Silence

I know. no news. I keep looking at other peoples systems and realize I need to get back and get mine up and running again. Difficult as I am now living in a condo with a balcony which is less than 2 square meters.  Watch this space for developments in due course.
I think to keep this blog going with any use for me until I start up again I need to be adding content on what I see, read and hear about as relates to Thailand aquaponic developments. Lets see how that pans out.

Additional Works

Wanna has just installed the shade cloth and this covers the seedling area and the tanks. Very pleased with it all.

Update.

We've been busy. New setup is beginning to settle down. Tank 2 with larger fish I suspect is not so good as we used tap water to fill it. So fish not happy and suffering a bit of a shock. Hence a few fatalities. Why we did this I do not know. Just stopped thinking while trying get so much done.

Anyway I've used Dr Racoky feed tables as a guide. (Reproduced here in separate page).

Also finished realigning the airlines, all over head and compressor in the shed. Saves exposure to rain etc and possible theft. Yes still a bit shaken by that incident. And now all left is to add some more plants and sit back with a coffee or two and see it develop....Oh yes and feed the fish....

Major Upgrade

Well we've been at this for some time. Problems with insufficient fish mass, some stolen and resulting poor crop growth.

We decided (Management decision) to expand our system. Several reasons, first being there was next to no cost involved as we already owned several concrete water tanks which were not in use and secondly to allow for two tanks giving a bit more flexibility  for faih amanagemtn. i.e. two tanks better than one.  If we have more spare we would have used them as well. Anyway thankful for what we've got.

In expanding we used the existing fish tank as our main settlement tank and continued using existing settlement tank as well.

Results for water quality. Testing scheduled for this afternoon but this mornings visual observations, water in fish tanks is clear, settlement tank a bit of floating debris but not much. Think it is some of the first fish food after relocating the fish and also poo.  Bio tank is cristal clear.

Small tank has two dead fish yesterday and three today. They only went in 2 days ago so thats not so surprising.

System is now 2 X 1000 litre tanks.
Settlement Tank 1  1000 litres
Settlement Tank 2  250 litres
Bio Tank  Tank 1 250litres
Deep Raft Grow beds 12 meters x 0.9 x 0.3 Approx 3,000 litres

All go.

Very Rough System Diagram......

Bio Filter Tank

Secondary Settlement Tank

MAin Settlement Tank

Fish Tank 1  Feeding Time

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..

Small upgrade to tidy the place up.

Decided to concrete some of the surrounding area to the tanks and seedling area. Definetely required before the rainy season.  The dusty soil just turns to mud.  Horrible to walk on.  I'll also be doing a pathway between the runs in due course. Thats definately for another day.

Concreting scheduled for later today but maybe delayed till tomorrow.  Depends on having suffucient aggregate. Easy to buy but been busy fixing a water leak... Another story altogether.

Swirl Filter

Up to now all going well.  I know "if it's not broke don't fix it".  But I have added a small additional swirl filter and think I have found a very simple way forward.

Got the idea here.   http://www.earthangroup.com.au/diy-backyard-budget-swirl-filter/

I've go the old 200 litre drum cut in two acting as a filter now but adding a 20 litre internal inverted 'bottle' should help me remove solid waste much more easily and more conveniently. At the moment the 'toilet flush system I use sends the fish crap all over our patio. Not a good long term solution expecially from my wife's point of view....

So look at the photos. The reason the pipe work looks somewhat erratic is because I was using bits form an old system. Pre drilled holes, pipe connections etc never ever line up as you would like.

You can see the inverted plastic bottle. It connects at the bottom of the main tank internally and out through the old pipe connector at the side. Not ideal but should work. I know some people do videos but today I just wanted to get it done!!!

Also we had our first harvest. So all good.

Changed My Filter System

The water has been getting a be dirty. The filter system did not work properly.  So I've added to half barrels, one with baffles and one with the pump.  The one with baffles also has a toilet flush in the bottom so I can drain it when needed. Not so good but best I can do with a DIY, no cost solution.  WIll monitor progress over next few days to see how water responds to this.

Back to Front

I've set up my system and added a big grow bed I had used earlier for hydroponics. Now as I say 'back to front' I have to calculate the number of fish I need.  I'm going to check flow to see the full cycle time of three different tanks and then work out the suitable number of fish the system requires to feed these three beds. Fish density is not my main concern as I ca see water throughput is quite high. I need to make sure I get enough fish waste to make it sustainable.

I've got about 180 litres of water, two half full barrels with aggregate and one grow bed 2.4 x 1.2 x 8cm deep.  Will update when I've got this sorted out. Off to by some seeds.