Ghana Ponics 13

Not a lot to report.  All my fish are doing OK. No more deaths. In fact pretty boring to be honest. We did harvest a bit of our herb. Added to some chicken stew. And it worked. No complaints in that department.

Tonight we are clearing out a lot of the tomato plants as they have reached the end of their natural live. Sad as they have done quite well.

Ghana Ponics 12

Well things are progressing. Nothing special just the usual sort of day to day growing. But best to keep a record.  Had a few tomatoes and morning glory.  Made for good salad and stir fries.

The fish are all OK.  I tool a overview photo of them. Seem happy enough.

My other plant is also growing and I was recommended to a web site  I love growing marijuana 

Self explanatory I think..... And I don't smoke but will be interested to see how all this pans out.

Ghana Ponics 11

Well it had to happen.  One dead fish. One of the Tilapia.  It had grown quite fast. Trouble is I came home about 5.00pm last night and was hushing out to dinner.  So quick photo followed by quicker disposal.  Then out the door.  Forgot to measure the fish or indeed have a close look at source of death. If I had to say a few words... he must be going to a better place than a 600mm diameter blue plastic barrel tank......  And he went off with a big "Flush".... :-)  Thats right, straight down the pan.

Anyway for what its worth......'last photo......

Ghana Ponics Ernest Style Part 3

Ernest has been doing well on the Aquaponics front.  I had not written about his system as it was just rolling along OK. In fact these things were working are interesting but difficult to write about. I am not Ernest Hemmingway so for me to make watching lettuce growing is a tall order. But then things did change.

That is when Tawatchai one of my friends at work called to say he had three more tanks for Ernest. So of course I then realized it was last July 20th to be precise when I last loaded up a few photos. So called him this evening. "New tanks available and I need to see progress so I can do a Blog post."

Well things have moved on.  Lots growing.  Hoping this Saturday, Ernest's wife permitting of course, we will be adding a few extra tanks. Keep it rolling.

Ghana Ponics 10

Not a lot to report while watching lettuce grow.  Tomatoes are possibly a step up in terms of watching but.........but not by so much. So two months into growing and the plants are doing exceptionally well.

The wires going into the water are a home made water top up system.  Its connected to a solenoid on the tap. When the water gets too low the solenoid automatically opens and refills the system. Hope it works when required!!!!!

The remaining electronics has taken a back seat due to my travelling and I now need to get this all back up and working.

Ghana Ponics 9

Giving away some of the tomato plants.  Fantastic roots on them.  Clean, long, hairy etc. Very happy with progress.

I picked them this morning about 5.00am.  Photo taken at lunchtime so they have survived well in the office in just water for 7 hours.  I think the fact the roots do not get caught up in soil is a real bonus with this system.

Ghana Ponics Ernest Style Part 2

Just received a short video from Ernest.  Seems he has got the fish running round in circles. Well square circles given the shape of his tanks !! 

Also as you can see there is plenty of water. The fish get much bigger they will jump out. Seems siphons are working well.  I can tell you that is a relief as I had visions of sitting around for ages getting the settings correct.  Still might have problems adjusting flows etc once the permanent pump is in place.

Next step is we are busy doing nothing awaiting the delivery of the water pump and air pump. Due on 23rd.  I think the tilapia will survive till then. The doing nothing is fun !!! Could get used to it.

Once we get this working which I hope is next weekend, we can invite a few friends of Ernest round who also want systems. More for a workshop and chit chat then anything else.  Who knows maybe we get a few more followers. Would be a fun thing to do.

Ghana Ponics 8

Look closely at what I've started growing.  Chicken soup will be taste much better in a few months.....

Ghana Ponics 7

Taking off.

Ph around 8.0  bit high gold fish ok.

NO2 around 0.5 ppm

NO320-40  ppm

Not sure I understand all the relevance of it.... Forgotten more of the stuff..

Ghana Ponics 6

Finally got two gold fish and added some small Chinese spring onion which Wanna had brought back from Thailand.  I had added some tomato seeds and also some coriander seeds.  Only the tomato are starting at this time. I've got a friend who wants a system so I will move some of these to his place.  That's next weekends job.  Meantime I need to find some more fish. Tried yesterday to find some tilapia but no luck. Gold fish are expensive here.  About 7 USD each !!!!!!  That's why I only bought 2.....

Ghana Ponics Ernest Style Part 1

Ernest our building Engineer at work and a good friend has unfortunately for him had to listen to me banging on about Aquaponics.  Finally the message got through and he decided to build one. Either he liked the idea or I brainwashed him. Only he knows.....

I had during the course of our chats shown him several photos on the various systems and he had seem my set up working.  However he wanted not a small single blue barrel like mine but decided to go bigger...Two tank system  Sketch found on blogger Kiemel.  Thanks.

So without a second breath he talked to our friendly contractor,  aquired some old used IBC "totes" and a few support blocks and bits of pipe work.

Off we went to his place on the Saturday afternoon. Well you can imagine lots of chiefs, no Indians.  Not sure how it got done.  Everyone knew how to tell everyone else how to build it...  You can imagine.. Total confusion and we are supposed to all be top notch  engineering Project Managers......
;-)

If I told you the external power supply on the house did not work,  then we had to go Princes's house to borrow a longer extension lead.  Had to clean out the tanks by side of house as hose pipe too short.  You can sort of get the picture.  As I said no Indians.......  Plenty of Chiefs......  But no worries we had plenty of cold beer to help us along  !!!!!!

Well finally we got there.  Finlo did all the jigsaw stuff, Wanna  the plumbing,  Alan (not a lot but...well he managed to look busy.....) Ernest running back and forth to the shop to keep getting the right pipes.  We had not even got this right !!!!!!  And Prince, well he also mucked in with removing the tank bases etc getting them ready.  We had some additional help form our drivers cleaning out the tanks etc.  All in all a good effort. 2 1/2 hours later system was ready "sans" pump and gravel.  That was put off till next week.  Pump ordered and also an air pump.

Locating fish was also proving problematic. I had bought a couple of gold fish but we wanted Tilapai. Ernest finally got some tilapia, all fingerlings about 2 centimeters long. Due for delivery in a week or so.

Ghana Ponics Part 5

Hardly worth a post but I added a small external air pipe to the system. I had a bit of old plastic air pipe from the fish pump. Seems to do the trick.  As I say hardly a post but good to keep a record of these things.

Ghana Ponics Part 4

Got the gravel in and the syphon working (well it still sticks every so often).  Added some seeds last night and so will wait a few weeks to see what germinates.  I am worried the water is not too good considering the drum had contained some strange chemicals.  I had washed it out with water, hot and cold, detol and lots of shower soaps etc, so should be OK.  Lets hope......

More importantly I got my Arduino working.  I've got the humidity, room temp, water temp and moisture sensors and a distance measurement all working.....  Next comes some controls, and in future add in the web......



Cool stuff.

Ghana Ponics Part 3

Sunday.  Day of rest.  Well I got the barrel finished. Now need some gravel and plants.  Followed of course by the fish.  Thinking a few Tilapia.

So tomorrow the gravel. Wash them and get the system started.

And I've got my Arduino organised for starting the system.  I've got the LCD working and can monitor external water and humidity and also water temperature.  Next will be monitoring and controlling water levels, solenoids for adding water, maybe a fish feeder and hopefully before the end of the year some IoT on the go...... Hehehe.... looking forward to this.

Ghana Ponics Part 2

Well I said I would get started when I got back after my holiday. 

So today I got the barrel and checked my bits and pieces. Need to do some cutting to get the ready and get some gravel as a growing medium.  That will be Mondays job....  But I've started again. Here we go.....

Barrel, fittings and old pump plus a very old testing kit......

Ghana Ponics Part 1

On holiday in Thailand. Going back to Accra end of the week. Planning setting up a small Aquaponics barrel style.  Just a little something to keep up the interest while away from home. Actually its more that than.  I want ot use it for trials on my arduino electronics setup as well.  Once he system is working  I an hook up my monitors and measure temperature water levels, moisture content  sunlight etc. The plan is to make it available on the internet using IoT.  All good stuff forth e second half of 2018.

So Robs Barrel system  on youtube looks simple enough.  And me, not Rob, being a cheap Charlie I have collected a few bits and bobs from my store.  Pipework, fittings and an old fish tank pump. I also bought a couple of tank connectors in South Africa a few weeks back.  All I need now is a barrel and some gravel which I'll pick up from work. As I say all real cheap Charlie stuff...

Inspiration can be found here... Rod Aquaponics Channel Youtube

My stuff below.  Should start the build late next week.

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....................)