120ThingsIn20Years or bullwinkle saying hello from south oz

[120ThingsIn20Years]

I've had a small test system for around a year and a half, and currently run 6 silver perch (ranging from approx 18 to 25cm in length) in a stacked, half blue barrel fish tank under a half blue barrel grow bed.

The system is in a 1.8 meter cubed grow house with around 50 holes on NFT tubes and strawberry towers attached.

I run a shortened bell siphon with the breather set so that only the top 8cm of water gets dumped. This was done to increase the amount of water I could hold to add a bit of stability to my system. The NFT tubes collect a lot of heat, so the more water in the system the better. The siphon still draws hard, and from the bottom, so I haven't seen any problems as yet with dead zones.

I also run a tub of duckweed connected via a "no holes" siphon to the fish tank. This means the tide in the duckweed tank matches the fishtank and keeps the duckweed tank ticking over with new water all the time as it breathes in and out with each cycle.

I got into aquaponics as a result of researching things for my blog, where I blog about my attempt to learn 120 things in the next 20 years. I'm in year 2 and aquaponics was my first "thing". The current thing is programmable chips and electronics, but all "things" are ongoing, and tend to overlap. My first electronics project is an open source demand fish feeder with over feeding limits, where the fish hit a lever to get feed, but cant feed more than, or more often than, the user wants them to.

I'll have my head down for a while reading old threads and seeing what there is to see, and look forward to popping my head back up in a few days.

I'm known around the net mostly as 120ThingsIn20Years, or as Bullwinkle II.

My skills include being able to move slowly forward in time, and if I really concentrate, I can sometimes tell what I'm thinking.


-BullwinkleII

[urbanfarmer]

Greetings Earthling, and welcome to the addiction! :mrgreen:

[stucco]

Welcome! System and strawberry tower pics please. :)

[keith_r]

Hey BullWinkle.. good to see you here!

[120ThingsIn20Years]

Thanks keith_r, glad to be here.

[attachment=3:1vrc09fx]120 Things in 20 years - Aquaponics - Finished grow house.jpg[/attachment:1vrc09fx]This is the system from a month ago or so. I've lost 3 computers in a week last week, (all really old but strange none the less to pull yet another old computer from the depths of the shed and have it fall over within a day...twice after the first one (also really old) died on me.) so I lost a few photos due to poor backups.

But here are the strawberry towers on the right, some lettuce, and other salad NFT holes on the left, and my fish tank/grow bed blue barrel with tomato young capsicum and a few herbs. The grow bed looks a little bare because I recently topped up the gravel and a few things had to go. The gravel had settled because we moved it here from our old house and it settled in transit. Perhaps all those corn flake boxes really are full when they leave the factory :)

The lettuce holes on the left are also quite new (ie as young as the coz lettuce looks) and the plants in the far left tube are beans. That tomato pictured centre is totally out of control now and fruiting heavily.

[attachment=2:1vrc09fx]120 Things in 20 years - Aquaponics - 51 strawberries on a plant.jpg[/attachment:1vrc09fx]Strawberry towers on the right are single sided and at an angle to prevent leakage, and if I were to do it again from scratch I'd do it a bit differently, but they do pretty well.

In fact I'd do almost everything differently, but I think that's the nature of the game :)

[attachment=1:1vrc09fx]120 Things in 20 years - Aquaponics - Duckweed.jpg[/attachment:1vrc09fx]I also have a duckweed tub connected to grow a bit of duckweed to mix up their diet a bit. This is connected with a "no holes"siphon and breathes in and out with the tide in the fish tank.

[attachment=0:1vrc09fx]120 Things in 20 years - Aquaponics - clear water.jpg[/attachment:1vrc09fx]And my silver perch now number only six as some looked a little sad during an unexplained nitrite spike a few weeks ago, so I thought I'd eat them out of their misery. My fish tank was getting a little crowded anyway.

The nitrite spike remains a mystery, but they were my first fish for the plate and tasted great. I had no real plans to eat my fish because I was running such a small system, but my long term plans involve plate fish as at least some part of the equation. Mrs 120ThingsIn20Years doesn't eat fish, and we don't have kids, so I have no real need to push any limits as far as raising fish is concerned, but one kg of fish a week would be the sized system I would ultimately like, to keep me in omega 3 heaven, and feed some friends every now and again.

That's pretty much it for the current system, but I've just got the go ahead from the owners (we rent) to do whatever I want, so good times ahead :)

In the place we moved from 8 months ago, we were cycling up a 3000L grow bed + 2000L fish tank and 1000L of duckweed tank, when the owners decided to renovate rather than letting us sign up for another 10 years. Ouch.

It isn't easy selling a 3000L abalone tank filled with blue metal gravel, but I found a buyer that was willing to shovel gravel, and it went to a good home with a young family. They also took our emu (http://120thingsin20years.blogspot.com/2010/05/aquaponics-emu-spin-cycle.html) and two chickens as we had to move back into suburbia :cry:

[davidstcldfl]

Hi bullwinkle, welcome to DIY.... :D
Sorry to hear you had to move back to the subs....glad to hear you were able to keep doing AP though... :) Looks like you got lots growing well in a small space.

[120ThingsIn20Years]

I still wake up in a cold sweat at the loss of my old system though :)

I was in mourning for a few months :)

It never grew even one plant and was only days away from adding fish :(

[attachment=0:1fk2jhvk]old growbed.JPG[/attachment:1fk2jhvk]

This is a picture of the growbed on the day before the gravel was delivered.

[davidstcldfl]

I still wake up in a cold sweat at the loss of my old system though

I was in mourning for a few months


I may understand how you feel.....I recently took apart my own home system. I'll be moving soon too. I still walk into the back yard, checking on my now 'empty' 500 gal fish tank.... :(

At least I'm teaming up with 'Sahib'....doing vertical towers and other methods of aquaponics in Orlando FL. That's helping a lot.
I got to help teach/share about aquaponics in a 2 day class last weekend. That kept my mind off my own loss....sure is fun helping 'newbies' learn.... :)

[120ThingsIn20Years]

These people make a product you might find interesting interesting product (http://brightagrotech.com/).

Recycled bottles, shredded into media, and stuffed into vertical gutters with a slit down the entire length to allow planting anywhere.

more suitable for things that are repeat harvest I would think. I suspect you'd leave a lot of root behind if you pulled plants to harvest them, but an interesting idea.

[davidstcldfl]

Thanks bullwinkle... :D We have some of the zip towers, aka as 'Nate's towers' ...we are also using verti grows, DIY pocket towers and some towers Sahib made from pvc fittings which we jokingly call 'Babylon towers'.

Just a tease...We will be starting a build of some new towers this comming week. Not sure what we will call them....? I'll post more on them later :)

[120ThingsIn20Years]

Are you commercial?

[davidstcldfl]

Sahib started by trying/experminting with different systems and it just kept growing... :D. How many times has that happened to aquaponic systems... :lol:
Now we are aproaching a big enough combined system that we are gearing up to be a small 'urban' commercial farm.
I guess I should start a new post and share some of the new things we are trying.