Crayfish 22

Well another dead prawn and one de-shelled.  We added in some larger pipes (Condos !!!!)  which seem to be getting some use. I since taking the photo have moved them away from the side wall.  Gives them access from both sides which they seem to prefer. Well more of them are using the pipes.

And I've included a photo of our resident frog.  He lives above the clock in the kitchen......

Crayfish 16

Done.  Cleaned out the system.  We planned to spend a few hours getting this done. Lots of help form Wanna's three year old niece "Ice".

Wanna and I drained each tank and cleaned up them up. Lovely job.  We kept some of the old brackish water to put back as we thought they would life some of the same stuff. But really Cray's are very hardy little creatures. Not a lot seems ot both them.  And they fight. Cut each other up big time. Claws missing etc. No joke!!!

We down sized from 4 tanks to 3. So we used the three newish blue tanks we had down in Rayong.  Got rid of the old concrete mixing tank. Must be honest i never liked it but....

On tidying up we separated the big Crays from medium and small. Hence three tanks....

The big ones. 20 female and 8 male.  Put them in the big tank with some new "condo's".  All very excited about their new homes.  Just bits of old water pipe but, if you had nothing water pipe is fine!!!

The rest of the Crays we did not count. But guessing about 100+ of medium and small. So all good now ot leave with Wanna's sister and Mum while we are away.

Crayfish 15

Just back from Vanuata and Wanna's sister "Bhep" has been looking after them. She's busy son only really has time to feed them and check they do not run out of water. Can't really ask much more from here.

Needless to say however the little guys need an bit of Love and Attention as well. The water needs changing and is has high grown of duck weed. Not sure how I am going to clean all that out as we are off on our travels again in a few weeks.

So watch tomorrow for "clean" Cray Fish pictures.

Oh yes I almost forgot to mention. We got an electric shock from the pump. At first I thought it has go damages or worn out but close inspection showed the wire lead has been cut by the Crays.... Will have to repair and then protect with a plastic water pipe. Amazing just how strong their claws are?  Why would anyone want to bit an electric cable?

So one more job to do.  Quick cable repair.

Sound of Silence Echo

Last post was 13th Dec last year. Seems ages ago. Been busy with work and visiting other aquaponics systems. Notably my mate Rene's. No photos from him.
Also visited "ponic wars" on www.youtubecom . He seems busy with all sorts of stuff.
For me, and why I'm posting this is to let you know I'm moving house in a few months. Found a place with about 50 square meters of flat concrete roof and some shade area suitable for fish tanks. So things will starting to happen again soon.
Cheers for now and happy growing.

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.

Progress and Shade Cloth

Not much to report at this time except we seem to be making steady and positive progress. Wanna sent me a few photos and tells me all going OK. She has installed a shade cloth over the fish tanks. Looks like she has done a good job.

No more dead fish since last report and she has been harvesting the morning glory. She did this by cutting the leaves rather than remove the whole plant roots and all. She also added some more small plants. Their growth should give us a good indication of how much we can grow as a ratio between fish weight and plant  numbers.

Shade Cloth to Fish Tanks

Fish Feeding

Real Progress

All going well.  Wanna sent me a couple of photos.  Fish are healthy and eating well. Morning Glory is growing. So very happy with progress.  I’m beginning to  enjoy this remote farming……

Fish Feed Rates

Just added a few tables on the other page "Our Feed Rates"to keep track of fish feeding and growth rates.

Progress

Been a difficult few days. The supports to our deep water channels subsided at the far end. We had concreted most of it and expected the remaining few were on good enough ground to cope with the rain. Not the case.  Seems if shit is going to happen to our system it will!!!

So we lost water and obviously nutrients etc. Added drama was the shade cloth split in the wind.
Being away and leaving it all to Wanna seems a bit unfair but what can I do!!! She did a great gob and got it all sorted. Needless to say it has had some effect on the fish. Fresh water etc.  We have also continued and had a few of the small fish die. Roughly one a day this last week. The bigger tank is fine and they have got back into the habit of jumping up for food. Good sign. However given the mortality rate for the smaller ones and looking at the waste coming from the tank (see below) I suspect we are giving them to much food. Wanna (again down to her) has reduced the feed on the small ones by 50% yesterday and the waste/return looked good with little to nothing rising to the surface in the big tank. So all is beginning to look positive.

We're (royal we) have also planted "Morning Glory', an easy fast growing hardy plant with does take up a lot of nutrient but gets everything up and underway in what I hope will from now on be a continuous manner.

Additional Works

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

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

Stolen Fish

Stolen. Yes you read right. We've been away for a few days and when we got back I went to say hello and no reply. Some Bastard has taken out fish. I will find out who. Wanna keeps going to check but... So move on. Buy some more. Which we did this morning. Bummer...... Food for thought anyone with an open fish area.

Added Misters/Sprinklers

Just added 5 mist sprayers on a timer to help with keeping the salads a bit cooler and hopefully disrupt the insects. Had a few leaves start to get chewed already so this must stop....'ll give it another 24 hours then check the water quality.

Must also let you know. Having reduced the flow through the system the 99% of solids are now dropping out in the first settlement tank. Such a big difference.

And The Plants are Growing

Been standing around almost wishing I could see the plants grow. I know every day bit by bit... So I'm pleased with progress. I do still need to get a better filter system in place to avoid solids going into the plants.  I've tried along with bio balls, to add some additional filter cloth and covered the flow pipe to the plants with a fine mesh.  Latter works fine but keeps blocking up quickly. I'll be giving this some more thought. Need a bigger surface area for the filter fabric.

Fish look happy and always ready for a feed. Plants, well I have not heard any complain to me yet....

New System Part 7

Just added a couple of 500 gram Tilipia as the bio level based on using my Hyrdoponic trunchon read 8.3 (initial system is reading around 14 and seems OK with the plants looking a little weak.) so I need more nutrients in the system to maintain my plants. Hopefully these two big fish should add something to all this. The fish actually were caught in our pond a few days ago. We left them in our other system until we were ready for a Bar B Q. Guess they got a reprieve....

Update

My existing system is doing well. Yesterday afternoon we caught some big fish in our pond. Decided we would eat them later. i.e. Bar B Q them tomorrow or  Friday.  To keep them alive and fresh I added them to our system. Little extra nutrients being added to my plans for a couple of days cannot do any harm.

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.