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.