aquaponics - for the fish folk

[MrFista]

Chinese and incans have the origins to my knowledge. No worries I just don't like thieves trying to cash in on a technology to benefit all.

I have a zero waste aquaponic design here starts with raw agricultural effluent. That baby's gonna do us all a favour eventually.

Experiment away, the more the merrier. Scuse me sounding a bit bitter, I am a little bit but it aint my driving force.

That being said - hats off to the eco-city boys for having a good go at this.

And negative rep x 1000 for trying to steal from mankind.

Have you looked at sea solids for aquaponics. I'm testing some in a system now and oh boy oh boy... they seem to even up the nutrient profile considerably many deficiencies just vanish. I am using very small amounts. so far theres about 50 ppm in the system.

The solids, I assume, also caused onset of 'horn setting' on a ten year old male shortfin eel. The bone nubs on it's head are starting to grow. It'll look like a horned demon soon, which is how they became known as river demons here.

One of my favourite 'aquaponic' systems I'm running now is extremely simplistic and not real aquaponics but I'll share with you it might give ideas for others veggie gardens/landscaping.

A pond with small pump for turning over water and providing airation in the pond. A top up tank of water fills the pond automatically when the level drops. once a day a timer sets off another pump that pumps approx 5% of pond water from the pond onto raised garden beds - same time the pond is automatically topped. - DONE!

I use one ebb and flow bed for the biological filter but the majority of 'cleaning' is done merely by using the water for crops and replacing it with clean water. If you added a fish feeder, and a float switch to a tap for the top up tank, it would be (relatively) maintenance free.

This set up can cope with very high stocking rates.

 

[Hephaestus]

I'll have to look at some of the nutes etc - if I can't keep it in balance using the typical fish stuff

4 Plants are about to move; into another system... Saw some roots breaking the surface today; looks like it's time to repot - so threw together a better system... It's a good thing I've got lots of fish stuff (and other junk) kicking around.

 

[Hephaestus]

And here is the new system

Nothing too fancy; Sump down below has 5-6 ameca splendens (had em kicking around) Small little batwing filter inside - but O2 issues in the night (lost 4-5 fish in the first couple days) resulted in needing to add that little HOB on in addition.

Aqualifter pump feeds the manifold, drips onto each pot; pots drip through into the bucket, using a standard 1" aquarium bulkhead with a 4" standpipe on the return... Aqualifter is on a 20on/20off schedule. Yes just plain plastic pots filled with peat - however what you don't see is someone went ginsu with a drill before filling them I wasn't paying 5$ for a netpot - when i've got powertools at home

Little airpump drives a bubble wall inside the bucket.

Plants didn't take too kindly to the transplant at first - but are bouncing back quickly now...

It's taking about 1/2ml / day of vinegar to keep the pH in the 6.6 range; keeping NO3 up in the 120ppm range (more seems to burn the plants). Thinking we'll be flipping over to 12/12 soon

 

[Mr. Greengenes]

Hephaestus, I've grown a 5g DWC plant all the way to harvest using only fish water. I have a tank of bigazz fancy goldfish that need some water change often, so I'm sure the nutrient levels were pretty high. I never measured PPM or anything, just watched for deficiencies of which there were absolutely none. Harvest weight was about equal to my containers, which is to say much more than most hydro or DWC setups. I guess I should add that we have 'hard' water here, high in both carbonate and salt. Sorry no pics, that was a few years before I owned a digi.

On an interesting side note, I recently talked a local friend who uses NFT systems to put a (fishtank airstone/foam sock type) biological filter into his res, and he reported a rapid increase in growth a few days later.

 

[Hephaestus]

Lots of little bits and pieces saying it works, and it works well... Just want to get some of the practical details sorted out to take out some of the guesswork

Yeah, I'm really hard water here - largely why I'm using the peat as a grow medium - helps reduce the hardness + keep the pH levels in check... And using tank water out of one of my planted tanks - that tank tends to chew up the mg/ca pretty quick...

 

[shuswap]

i have seen the system that breeder steve used to have at his shop,the main tank was a 90 gallon tank with cichlids plectos and a few more,the pump sat in the tank,then when it was time it would feed the aeroponic table,the runoff would drain to a res with a float valve and when it had enough in it it would pump back to tank,steve would use a nylon with guanos,etc in the tank to help with flowering .used to be fun gettin all baked and watchin him throw in a shit load of goldfish for the cichlids to consume,lmao!!

 

[Hephaestus]

10 medium feeder goldies went in the sump today - really don't want to keep adding kno3; so dirtier / piggier fish is the solution

Rebuild on the air pump (rena 400 - got it january '04 - 5years of constant use to wear out 10$ in parts - not bad!) to get more air moving. Wow, forgot how much this badboy put out when it was new

Will have to take some root porn shots soon noticed I've had an explosion of roots...

 

[medi-useA]

I may be silent...but I AM watching...

muA

 

[Hephaestus]

MuA - figured you were I really gotta get the controller done and running on this setup It'd make life so much easier...

Reset timer to 12/12 today (was 18/6) see how many ladies we find (If anyone's wondering this is peakseedsbc mix - hoping to find some of that texada timewarp, and pretty sure that lowboy (runt) is a blueberry already)

 

[Hephaestus]

They didn't like the changes at all Lights on this morning... saw a bunch of new growth and some happy looking hopefully girls

Also found some fruitflies... Grrr... But that's ok - also found a big ol spider spinning a web in the stairwell he got relocated... Organic pest control I hope this guy gets to work!

Had to dose 5ml of s/c prime, as expectedly, filter didn't much agree the huge onslaught of dirty little goldfish...

And thus we start day 1 of flowering... Pictures for reference

 

[Hephaestus]

I like aquaponics

 

[Hephaestus]

Damnit still a bit too early to sex eh?

 

[Hephaestus]

Root Porn!

Topped 'em all... Knocked one around a bit - Pretty sure it's a Skunkberry! Better get thinking about that carbon filter...



You guys don't like root porn do ya?

 

[medi-useA]

muA

 

[ScrubNinja]

This is cool as hell Best of luck.

 

[Hephaestus]

Topped heads are seemingly doing well under the parent plant

 

[MrFista]

Way to go Hephaestus.

That root porn should go ballistic soon enough. Brave move on the topping with the 'girls' so close together. I'd've gone for colas but that's just me. I like what you did with the tops though.

Some seed stock takes ages to show sex needing to reach a certain size before it does. Others just flower as directed to.

 

[Hephaestus]

Once I figure out the girls, intention is to run a perpetual, just need to figure out who the girls are so I can clean out some of the wasted space... They'll be going into another system soon too - more space details here this was yet another temporary setup go get the girls flowering. Hopefully that'll be their last move until reveg'ing them...

Praying for soon - spied a preflower on the back left plant... So hopefully by next week I'll know where I stand

 

[Hephaestus]

Well, bit of pruning happening - took off some fan leaves (thanks for the advice boleman). Rotated the girls around (wondering why those two right were getting so much bigger than the two left so they did a criss/cross).

Starting to see some preflowers popping up with all the new growth!!!

Group shot - I'll grab some root porn sometime later - Man the big one has a HUGE (>24") bundle!



Individual up closes - if ya spot a male or female for sure - let me know I'm not so good at sexing...

Camera not co-operating today's shots...

 

[Hephaestus]

Well here we are day 18 into 12/12... And still not sexed... But I think I figured that out kinda by accident yesterday... Decided to start tackling that stockpile of mysis and bloodworms in the fridge. No rinsing - all those good high phosphate juices straight in...

And I'm pretty sure tomorrow I'll know for sure - but the heads on one plant looked an awful lot different today

Strangely that back right plant seems to do best in this system - have to do some investigating and figure out why that is; the criss cross move has slowed the big plant down, and now this plant (which was lankier) is now the fullest of the 4. Not quite sure why...