August Update - Baby Oh! Baby! more Fish Tanks

It's August and it's very hot outside, we are having 100+ degree days with little humidity, so I am having to add water every other day to both systems in the greenhouse. The only positive of the heat has been an increase in broods from the breeding colonies that are in place. This being said, I have had to install two new fish tanks. I fashioned these out of two 55 gallon blue plastic drums. I go over this in the embedded video.  More updates to come soon.

July 2012 Update - Mid Summer heat and bugs

OK...I know it's been awhile since I last posted any updates, but as everyone knows, everyday life can consume much of your time just tyring to get by.... Anyway, enough of that. I didn't have much time to dedicate to the plants in the greenhouse due to other responsibilities during June and the 1st part of July, but I'm in the process of rectifying that. Here's an update on what's been going on with the whole system.

As you know it can get pretty hot in Texas, and boy it has been. This has been detrimental to most of the plants in my raft system...all of the Squash, & Cucumber plants succumbed to the heat along with some of the more tender Bibb lettuce. Tomatoes and Peppers didn't do well either, but I think this was mostly due to lack of enough fish in my system to provide the required nutrients. The only plants that did well were my Basil, Swiss Chard and Romaine Lettuce plants.

As for the media grow beds inside the greenhouse, I have had to rip most of those out due to an explosion of white flies that started on my tomato plants and rapidly spread to almost all of the other plants in the greenhouse. I had them under control for quite sometime, but I believe the high heat in the greenhouse stressed the plants causing them to become less resistant to the white flies. After removing most of the plants with the exception of my red Swiss chard, some of the mint, basil and rosemary and spot spraying with insecticidal soap, the white fly population has dwindled considerably and is barely noticeable. I will continue to treat for them as I add back plants to the media grow beds. Lesson learned, be consistent and persistent with pest control.

Here are the Media growbeds partially replanted with the remaining plants from my rafts.

and a pics of the rafts after cleaning the surface of the foam boards, the liners were cleaned as well.

On a happier note, due to the increased temperature in the greenhouse, my fish tank water is hovering anywhere from 82 to 86 degrees which has promoted much spawning inside the tanks.

I currently have five broods of baby Tilapia in various stages of growth. I currently up to about 300 fish, including fry and fingerling's. A pic of the latest small fry is shown below, they are gray and hard to see in the photo but show up better in the video.

I also traveled, once again, down to Overton Fisheries to purchase some Red Mozambique Tilapia. I bought forty of these and actually ended up with about forty-six. While most were a solid orange/red color. I had 13 that were partially or fully grey with a red sheen to their bodies. The only way to tell the difference between these reds and normal grey Tilapia is by their Red Eyes. Since this is the first year Overton has offered these Tilapia, I believe their breeding program has not quite gotten to the point of producing pure reds.

I think I will try to breed these back to each other in successive generation to get  pure red females that I can then breed to a Nile Male for all male offspring....Some I'm off to by breeding tanks for my next chapter in Aquaponics. I intend to setup some breeding colonies of greys and reds, and once I get my Aquatic species/Aquaculture licenses perhaps I will try some Blues, & Niles.

Here's a quick video update on the aquaponics system...enjoy.

Plants, Plants and more Plants

Here's where my system is at going into mid May, I just got finished placing some of my left over expanded shale into the area around the pump house and barrel filters. I placed some above ground plastic edging at the boarder of the ground tarps over to the greenhouse , and then used about 3 wheelbarrow's full of shale to fill it in about 2" inches deep. I was in jeopardy of losing the weed block as it was beginning to deteriorate from the sun.

It turned out rather nice and provided good drainage for any rain water coming off the greenhouse.

I have also included a few pics of the raft system plants to show some of the growth that is going on.

I have five varieties of lettuce, which include Romain, and bibb. Just wish I had more growing.

 I also have squash and cucumber plants in the raft systems which seem to being doing "Just OK", but really haven't taken off yet.

Here is a quick overview video of the entire greenhouse setup, inlcuding the DWC Raft and new nursery plant rafts.

Until Next time....

DWC Raft construction update

OK, so I had time to make a quick video on the DWC rafts for one of my aquaponics media based growbed systems. I have finished the rafts and will concentrate on the filter system next which will allow me to tie the two types of media together into one system - DWC and Expanded shell grow beds. I will attempt to get the filter system completed within the next several days and hopefully have it completed and tested by the end of next week.

DWC on-going construction.

Hope you enjoy the video, and remember, you can find all of my videos on the Aquaponics Gardener YouTube channel.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Aquaponicsgardener

Until next time, happy gardening.

Insulation for the Fish Tanks

Sorry everyone for not posting lately, too many projects going on and with the daily grind of  "normal life" I haven't had much time to pursue my Aquaponics dream. Anyway, I decided to insulate the tops and bottoms of the fish tanks with 1" extruded polystyrene foam board that I picked up from Home Depot. I purchased four 4' x 8' sheets along with a couple of cans of 3M Super 77 spray adhesive to glue all the foam board up with. It was a challenge since I had to piece everything together on the top of the tanks due to the fact that I couldn't move the grow beds. Each individual piece had to be measured and cut to fit as no two pieces were the same. Time to complete 2-1/2 days. It was worth it and has cut down on the evaporative water loss from the fish tanks, which in turn has cut down on the humidity in the greenhouse. Oh..and did I mention the cost saving on electric to heat the water.  It dropped my bill by about 30%, almost to it's typical winter norm. And the cost for all of this was about $60 dollars. This is one of those " I wish I had done this sooner or first" situations. Hey, it's a learning experience...right? Oh well, I will know better in the future.  Of course, I am a little late on planting for seedlings, but that's for the next post. Until next time....

The sewing of Romaine Lettuce and Collard Greens

Aquaponics is amazing....after sowing several dozen Romaine lettuce seeds of various varieties. I was surprised to find that after 3 days most of the seeds had sprouted. This is truly amazing considering that normal germination for these seeds type is 7-10 days. I also did the same with a pack of Collard Green seeds and unexpectedly these also sprouted in 3 days while normal germination is 10-21 days. I have included a few photos to show the new babies.

 You can see the new lettuce sprouts next to the new Bell Pepper plants in the pic above.

 A closer view, I'm going to have to cull a few of these as they get bigger.

And yet more....

Here is a shot of the collard sprouts.

I also had a Basil harvest this past weekend due to the fact that the plants were starting to get lengthy and falling over. I cut these back and dried the leaves. I still have quite a few younger plants for fresh cut leaves when needed.

Next post  to follow will provide an overview the new solar hot water panel I put together to heat the fish tank water.

The Aquaponics Gardener Greenhouse update for December

Just thought I would throw together a quick update on the progress of the greenhouse. It's been a month since the last video showing how all of the plants and fish are growing....I'm very excited to see that the system is really starting to crank out the produce, and in the middle of winter...just mind numbing. Anyway, here's a quick look.

 And as stated in the video we had our first harvest of produce, I picked and prepared Swiss Chard, all types of Kale, Basil, Arugula Chocolate mint,  and spearmint which was mixed up in a nice salad.  It was really good, and there is plenty left over for a few days. I still have quiet a bit more growing in the greenhouse.

DIY EZ Cloner for Under $50 bucks

OK...so I realized that raising tomato plants from seed at this point is going to be challenging and I don't really have a resource in the winter for tomato plants, so what's an Aquaponics Gardener to do...Why, build my own DIY EZ Cloner and all for under $50..I say around $40 in the video, but I didn't figure in the cost of the pipe, fittings and the three additional Net Pots w/Neoprene inserts I'm going to need, so the total comes in at a little under $50..still not bad considering the price of a commercial unit. Here a few pics of the unit and a video overview of the cloner...I think it is going to work out just fine.

 The Finish Product

 A Blue 20 Gallon Tote from my local Family Dollar for $10

 Fairly deep compared to an 18 Gallon Tote

 Layout for 2" holes to accommodate Net Pots

 Starting the holes

Standard 2" Net Pots with Neoprene inserts.

 Finished the holes for now, still have to purchase 3 more 2" Net Pots w/Inserts

 1/2" PVC pipe spray bar before being drilled for spray heads

 Spray bar with 360 Degree spray heads installed.

 Close up of 360 mist head  11/64 drill bit used for installation

 Close up of 360 degree downspray streaming head 11/64 drill bit used for installation

 600 GPH pump to be changed out for a 300+ GPH later on.

Assembly installed in Tote

Here is a short video overview of the EZ Cloner in action.

Enjoy!!!

System Expansion Plans

OK...So, I've been toying with the idea of expanding my Aquaponics system to include DWC raft beds. I threw together a little sketch in Google Sketchup to show what it may evolve into later next year. I already have some of the peices needed such as the AquaTop AB120 Blower, Expanded Shale, etc. After careful calculation I can probably throw about $1.5K at it, which would include a Hoop Style Greenhouse covered in 6mil Poly Greenhouse plastic...not bad for the extra I would gain in grow space. I can use the existing system along with the two Danner MagDrive 9.5 -950 GPH pumps that currently sit in the fish tanks along with the Expanded Shale growbeds and the dual 1000W Titanium Aquarium heaters. I can redisign this system into a Constant Height in Fish Tank with no Sump needed. Using an Undercurrent model the Raft beds would be the sump with the pumps sitting outside of the tanks/growbeds while pulling the water through the  DWC raft beds and pumping water backup into the Expanded Shale growbeds. From my calculations even if all of the Shale growbeds filled at the same time/rate, then the rafts water levels would only drop 1.5 inches or 3/4 inch if I installed an indexing valve. The combo Vortex / Swirl filter and degassing chambers along with the shale growbeds should take care of all the filtering for the system. On the Mag pump with a 3' head, I should get about 800GPH out of both pumps , that would circulate all of the water in 4 raft beds in approx. 1hr 19m. The Shale growbeds would flood and drain approx. 3 times per hour.  Taking all growbeds into consideration, initially I will have 345Sq ft of growbed space. Using the assumption that you need .3LBs of fish per square foot of growbed space, I would calculate that 103 +/-  1Lb fish are needed for the system, approximately 25 fish per 175 Gal Tank.  I have the capacity to add another 2 Raft growbeds and up my count to 150 fish total.  Here is a quick fly by of the system.

 

DWC Raft beds are fed by 2" PVC through to the water pumps. Media grow beds use standard 1" PVC drain pipe and 1/2" PVC fill pipe with ball valves for flow control. AquaTop Blower uses 1" and 3/4" PVC pipe with flexible tubing feeding 6" air stones every 3ft in the Raft beds and 12" air stones in each Fish Tank.  I have calculated a need for approx. 6CFM total for the system @ 10" H20, and 2CFM @ 24" H20, which the AquaTop AB120 should provide.

The Aquaponics Gardener

Well, I have decided to change the name of the blog to better correlate what I am doing with my backyard and greenhouse in relation to aquaponics and not just aeroponics.  So, the new blog name will be "The Aquaponics Gardener" located at http://aquaponicsgardener.blogspot.com/ ,  I have also started a YouTube Channel by the same name located here: http://www.youtube.com/user/Aquaponicsgardener . So I will be periodically posting videos of my Aquaponics adventures for your viewing pleasure.  Hopefully, this will help some of you who are thinking about taking the plunge with Aquaponics, by avoiding some of the same mistakes I encountered. To get you started here is a quick overview of the Aquaponics system running in my greenhouse after it has been running for approximately 2 months. Enjoy....and until next time.

The Aquaponics Gardener Greenhouse overview video.

Water Quality Test for each system

I received my API Freshwater Test Kit a couple of weeks ago, and was able to test the nitrogen cycle of both tanks in relation to each units biological activity. 

After running both Aquaponic tank systems for approx. 2 weeks without media in the growbeds, and another week with media, while having approx. 10 gold fish present in each tank for the entire duration I was able to see where my tanks ammonia, PH, Nitrite, & Nitrate levels were at in the cycle.

On October 8th, I had the following results tested at 80 degree water temperature.

Tank System 1:
PH: 8.8 PPM
NO2: 5.0 PPM
NO3: 10 PPM
NH3/4:  .25 PPM

Tank System 2:
PH: 8.8 PPM
NO2: 5.0 PPM
NO3: 10-20 PPM
NH3/4:  0 PPM


Another test was performed on October 15 with the following resutls tested at 76 degrees for water temperature.

Tank System 1:
PH: 8.4 PPM
NO2: 0 PPM
NO3: 20 PPM
NH3/4: 0 PPM

Tank System 2
PH: 8.4 PPM
NO2: 2.0 PPM
NO3: 20 PPM
NH3/4: 0 PPM

As can be seen the tank systems are for the most part cycled, with the exception of the PH. which is high and is causing PH block for some of the nutrients in the system such as Iron, Calcium, & Potassium. A good organic pond fertilizer containing 10% iron, and Phosphate only was added to each tank to mitigate the iron deficiency, but due to the PH block this did not help.

I had added over several hours approx. 1/4 Gallon Muriatic acid to each system which temporarily lowered the PH to 7.8, after waiting 24 hours the systems were retested and due to the buffering action of the expanded shale, the PH crept back up to 8.4. I will continue to monitor all water quality on a weekly basis until the systems are stable, Muriatic Acid will continue to be added until I can get the PH down to 7.8, after which I will let it digress on it's own.  More plants were added, some of which have shown signs of iron deficiency. I have an organic powdered chelated iron product ordered which should arrive sometime this week. I will add this to the systems and report back on the results.

Overall, plant growth has been outstanding, I have one Stevia plant which has added about 12" of growth in two weeks, and an Early Bird Tomato plant which has added approx. 6-8 inches of growth along with blooms in the same time frame.  Kale has doubled in size, and herbs have had significant growth as well. Pepper plants are putting on more fruit as well.

More to follow.

IBC Tote tanks... continued

Alright, I have placed the last two tote tanks and configured them like the ones in the previous post without any issues. After measuring the standpipes  and bell housing, I had to cut them down by 1-1/2" to get the water level down to 10" in the growbeds which would allow for 12" deep grow media. I also added some drain holes to the outside perf pipe and covered them with fiberglass screening to allow for better water penetration into the siphon, without this I would get a premature siphon break half way through the cycle with substrate in place. Next, I ordered two 950 GPH magnetic drive pumps from a seller on eBay at a huge discount. I basically picked both units up for the price of one. These have been installed and a working as planned.

I also ordered a commercial air pump for use in the tanks with a 6 way control valve assembly and four 18" air stones. This unit puts out 45Liters per Hour which is more than enough for the 1100 Gallons of water I have in the fish tanks. It took about 30ft of 1/8" tubing extended to all tanks to get this in place.

 I also built a small shelf to house the unit and valve assembly. I had to bolt the air pump down to the shelf so it didn't vibrate around and fall off.

I have added 20 feeder gold fish to the tanks (5 for each tank) to start the nitrogen cycle process. I have had a few die off due to stress so I will be adding more as time permits.

Next it's on to the growbed media.....