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Cyara
06-10-2010, 10:40 AM
Hello Everyone,

I hope this is the right place to put this. Couldn't find one more suitable.

I want to build an AP system where I can use algae to feed my fish. Algae clogs pumps so I will not be able to use a pump within the system to re-cycle water.

The sequence is of the water flow is ..... top- up water into fish pond ........ Solids Lifting Overflow .... gravity fed............ into base of wicking earthworm beds...... fibrous material wicks the water up to the plants.

I figure I will be able to use both the nutrients of the fish water and the nutrients created by teh worms for the plants and perhaps in this way not need to add anything to the system... ie. chelated iron... or seaweed plant food.

Ihave a design pic I can upload if interested.

Anyone done anything like this before?

Chelle

JCO
06-10-2010, 11:19 AM
Pictures are always received with great interest as would be a diagram of your set up :mrgreen:

Cyara
06-10-2010, 11:42 AM
How do I upload an image from my PC?

Chelle

davidstcldfl
06-10-2010, 01:02 PM
Click on the FAQ's button at the top of the page.....Frequently Asked Questions

Found the following under the heading....Formatting and Topic Types



Can I post images?

you must link to an image stored on a publicly accessible web server, e.g. http://www.example.com/my-picture.gif. You cannot link to pictures stored on your own PC (unless it is a publicly accessible server) nor images stored behind authentication mechanisms, e.g. hotmail or yahoo mailboxes, password protected sites, etc. To display the image use the BBCode [img] tag.

I use photobucket.com it's free to use. Just have to sign up first.

Hope this helps :D

Cyara
06-11-2010, 05:02 AM
Big help. Thanks :D I should have thought of that.

Chelle

francois
06-11-2010, 06:26 AM
[quote="Cyara"]nutrients created by the worms for the plants and perhaps in this way not need to add anything to the system... ie. chelated iron... or seaweed plant food.

that is all i use in my system

worms/vermicastings and vermitea i brew and the fish food and waste
add calcuim and iron every now and then
worms go very well with aquaponic's
never used anything else

Cyara
06-11-2010, 07:42 AM
I like the sound of all you are doing there, Francois. Have you ever made compost tea to create more Efficient Microbes and sprayed it on your plants? I have bought everything so far and want to try when it warms up again.

I am hoping to avoid adding anything to my AP system that I cannot sustain from my farm.... even iron. I want to teach this to the very poor who will not have access to any extras. Maybe pieces of iron can be added to the system somewhere? I know if you cook on an iron skillet you never get an iron deficiency.......

Of course this is idealistic theory at this stage... :D many learnng curves ahead I am sure.

Chelle

Cyara
06-11-2010, 08:06 AM
This is a SketchUp design of what I hope to do......

http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l132/Cyara248/GENERAL%20UPLOADS/WickingBedDesign.jpg

All water in the system is gravity fed. The long narrow pebble pond between the Fish Pond and the Wicking Beds is to store water and disperse via gate valves as needed into the reservoirs beneath the worm beds.... additionally also help in further breakdown of solids into nitrates. Once in teh reservoirs this is then wicked up as needed by normal water tension. I have been told it can wick up 300mm easily.

The reservoirs are 200mm and the wormbeds on top are 300mm... I will build up another 100mm higher just to keep soil in place..... soil will only come up 300mm. Mulch will be used at all times to save water and protect the worms. There will be an inspection pipe down into the reservoir to check water levels.

I will need to be sure to add enough wormbeds to be able to offload enough top up water to the fish to keep their water quality good. No pumps needed within the system... so no jam-ups with algae that feeds the fish.

What do you think? Any problems you can foresee?

Chelle

francois
06-14-2010, 07:42 AM
Have you ever made compost tea to create more Efficient Microbes and sprayed it on your plants?
I am hoping to avoid adding anything to my AP system that I cannot sustain from my farm.... even iron. I want to teach this to the very poor who will not have access to any extras. Maybe pieces of iron can be added to the system somewhere? I know if you cook on an iron skillet you never get an iron deficiency.......

Of course this is idealistic theory at this stage... :D many learnng curves ahead I am sure.

Chelle

We are aiming at the same target

Cyara
06-14-2010, 12:05 PM
Great! :D

stucco
06-14-2010, 06:43 PM
Howdy, Cyara, and welcome to the diy forum! I think your sketch up looks good and the idea for the slo drain draining directly into the wicking bed is good. Our worms love to eat the fish solids. Assuming your liftgates are manually operated, you could water from the top so the good stuff is filtered away from the water as it makes its way thru the growmedia. I think this will make it more readily available to the worms. FIY-composting worms have an aquatic gene (some types worse than others) so if not kept separate from the water they can easily drown themselves. It is not easy finding a material that they cannot eat or move through or that will not deteriorate over time, but a separation between the standing water and the soil along with a constant supply of food (solids removed from the fish tank) will help keep them where they need be.

Cyara
06-15-2010, 05:32 AM
Hi stucco, Thanks for the welcome..... and your comments! :D

I am not sure what a lift gate is. Please would you explain? I am just using gate valves - open and shut valves operated manually as desired. They involve no lift because it all follows gravity. These lead the water into underneath the worm/growbeds and all watering will be through wicking upward.... well that is the plan! :D I have been told it will work and is working for others. They have just not used it as part of an AP system.

I agree with you about separating the wormbed soil above from the gravel reservoir below is important. I will probably just use a piece of cloth of some sort to effect this. I will be feeding the worms kitchen waste buried into the bed in different places as well as hopefully the nitrates proceesed with the nitrogen cycle and wicked up with the water. I am hoping this double whammy of nutrition will help me avoid having to supplement with any other sort of plant food.

If there is enough oxygen in the water... such as with a recycling system.... which this is not... then the earthworms can actually stay "underwater" without drowing. I found this hard to believe at first, but it has proven true. Oxygenation seems to be the criteria.

If I wanted to feed the fish poo from above as you are suggesting then davidstcldfl's neat swirl filter would be excellent to introduce somewhere in the system. I am definitely toying with the idea.

Thanks for your thoughts. :)
Chelle

elaidlaw
07-09-2010, 12:02 PM
What would your stocking density be? If you want to maximize fish production, my concern would be for aeration of the water. Do you plan to use air pumps?

Cyara
07-10-2010, 12:10 AM
Because it is not a recirculation system but merely water use by gravity feed and top-up - exactly as I do with my fish now because there is a very slow leak in the old reservoir that I keep the tilapia in - I will be using non-tech aeration techniques before the top-up water enters the pond.... flowforms and waterfalls. The flow-forms will guide the water from my top-up tank at the top of my food forest.... this increases humidy there too as it meanders through the food forest as well as oxygenating the water for the fish.... and then it will be guided to fall over a wide waterfall to fall in a thin sheet into the pond. This also adds ozone. Tilapia are not in need of oxygen dense water .... like trout for instance. They are doing really well and breeding with nothing more than top-up at the moment .... so draining off fish water for the worm beds will even improve water quality compared to what they have now because there will be more frequent top-up.

That is the current plan. I want low-tech and low maintenance all the way that I can manage it. The one pump I do have is necessary to draw up well water for the house, and so I will draw off of that tank as needed .... as I do now. I want very clean water for the fish. For the Food Forest I will have another system drawing off river water by way of a coil pump and ram pumps in continuous movement up to another top tank and leaking down into underground reservoirs under the pathways I am currently building.

I still have a way to go.... but building the whole integration step by step. The wormbeds will come last after the food forest and fish pond. These beds will be more of a speciality kitchen garden that I can enclose. Unfortunately the CDs did not work in chasing away the monkeys. It is very wid around here so maybe they are more hungry and determined. It only took them an afternnon to figure out these things were not going to hurt them. I hung plenty. Pity. But was worth a try so still appreciate the idea being suggested.

Chelle