Air Lift Pump - Aka Al's Lift Pump

Done it.

Make me a lift pump.  I followed You tube Video Air Lift Pump.  Did myself a sort of ISO sketch and a take off for parts needed. See below.

ISO for 2" airlift pump

After that it was a simple trip to Global and buy the bits. Got them all in Rayong except for the check valve.  Had to wait till Khon Kaen for that.  Everywhere sold out.  So conclusion is there are a lot of persons out there doing air lift pump tests....all at this time.....

Anyway got it sorted and then had my friends Steve and Phil assist with the testing.

I have two air pumps. One is a 30 litre/minute  low pressure on and the other is similar but I am guessing more in region of 100 litres plus per minute.  (label missing ! Other difference is the small one is about 30 watts and one is about 200 watts.

2" flap valve and 1/2 " riser

Bits

And more bits

And some more Bits......

Results were interesting. Not well recorded but good enough as we were covered in water !!! However conclusion is it seems pump output volume is main factor in water movement.  And smaller vertical pipe gave a bit better lift height. Not we only used the piping we had and did not go into a lot of extra cutting and splicing etc. Needless to say it worked. So whilst I expected it to work I was still very pleased with the results and need to thank Steve and Phil for this assistance.  Wait I did thank them.. We had a beer together.... :)

So I plan to stick with 2" check valve and have 2 smaller ones for sale !

I've added a video.  poor quality as I've having trouble getting my Sony camera to talk with my software. Will get it sorted eventually. its a bit long but shows you the fun we had... Not at all scientific but so what.....

Water Testing

Just tested the water. Results look OK. I've put them all on a separate page.  Much easier to review. But plant growth is poor. Not sure where I am going wrong with all this. Will need to get some expert advice.

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.

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..

General Update 1000 litre system

Been a hectic last two weeks. Busy on house, driving new motorbike etc so Aquaponics has not been taking the No 1 spot.  This last two weeks we've lots about 5 fish. The system is not overloaded but I think they were being slowly killed by love. i.e. to much food. So a couple of days off should do the trick.  I've done some water tests nothing major to report. Reading up the general consensus is the system needs 4-6 months to stabilise. So 6 weeks in is not to bad.

We've added in our NFT table which started yesterday. To early to say if it will work. For salads I expect it to be fine but for tomatoes doubt there is a high enough concentration of nutrients to really get it all moving in the right direction.

The first two photos show our new tables NFT and the third the inside of the tunnel with the deep water and polystyrene floats.

Pictures tell a thousand words...

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.

Water Testing and System Review

Took some water samples today.  Looking good. (See side bar for details).

System appears very stable with 7 fish in clean water and plenty of veggies in the grow beds.

I've also checked the circulation volume, can do it from pump data but also checked with just simply collecting the output to each tank for 30 secs each. Throughput added up to exactly 2 litres for 30 seconds. Thats 4 litres a minute so 240 litres an hour. Tank volume is near 180 litres so an exchange rate of every 45 minutes. Very acceptable. If anything a bit on the fast side. But I'll stick go with the pump system I've got. You know the expression, "if it ain't broke don't fix it".

December Update

Well for me this has been a very exciting month.

Got my own home system working much better. Today I tested the water. Fantastic results. Ph of 7.5 and NO2 and NO3 almost negligible.We had been having a lot of heavy loads from the tank clogging the filters and the pump. So much so that is was beginning to go terribly wrong. Even the large flood and drain bed was accumulating algae. First off was to redo the syphons. We made them a little shorter to ensure the water never came up above top of gravel.  I know easy enough but when we did the beds we ran out of energy to put in more gravel.. So being lazy finally came home to roost as it were but that's now sorted. Second big job was to remove some of the small fish we had. I thought we have added a lot but when you buy a kilo of cat fish they take up a lot of space. I reckon I removed about 150 small fish. We sorted them out. Kept 7 big Tilapia and the rest went into our main farm pond. Hopefully to grow and finally arrive on on plates in due course...

Next up for December was meeting with James Racoky of UVI fame who is the world renowned expert on Aquaponics.  He has retired and lives in Pattaya.  Owen and I met him for a quick coffee. 2 and a half hours later we left. Very interesting and exciting stuff. Go me more pumped up about the whole thing.

 

The four pictures above are of the 1000 litre system.  We are going to have a very similar construction to this one.

Above is Wanna reviewing the large UVI system construction. I think she is hooked as well.

Following on from such a meeting was then catching up with Robert 'Bob" White at Chat Takarn. Bob has been instrumental in establishing the Association of  to see a small system he had installed in a local Wat, and see his other new UVI type system in its construction stage. Really got me all fired up to get started. The small system is a 1000 liter fish tank feeding about 10 meters of flow beds. The big system is 4 fish tanks of 7000 litres each. Big and very interesting. I've added a few random photos of the systems and as you've guessed I've got a load more to help me understand what is going on. Ready for me to start on mine...

To keep me going through January I have bought a small system off Bob.  He is due to deliver in first week of January. That's the 1000 litre system.  It should produce all the greens to fed the whole family and more... We should have it up and running with in days of Bob making his deliveries. Getting excited about this. Bit like waiting on a Christmas present.

Then our big project. We are going to build one similar to the UVI system on our land. I mentioned before we met with James Racoky of UVI.  He was really helpful to support us in this idea. Already got the spot in mind. We have flat raised land, power and water. Also already have a lot of ancillary stuff. Office, store room, pumps, plastic pipes and lights etc. Just need the fish tanks which we'll make out of concrete and the various filter beds and grow beds.So now need to finalise costing and make sure it pays of itself. Then February/March we start the big system.

The last photo is form our tank. Modest but a success.

Happy New year for 2013.

Water Testing

Just done a quick test. Ph looking steady. No2 improving. No3 the same.

Water Testing

Just tested the system again for Ph, NO2 and NO3.  No real change but all looks OK?......

2 Dead Cat Fish

Had two cat fish die on me last night. I know the Nitrate  and Nitrate levels are extremely high but have been hoping to weather the storm. I've started off some seeds in grow beds, peppers, Bak Choi and Corriander also added in a few small plants from the garden.  I know, I know I should have taken my time and got it established before adding fish but...... We'll see how she goes.

Water Testing

Finally bought a couple of water testing kits. Ph and then Nitrites and Nitrates.  Did my first testing yesterday. Ph fine but No2and No3 are through the roof. However the fish are still swimming. (did have 2 dead cat fish...) and they are all still hungry.  It was not till I opened the No3 test kit that I discovered the colour chart was missing. I emailed Tetra and almost instantly had a reply with a colour chart attached. Will be checking water again today. I've added this detail in a chart to the side of my Blog.