Ghana Ponics 21

 Still carrying on.  

We cleaned out the site office system a few days back.  Quite a nice group of Tilapia. Gave them to our Chine contractor.  They had them for dinner.

 Then we refreshed the tanks with some baby catfish.

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 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.

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 18

We have had several crays reshell themselves lately. Not sure if the cold water affects them of it is just cyclical. Anyway a chance to get a short movie with them out in the open.

Crayfish 13

Thought it would be a couple of weeks before I posted about the crays. But we were clearing us and found one more pregnant female. She was in with female and was just beginning to show eggs/babies. In fact I think she was just starting to "extrude them" if thats the correct terminology.  Doubt it !!!!

Female Crayfish being relocated using a bucket !

Anyway while sorting out a new home for her in the third tank we watched one small one cast off its shell.  I took some photos then a short video.  Quite amazing.  The video is less than 1 minutes long and the little fella does so much.  Worth watching.

Looking really strange like they are blowing apart.   

Crayfish Part 1

I know your reaction. Whats this he is up to now ?

Well I was reading about crayfish and decided we would give it a go. Wanna then found a local farm selling crayfish near our place in Ban Muang.  She got excited about it as well. Seems the farm lady, she has been doing crayfish breeding for 3 years. Retired from teaching and now sells starter crays in packs to lots of people like us. She has editable and well as red and blue claw.  (See I know about these already.

Anyway we had a look round her place. All looked simple enough and well organised.  She as mainly small crays from breeding which she sells on. However the biggest in one tank was was about 250 mm long. 2 years old....  That's a long time to wait for a decent meal.

We went last Friday to the farm and chatted away. Very helpful and informative. And agreed to buy 4 pairs of 2 month old crays.  We were excited and stopped on the way home Friday evening buying 4 black plastic bowls for their new homes. Also collected some old plastic water piping from my store for their new "homes" and some garden shade cloth for them to "play"in.  :)

Saturday early morning, saw us back at the farm and we found our crays already prepacked into a polystyrene box complete in chilled and oxygen saturated water, Also in the box was feed sufficient for 1 year. Small packet of food it was to. So I imagine they will not grow to much....

All set for the trip to Rayong. She explained that she exports round the county using this system, so we had a good 12 hours where they would be OK as they are. So they were dormant. Tiny things about 4 centimetres long.

Off we went back to Rayong. Rushed upstairs and got the air pump working, water temperature sorted out and them slowly released them into their new homes. Checked pH of about 8.0.  All OK.

Cray on left of key.  Very small.

More baby's

Review of progress with our house workers.

Slow release.

Not aquaponics but a fun addition to the whole aqua "thing".