each. A 115 volt pump will cost about 140 dollars (90 liters per minute flow).

So, with various tubes, etc, etc I should be around 500 dollars for materials. Of course, I might luck out and find some free stuff - but I don't expect to.

I noticed people are using pea gravel - I assume this is so that it is inert. Granite of course. I have never even seen pea gravel here, but we do have a river - I suspect I could go and get some. We have lots of black volcanic sand - but that probably isn't porus enough.

I am so old I can remember 16K systems! And, since I used to work in DSP (chip level) - a meg of memory was a lot. After a while, it wasn't memory that was the issue - but the speed of processing - to approxiamete real-time performance, you have to get it done fast - I am speaking of VoIP here for example.

But I digress... Oh, and I absolutely hate .NET Bloatware.

I use river gravel. Pretty much the same thing as pea gravel here. We all use what we can get our hands on easily and cheaply. Well, some of use use expanded clay. That's a bit more expensive, but washes quickly and is lightweight. Depends on the value set, that's all.

Since you have volcanic sand, do you have volcanic rock? DTHawk goes to the local volcanic fields and digs out pumice gravel to use in his growbeds. It's nice and porous and not too heavy. A little rough on the manicure, but hey. The high surface area gives his bacteria lots of room.