Aquaponics Update, April 27, 2011

I'm excited that folks at our Seicho-No-Ie truth realization seminar made a short visit to the house to see my "mini farm" this weekend. We checked out my aquaponics system, little chickies, bunnies, fishies, and even worms. I think the kids enjoyed feeding all of them and collecting eggs! Chicken eggs, that is! And we picked alot of lettuce and watercress for our dinner salad. It felt really, really good to share what I grew with friends.

That evening, we boiled and colored the eggs using natural dyes ... blue with purple cabbage, green with spinach, yellow with ground tumeric, yellow with onion skins, pink with beets, and red with red onion skins. To make green, we also mixed the purple cabbage and onion skins dye and it worked really well! It made a delicate green.

And we even had a taste test. Clifford, our chef for the weekend, tasted mainland eggs and my chickie eggs side by side ... and he said there is a definite difference and that my chickie eggs tastes like what eggs used to taste like! That's the biggest compliment ever!

Aquaponics Update - April 7, 2011

Powdery mildew

Eeek! powdery mildew on my potted kale!

Milk treatment of powdery mildew on kale in my aquaponics bed

Powdery mildew ... powdery mildew ... powdery mildew. It's a funny word combination, isn't it? Anyhoo, this fungus ended up on my redbor and regular kale in my aquaponics grow beds (It also infested my long beans in my garden but I'm so tired of eating long beans, I'll let them have it). I found out diluted whole milk (1 part milk to 4 parts water) is an effective treatment so I tried it ... and it is working! For a soy milk kind of gal, I had to buy a half quart of the stuff! It looks like I will need to treat again because there are spots that I missed but I am pleasantly surprised by the results and there is apparently no harm to my fish. I mean, milk?! Really? Yeah, really! :D

Waste and growing my own food

I used to waste a lot of store-bought vegetables! Know what I mean? I'm sure we all have that browning head of lettuce in our fridge and are watching 3/4 of our parsley or basil bunch turning right before our eyes. Such waste!

Wanna eat fresh veggies, reduce waste, learn about the circle of life, work outdoors, be more self-sustainable, live a healthier lifestyle? Consider growing your own food! No matter what the kind of garden, as Martha Steward says, "It's a good thing." I have an aquaponics setup but I also have fruit trees (tangerines, papapya, star fruit, pomelo, etc.) and traditional garden beds and I'm able to pick only what I need, when I need it. Of course, I have to eat more seasonably, but that's part of the circle of life and takes some getting used to. Okay, I know I'm spoiled because I have to constantly fight the urge to demand what I want when I want it ... but that immediacy is just an artifact of the un-sustainable nature of our food system. I have to remind myself of that.

Aquaponics Update - 12/18/10

It has been 7 days since my last update and O-M-G! I am thinking the claims that veggies grow much faster in aquaponics systems than in soil medium are possibly true. I only wish I had my raised garden bed prepared to test this hypothesis. Maybe next time.

I shoulda known the ants were up to no good! Where there are ants, there are aphids. I found the source ... hidden amongst my mint leaves was a healthy colony of fat aphids that eventually invaded my fennel. One nice thing about the floating rafts is I can pull the plant out, spray with soapy water, wash it off, and return it to its spot. :) Aphids are HISTORY!
I had some problems with what I think is iron deficiency so treated with some foliar Fe/Zn spray and added some Maxicrop with iron for insurance a couple days ago. I'm still waiting to see the results but chucked one struggling chlorotic mizuna. No space for the weak in this system! LOL
I've started a new rotation of lettuce in the hopes this system will provide lettuce year round.

Joan's aquaponic setup

33 golden tilapia, 12 cayenne peppers, 11 kinds of veggies, 5 colorful koi, 4 grow beds, 3 collard seedlings, 2 electric pumps, 1 timer, and a flower in my eggplant treeeeee! Happy holidays everyone!

More requested info: pump in 100-gal tank runs @ 500 g/hr (runs intermittently, every 2 hrs for 30 min but only twice after sunset for 5 min), pump in 40-gal sump runs @ 250 g/hr runs continuously. Since I live in Hawaii, the system runs year round. Cost of system (plus fish and plants) is in the $1000 range. I'll post more accurate totals once I figure it out. (Updated, 8/18/11)

Aquaponics fish tank - golden tilapia

Dinner, Lunch, and Jack (the one-eyed tilapia) are doing well amongst the minion. I'm sure they get the best morsels too.

If you're an aquaponics nerd, you might find this info interesting ... pH is 6.8, ammonia is negligible, nitrites 0.25 mg/L, and nitrates 15 mg/L. I dunno the dissolved oxygen but I use an airpump and airstone. Oh, and the PVC pipe with holes that is running along the bottom of the tank is part of the pump, drawing off fish solids (i.e., poop). It's been really effective so far!

My fish tank is 100 gallons and receives the overflow from the sump. The pipe to the left is the overflow drain so I don't flood my downstairs when it rains hard.

Aquaponics update - 12/11/10

The aquaponics system is finally equalizing and the little buggers have the nitrates and other nutrients they need. The veggies are doing well and the little sprouts are about as big as the ones I started separately and transplanted 2 weeks before! Seeding the beds directly saved me tons of time and the seeds seem to have set at the right depth, which means the mizuna and collards won't fall over like the others! Check here to see the beds two weeks ago.Whoa, is there enough space to fit everything? Prolly not but I'l cull as we go. However, I think the system should be able to handle the close proximity. With the roots bathing in nutrients, there would be less competition, right? It's all theoretical now so I'll be interested to see how things go. I'm so stoked about the mizuna. Just the idea of having it available year-round is worth the effort of putting together this system!
The deep water culture beds are doing well too! The watercress is finally picking up speed and so are the ong choi and mint. Click here to see the beds two weeks ago.

I'm so glad that my lettuce are doing what lettuce is supposed to do!

Aquaponics update - 11/27/10

11/27/10 - 6 days later ... The sprouts have come up! (I added the eggplant to the cinder bin about 5 days ago, on 11/22/10). Check out how big the cayenne chili and kale got!

cinder - 11/27/10 hydroton - 11/27/10

I transplanted some starts six days before, on 11/21/10. The plants are from KTA (curly parsley, purple kale, fennel); vegetables I started myself (Swiss chard, mizuna); and a couple basil starts that the guy at Ohana Greenhouse gave me. I planted the chili and larger purple kale a few days earlier. I also sowed some mesclun, mizuna, and Swiss chard seeds in the hopes they'll start and sustain themselves on their own. But really, it's jus' cuz I'm really lazy. Check out the pics above to see what the bins look like 6 days later!

cinder - 11/21/10 hydroton - 11/21/10

Golden tilapia

I just added 16 more fingerlings to the mix. 34 in all. The 2 largest ones are Lunch and Dinner (sick, I know) and one without an eye is Jack, the one-eyed tilapia. And I put 5 pretty koi in the sump. They all seem to like their new digs.

Oh my ... folks, please remind me to stop naming animals I will be eating!

My aquaponic setup

Aquaponics setup - 75% done!

I probably have just one more weekend of fiddling before my aquaponics setup is fully functional. The continuous flow half is up and running and I started my lettuce yesterday. I also inoculated the flood and drain grow beds with some vermicastings and worms in the hopes I've introduced necessary nitrifying bacteria. The pipe fittings are not glued yet as I'm still tweaking the system. I've yet to connect the fish tank pump and of course, I still need to get some fish! Almost there!

Edited: Cement mixing tubs, while not obviously made for other purposes, should be vetted for fish and food safety before using. The brand I purchased is fish safe and materials it is made of suggests it is food safe as well.

Aquaponics! Getting there!

I'm so excited to get the media into the bins today! The two black tubs are my biofilters, which will accept the water directly from the fish tank. One is filled with 3 bags of black cinder and the other is filled with a 50-liter bag of hydroton. It could probably use another 10 liters tho'. Before filling the tubs, I sifted the black cinder with a screen of 0.25 inch hardware cloth and washed it. I just washed the hydroton.

So, generally, my setup operates in two integrated parts, in theory:

Part I, Ebb and Flow: Water runs from fish tank via 500 GPH water pump => 2 biofilter grow beds => through bell siphon (CTAHR-style) => sump => overflow returns to fish tank.

Part II: Continuous Flow: Water runs from sump via 250 GPH water pump => 2 white floating rafts grow beds => overflow from grow beds returns to sump => overflow from sump returns to fish tank. Note: the fish tank is not shown. It's located in the slightly sunken basement, behind the brown laths of the house.

Goodness, I really hope this works.

Backyard aquaponics ... the adventure

On to my new project ... AQUAPONICS! Aquaponics is the cross between hydroponics (growing plants in a water medium) and aquaculture (growing fish for food). It's a rather ingenious idea, actually, and is really catching on by those who want to grow their own food and to remain sustainable. Basically, one grows vegetables using fish poo, which is high in nitrogen. The fish water is piped to vegetable growing beds where bacteria break down the ammonia to nitrites and then nitrates, which is a form plants can take up. In doing so, the plants clean the water, which is then circulated back to the fish!

I've started building my three grow bed benches and have already finished the table for my 100-gallon fish tank. Thanks to Donna and Tracy, the Vierra's, and donations from church, I have enough recycled wood for my construction projects. And bless you Dennis for cutting the 2x4s to length for 2 tables! It helped tremendously!

Oh, did I tell you that I am running all of this on solar power? The generator is purchased and ready to install! I'm so excited! More pics soon!