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Aquaponics Revisited

jaykush

dirty black hands
ICMag Donor
Veteran
nice thread, so much f 'n info. hope to have a aquaponics system for veggies and stuff till i get it down for herb this season.
 
G

Guest

Hi folks welcome.

The undigested/uneaten fish food is part of the bacterias food. You can actually feed flake to one of these systems without fish in it and it still works albeit slower.

It's like water based composting in some respects.

Finding masses - MASSES - of worms in the beds. Did a bit of transplanting etc lately and the worm population looks like a worm farm.


I hear you on the natural foods. And the fishkeeping. That's why I suggest fish forums, it's like getting grow advice here as opposed to a hydro store - much better.

Salt - you can change a bit of water out at a time till there's hardly any of the original left and that'll work without shocking your system and stripping it of all the micro-flora fauna and humic acid present in the water at once giving it a better chance to replenish.
 
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8bitNES

Member
Goldfish will eat just about anything. A lot of goldfish enthusiasts will feed peeled peas too. Just as long as its reasonably soft, they'll eat it. I have 2 problems with flake food though. Flakes have additives in them for the fish which most are inorganic and if keeping goldfish, flakes usually lead up to swim bladder problems. If trying to keep with the whole hydro-organic thing, I'd shy away from the flakes and most pellets.

That's great about the worms. I wish I had more worms in my outdoor beds and pots. The wide use of chemical fertilizers always makes me ponder the effect they have on worms. We've seen what they do to amphibians and worms are much the same way.

8bit
 
G

Guest

No way!

You don't feed goldfish peas!

I get out there by dawn, make sure the lil fookers aint even lookin at my peas! My peas is so good, nobody gets dem peas. Pods n all scrunch scrunch. Not a single one has made it out the greenhouse door.

I agree on flake and additives. That's my big problem with the fish industry, and the food industry, and, well, industry...

Like sitting there at christmas dinner today (early one) - piles of shite surrounding small islands of food. Go to a supermarket, where they supposedly sell 'food' - aisles of shite surrounding....

You get the picture.

Read the labels, then toss. Save yourself time. If it's in lots of packaging that requires fine print, toss it.

I read the labels for my fish food too, the cheapest brands are often best as they can't afford all the additives. Local suppliers better yet, the fresher the better and if you have mates you split a big lot bought into smaller amounts to avoid any oxidative rancidity (hence swim bladder issues).

Met another fish farmer today by chance. Was driving in country (lost) and stopped at side of road, look out window, I'm parked outside a fish farm - YAY!

He's interested in Aquaponics and has got like 100 000 gallons of ponds or so by the look of things. Could make a seriously kickass greenhouse, or even a run to waste crop and just put a flow of water through the farm and out onto the crop...

Fun fun fun.
 

8bitNES

Member
I apologize by not being clear enough. Some people feed CANNED peas. I advise you to never let me in your greenhouse if you're growing peas or any type of small, bite-size tomato. But if you're ever on vacation and you need a greenhouse-sitter...

Thats great about the fish farmer. What does he raise? Kind of like a local butcher, but for fish. You should tell him that if he needs help with filtration during the growing season he should go the aquaponic route. Although I'm a fan of farming fish for environmental concerns but they usually don't have good water quality which leads to lower quality livestock. I would actually urge all fish farmers to run some sort of vegetable crop because otherwise that water ends up being a high nitrogen waste.

Happy Holidays.
8bit
 
G

Guest

You aint telling me new things here but you're welcome to repeat it.

Aquaponics could clean Aquaculture right up. And Hydroponics. Did I mention Agriculture too?...

The guy dumps all his water. Not only a big polluter but a big waster. Tons of fertiliser per year going down the drain. But one day, he's gonna be twice as well off on a clean farm.

And then he will be an advertisement.

He grows fancy goldfish. Feeds commercial pellets. Changes 100% of his water out.

Now there's a worthy project!

See, if I can help this guy, he'll tell all his mates. That's the only way to do it, results. Farmers don't give a shit about what they discard as long as they make a living. Now here's the trick to saving the planet - the only one, imo, that will work....

Profitable waste.

Show them the money, or save your breath.
 

gride

Member
ph and wet dry

ph and wet dry

very nice thread BongSong
ill be following along. :joint:
I saw you had a problem keeping your ph down..
have you ever tried wood in your tank to do that?
i i know ive read somewhere that certain woods
will naturally keep your ph down
also, have you ever tried to use wet/dry (trickle)
filters in an aquaponics system??
for reef tanks, a w/d filter with proper flow rates,
provides all the dissolved oxygen necessary for abundant life
and keeps the water very clean..
im gonna try one on my next dwc run...
easy to add
another thing in that realm is protein skimmers
i think that would work more for an aquaponics system
would it help with regular hydroponics?
maybe if you were doing a no res. change bio type system

enough rambling...keep up the cool work
its great to see something like this in which profit is not the main goal
 
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jaykush

dirty black hands
ICMag Donor
Veteran
See, if I can help this guy, he'll tell all his mates. That's the only way to do it, results. Farmers don't give a shit about what they discard as long as they make a living. Now here's the trick to saving the planet - the only one, imo, that will work....

im sure if you can get the idea of turning waste into cash they would all jump on the band wagon. sucks to hear he just dumps it.
 

scegy

Active member
bongsong

i'm happy to read that u'r progressing intensively!
i agree on your views, that's the reason i'm into AP buddy!
my 120 L system grows basils and rosemarin right now, i finally figured out what was missing and it's kicking ass now!it was a biiig lack of Fe, after i've added it, things started to grow hydro way, you know

now my next system will be located somewhereelse, a 1000 L system, with 1000 L growbeds, i'll be growing trout for a start and all kinds of vegetables for my family and friends, i've also interested 2 other ppl to build them a little smaller AP systems and a few others that began to show some interest

i mean i've been taught in school to actually think it's right to flush all that nutrients into the ground, use all that water with watering systems, anti freezing systems, heating system etc. **** man, i mean
the other day that i added Fe i calculated how many ppms do you have to add according to the supplyer and what they teach us in school. you'r like adding a minimal of 30 000 ppm in 1 L of water solution. whilst in AP you add 5-10 ppm(to the WHOLE system, no matter how big), if you add more you automatically kill fish and see the results of your actions

bongsong, dude, you just work on it, and have in mind that the negative energy around you is there to confuse you or teach you, so you can also teach yourself to be slick and ignore the commercial world around you
remember, AP cannot be done truly the BIO way if you add any kind off shit in the water, you will eat dirty fish and crappy veggies, like you do in most intensive farming products.

i mean look it this way, you can provide food for yourself, your family, your friends etc. with what you already know, and if you pass that knowledge on, anyone that chooses to be independant in this way, can live with far less costs, and a cleaner enviroment
i mean if everyone needed, good pumps, good gardening accessories etc, we would pay only for good products, since you don't need to buy a 20 000 EUR worth tractor to start your farming, and the next year you figure out that you've been f...ed with that deal, and then what?labour!
so by natural selection, good firms will survive, petrochemistry(mineral ferts) cannot go on much longer dude, ppl will slowly realize that we cannot do this to ourselves, to OUR planet that depends on US.

if you still haven't, google backyardaquaponics

thrive on man, no matter what!
 
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8bitNES

Member
BongSong said:
You aint telling me new things here but you're welcome to repeat it.

Show them the money, or save your breath.
I apologize, sometimes I have the tendency to "think out loud". I realize that you more than understand all those ideas, maybe the only way to rationalize it is maybe someone who didn't understand, does now. You're right though, if wasting doesn't hurt producers in their pockets they normally don't care. What's BAQ?

scegy, I too would like to know how you add iron. I can't imagine how adding iron wouldn't hurt the fish.

Do any of you run greenwater setups? When I had ponds the fish loved it but wonder what effect it would have on root systems.

8bit
 

scegy

Active member
hey there

i'm using 3% chelated iron, organic rated, you can get it in any garden or fish store
i add only 5 ppm per month and both aquarium and dwc plants love it, this was an advice by somehow experienced AP growers, although i've suspected before that it was iron, i was just sceptical in putting it to my fish, although i've used it already before in my rec. system but in a liquid shape, not organic rated
so it was a big relax to see ppl with simmilar problems, solving things the way i should and having the same resluts after

banned frob BAQ? i'm not gonna go into fighting here, but most of the info i find there is pretty much what i've experienced over the years working with recirculative system and for the last year AP and it's nice to see ppl working on simmilar things and helping eachother
the truth is always relative ofcourse, i've killed 3 fish when i added Fe first and some aminoacids, but that was due to me being stupid and not calculating the right ammount of substance for my system. i just blindly followed the manufacturer's instructions for foliar feeding plants and devided that with 4.

so i'm not blaming any of them for those 3 fish that were killed, because i added 30 000 ppm to my system, and when that mixed therei was 3000 ppm sucking the life out off them, even so only 3 died over the night in that solution before i diluted it

ofcourse, snakes are everywhere i know and i know that if i poke them too hard, they'll attack, so i gotta be sneaky too when i meet them-not trying to be a smartass here bongsong, i hope u trust me on that one

by greenwater you mean that literally? my water is yellow-greenish colored, roots don't mind the color untill the right ingreedients are present in the right quantities, how would they live in the "dirty" soil then? :D
 
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G

Guest

Hiya Scegy

Yes, lot of people doing a lot of good things, that's a description I could give BAQ.

Thanks for the iron info.
 
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8bitNES

Member
Greenwater is indeed an algal bloom. Its generally great for fish. Many fancy goldfish and koi enthusiasts will keep their water green for the benefits (more oxygen and nutrients from the vegetable matter, nitrogen depletion from algae). When I had my goldfish in greenwater they became very strong looking and their color was greatly enhanced.

What became an issue was filter cleaning since my sponges would filter the free algae. How did greenwater affect your AP plants? Did the algae attach to the roots? Was that a bad thing or did the roots appreciate it?

8bit
 
G

Guest

the system sitting around 6.2 - 6.4 pH, not a deficiency to be seen, and redickerlously fast growth, the lower pH is best for certain herbs, of that I'm convinced now.
 
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G

Guest

ADD TO LAST POST... Dialling it in.

Iron - Fe. Scegy is correct about iron, when my fish aren't eating iron filled greens, or it's not foliar fed with seaweed, I experience problems. Adding a chelated product makes perfect sense.

Cetain natural rocks etc might provide iron, it will be oxidies slowly...
 
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scegy

Active member
The cabinet does not need iron - WHY? I'm still suspecting the rock collection he has in the Aquarium. Need a rockhound to look at them....

sorry man but i don't know about whom u'r talking about?
well i had no Fe defficiencies for the first month, then there was a major lack for months untill i replaced it with chelated one, so maybe that's the case at the system u'r talking about, or there must be another source of Fe, i don't know, we'll figure something out if you tell more i guess :wave:
 

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