Crayfish 14

Nothing new but came across these photos and video.
Well worth posting.. Shows the little fellers growing on the mother.

And a quick video.

Ban Muang Aquaponics "Food for Thought"

I just in my last post talked about air lift pump tests.  All good stuff I know but I got to thinking about the more simplistic side of aquaponics.  Walking around with my camera I stopped to photo/video the fish we had just put in our tank.  I call it a tank. Just outside the kitchen we have a concrete pipe on its side with a concrete base.  We set it up there several years and we filled it with water Lillys and some small fish.  Main reason was to locate the pipe somewhere useful !!!
I got to thinking.  This is really a small aquaponics system in full balance.  We add water as the evaporation requires if the rain does not do it for us, and throw in some food time to time. No measurement of grams per fish weight or water volume etc,  and indeed I suspect when we are away, in fact I very much doubt if anyone bothers to check on our tank or look to see if anything needs feeding. Bit of a pun coming up but "Food for Thought !!!!"

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....

A Moment Of Madness

Release Of The Fish

Well here we go again. Will be the last posting on the the system till we set it up again.
So decided on letting the last 6 fish free.... We chose to release them out into the lake rather than eat them. Bet they have no idea just how lucky they are!!! So after swimming round in circles in a small blue drum for the last 6 months they are now free into a major lake about 6 kilimeters long. Must be like 7th heaven.
So of course to be expected a final video of their release. Bit soppy and nostalgic...
Please mark this page. We'll be back soon enough !!!!

Close To The End....Well For Now...

All good things come to an end or is it that all ends are the start of something new. I believe the latter. As an engineer we are always building something and then moving on. I seem in fact to have been constantly on the move. Well now is no exception.

Time to go to anew project and set up a new aquaponices system. The next one is going to be bigger. Not necessarily better. I have had so much fun with the Barrel Ponics System so a massive thanks to Mr Travis. Without him I would never even ha

ve considered starting out on this path. Thanks.

So one last look at the system before it goes....The sound in the section of me talking underwater is not so clear. Not so surprising I suppose.

So this posting is about closing up out existing system and putting it away till next time. The fish. I know we should be showing the cooking and providing the recipes etc. Not this time here in Thailand. We are returning the fish to the local lake about 50 meters from our place. All on video. We're doing it today as it is the official Queens Birthday here and it seems appropriate to to do now and not in a few days time.

So video of the draining of the system and setting free a few Tilipia!!!

It is in a sense a good thing to move on and start something new building on what we have learnt. A lot for the various aquaponic web sites and again Mr Travis.

Where ever we are next there will be fish and we will be growing.... So mark this spot and come back soon.

From Tank To Grill

We removed the Cat Fish and gave them a quick blow to the head. That prepared them for the Bar B Q. It is never nice to kill something whatever the circumstances. However these fish were bred for eating so here goes.

New Filter = Clean Water

I've been quite worried about the bad smell and dirty water. So much so that I visited several local aquarium shops to look at different systems and review the options. But I wanted to opt for a home made one. It's easy to buy one but having made my tanks and the rest of the grow beds etc I wanted to also do this myself.
I spend most of Saturday morning thinking about all I had been reading and the local systems I had looked at. I opted for one I had seen on the web. Simple bucket with a central pipe and filter cloth arrangement. Works really well. The water cleared in a matter of hours and the fish started eating again!

Now I'm going to improve on it and make some simple 'liners', bit like a vacuum cleaner filter. It will make for easy removal and cleaning. That's the next development in this project.

Progress To 8th February

Onwards

This week seems to have been slow and I've been getting home after dark so not ideal to proceed with the project. Working in semi dark is never fun and everything seems to take so much longer. Especially on a project which is supposed to be for fun!  However, we wanted to get on and had been buying the necessary stone, and fitting etc to get it all completed.

So finally by Thursday evening, I could not wait any longer. We decided (royal we) to get on with it. Wanna had today purchased the stone, and some fish and as importantly a few plastic bags of fish pellets. Why wait any longer...

As you know we had completed the fish tank and the grow beds. Remaining to be completed were the flush tank with connecting pipes and syphoning system. I'd left the syphon till last as it was the one bit of the system I was not so sure about. Seemed sensible to get the rest completed and fully understand the syphon.

Good plan as it turned out. The syphon system turned out to be a very, very simple setup. So we cut up the remaining pipes to make the flood system and installed it all on a trial basis. Not a real commission more a 'we've got this far lets give ita go' type of thing. Swithc on adn watch... and wait while it all fills up. And wait...

It works!!!! And it works very well except for the plastic bottle connected to the syphon system. To much over spill.  This clearly has teething problems and overflowed. Not a major problem. As I said it works.

Will need a new bigger bottle, some modification to the leverage system and some adjustment to the water flow. No big deal. I can say that now as I better understand what is happening! Its a success. No worries  etc etc...

So last night we did what we could and then left it all running; complete with the fish which were being kept in circulating water.  For the evening/night I dispenced with the flush unit which I plan to adjust and get fully functional on Satruday when I can give it my full attention. Then once sorted, starts the fun of actually growing "Fish And 2 Veg".

We're off Construction Episode 1 of.....

Following about 4 readings and rereading of Travis's Book and staring at the diagrams. I kept pondering...Wanna very clearly told me to stop talking about it and walk the walk...No more 'ifs' or 'buts'. Not even a what if?.... Just do it. Well hope you can follow that. We're off.

This is a photo taken from Travis Hughey Manual Barrel Ponics.

It's what I am intending to make. That's the last of his pictures on here. (Promise). From now on this Blog will have my photos. You have to follow me....
Sunday morning and all house hold chores done. Finally run out of excuses to do nothing but read the book!!!!
First step locate my tools. I'd brought them back down from Khon Kaen but they had been sitting in a big plastic box for well over 3 years. Would they still work was the question? Only one way to find out. Plug them in and pull the trigger. Fine all going well. So far so good.
So first job. Buy the plastic drums. Nothing for it but to go down the local second hand plastic yard and buy 3 x 200 litre plastic drums. In Thailand for some reason all plastic drums and pipe work comes in blue except for some yellow conduit used for electrical works.

11.00am finds us entering a seedy dirty old yard. In fact I only took one photo on the outside. But they had the goods. 3 drums for 1260 Baht. (That's 30US$). Complete with oil and various other unrecognised residues which will require cleaning out and disposing.

11.30 hrs see us returning back home, to empty out the oil? Cleaning fluid? Whatever?... and then down to the real the job of cutting. There we were cutting up plastic drums and washing them out with detergent. All going well. Ghan was helping me on this, making life much easier. We decided to use my circular saw for the cutting. Easy, and if careful gives a good straight cut.I need to tell you. By 14.30 we had filled up the drums with washing powder and scrubbed the outside to remove the general dirt etc. Then left them to soak. Will leave them a few days. No rush. I'm back to work tomorrow.Done. Step one complete. (That's step one according to Travis I might add!).

This also gives me time to organise a frame for the drums and buy the various plastic fitting. For the frame I had asked a contractor at work to help me on this. Lets hope he come through on this as it will make things so much easier. So I had cheated a bit insofar as I had asked the contractor at work to make me a steel frame at support these drums. Much easier then wood and no problems with termites etc. (Taking the long term view....). He was very happy to help. Even thought when I explained my request for a fish tank he seemed somewhat bemused.

Well the usual story I gave a sketch and got well. Look at the photo. Its a massive piece of structural steel more at home on the construction site than in my back yard. But Hey! No complaints as it was done with much kindness and they will get put to good use supporting my new venture.

So that's the plastic sorted out. Next off to buy and install the necessary fittings. That's Episode 2...And another day...