Crayfish 23

Been awhile.  But I have a good excusing having been away working in Accra.  Long way from our babies. However all was not lost. For the last 8 months the family have been keeping an eye on them and feeding them etc. So much so they have grown very well.

That said it is difficult to keep asking them to do the hard work. So we cleaned out one tank this afternoon and will throw in the main fish pond and keep a few of the big crays to go on the Barbie this evening.....

We emptied one of the two smaller tanks and I reckon we put about 150 assorted sized crays into the main fish pond next to our house. (see the 2 videos below) We kept 10 big ones for these evenings feast.  They came in at 111.5 grams.  And largest being 22cms long (that's 9 inches to you olds !!!' no jokes....................)

Crayfish 19

All very quiet.   We've been away for a while and we left Mum to feed the fish. Only problem was she thought they were very hungry.  Gave them about 6 months food over a 5 day period !!!  Major clean out of the tanks last night when we got back.  All good and the little fella's appear quite happy with life. Few babies appearing.

And yes Aquaponics will be starting up again in May......

Crayfish 17

And the crays keep on growing.  We've been away and Wanna's brother was feeding them on a daily basis. Lots of big ones and a few pregnant. So what to do in a few move months i have no idea.

Today was water cleaning day and we had some helpers. They really enjoyed the water splashing. getting a head start for Thai New Year.

Crayfish Part 10

Progress.  Just day to day feeding and watching them grow. Its not until you look back a few weeks that you appreciate they do grow !!!!

Big Fellas 1

Big Fella's 2

System gone mad

We 're been away as you know. Things have really grown. No dead fight but the system seems to have stabilized and the plants are loving it. A picture tells a thousand works is so true in this case. The blue pipe work is 55mm diameter so you can say the fish are about 110 to 140mm long. Couple of more months before Bar B Q time.

Progress Update

We've been away for the last few weeks leaning Wanna's niece to feed fish and top up the water etc. During our absence we  did have a  power cut.. She managed to cope and I happy to report both Fish and plants doing well. You can see from the attached photos that we are getting a good crop. The veg is morning glory used a lot in local cooking. Wanna only cuts the tops and leaves the stem to regrow.  So far so good. And the fish continue to grow. We've got some fungus on the leaves but Wanna will be sorting that out in due course....
I can see on next trip home my adding another tank for more starter fish… Will be fun just planning it….Should not be such a big think to add it on.

Progress and Shade Cloth

Not much to report at this time except we seem to be making steady and positive progress. Wanna sent me a few photos and tells me all going OK. She has installed a shade cloth over the fish tanks. Looks like she has done a good job.

No more dead fish since last report and she has been harvesting the morning glory. She did this by cutting the leaves rather than remove the whole plant roots and all. She also added some more small plants. Their growth should give us a good indication of how much we can grow as a ratio between fish weight and plant  numbers.

Shade Cloth to Fish Tanks

Fish Feeding

Real Progress

All going well.  Wanna sent me a couple of photos.  Fish are healthy and eating well. Morning Glory is growing. So very happy with progress.  I’m beginning to  enjoy this remote farming……

Progress 5th June 2013

Quick update.  Things are improving.  Must be Wanna doing it and me being away.  Sure a good logic to that as I keep adjusting everything in sight....

Still no complaints.  I've also been working on updating my feed calculations.  Should be done tomorrow. My main problem/delay is messing round with the files to get them uploaded.

Fish looking good. Plants improving and only down side is the shard cloth.  Could be I installed it a bit tight at the beginning. More slack with the wind etc. Still all coming right slowly. Will start to weigh fish a bit more often now.  We'll check on dead ones as well but they have already lost some weight. So not so accurate.

Maintenance

All seems to be going OK. Checked the water today. Reduced the flow rate to see if I can capture more solids. Hope this has some positive result. Nitrates up and so are the ppm hydroponic truncheon test. Ph steady.  See side bar for details. I think this is all good. Let me know if I'm wrong.

And The Plants are Growing

Been standing around almost wishing I could see the plants grow. I know every day bit by bit... So I'm pleased with progress. I do still need to get a better filter system in place to avoid solids going into the plants.  I've tried along with bio balls, to add some additional filter cloth and covered the flow pipe to the plants with a fine mesh.  Latter works fine but keeps blocking up quickly. I'll be giving this some more thought. Need a bigger surface area for the filter fabric.

Fish look happy and always ready for a feed. Plants, well I have not heard any complain to me yet....

April 11th Where we're at.......................

Been putting off the additional shade cloth installation till a cooler day. Well can only wait so long and today was a bit cooler around 36Deg... So added in some 80% shade cloth to the steel frame above the raft system, and then Wanna added in the seeds.

I checked the Ph, just shy of 8 and the Nitrates and Nitrites around 0.3 and 0-12.5 respectively. So within a reasonable margin. I also used my hydroponic EC meter.  940 PMM sees a bit on the low side but adequate for salads. Not I suspect for Tomatoes. So we'd planned accordingly and Wanna had prepared seeds adding in Bak Choi (Thai) and, Bak Choi (Vietnamese) and some other greens used locally for stir frys. This time we used new seeds. Earlier we used up our old ones and all the packets has a use by date, we exceeded them all by a few years..... So little success earlier and really we cannot be to surprised.

Since we started this second system I had always planned to keep tidy and well organised. However we also started with the premise that we would do it as cheaply as possible not a completely compatible idea out the the garden environment. So slowly we have made improvements. I've put the tanks on a concrete base and added a small concrete path round the side of the Grown beds.  We also have lighting and spare electric sockets. So now beginning to look the part. All these extras being done while we completed the house, again keeping costs low and using up all the surplus bits from house construction. Amazing have you ever noticed how much waste is generated in house construction, meters of electrical cable for a start and short lengths of plastic water pipe.  Well I think I found a use for most of it.....

Also with the revamp we've drilled holes in the deliver pipes from fish tank to settlement tank to avoid air blockage which was a bit of a problem, Cleaned out the aeration tank and added proper bio balls instead of old plastic cuttings from water pipe...I've added  a short slide show of today's status. Main thing to watch over coming weeks will be the plant progress. Having been very slack on counting fish numbers and mortality etc I can only guess at food quantities, if they come for food I feed them..

New System Part 6

Things are going well. Did some water testing and things look good.  We did have some trouble getting the tanks to stop leaking.  I have been unable to locate a shop that sells rubber grummets. Bit of a problem. But for now plasticine seems to work. The leaking makes the ground soft and then the tanks tilt more. Sort of self perpetuating....
But all good. Next job is to add in some NFT pipes to see if I can these going as well. (added a picture of it half done). Only doubt I am having is if the fish are producing enough nutrients to feed so many plants. The system is new so does need some time to get established. I've got a EC meter for measuring the amount of nutriens in the water and will start using it this week. Interest all the stuff I'll saved over the years from my earlier hydroponic farming as it is all coming back into use. Feels good not to have so much waste and also gets rid of a lot of crap in my store!!!

One thing I have not figured out yet is why the polystyrene trays have a series of channels and then a sheet that side on top with holes. Well I know if for irrigation but my question is why 10 run channels in the base polystyrene and 6 rows of holes. Means some of the plants have to struggle a bit to get down to the water flow. I've not [put this to clearly but it is difficult to explain. Anyway all going OK for now.