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  1. #31
    Members Shas's Avatar
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    Re: Aquaponics 101 Part Three: System Design, Continue

    I'm not stressed, Oliver,
    I just want to hear the end of that sentence!
    "The reason for this one to one ratio limitation is that..."
    I'm sitting on the edge of my seat here!

    Thanks again for an excellent presentation of information.
    Concise, articulate, authoritative, accessible. generous, relevant and interesting.
    May your tribe increase!
    Would that more of my profs had been like you!

    Shas
    Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you're a nice person
    is like expecting a bull not to charge you because you're a vegetarian.

  2. #32
    Aquaponics 101 Oliver's Avatar
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    Re: Aquaponics 101 Part Three: System Design, Continue

    Ok, I moved the "reason for a one to one ratio" sentence into the previous paragraph. I hope that helps explain the concept.

    Oliver
    To measure is to know

  3. #33
    Members Shas's Avatar
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    Re: Aquaponics 101 Part Three: System Design, Continue

    "The reason for this one to one ratio limitation is that the water in the fish tank goes up and down during the grow bed's flood and drain process and too much variation in water hight can stress the fish"

    Got it.
    Thanks.
    Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you're a nice person
    is like expecting a bull not to charge you because you're a vegetarian.

  4. #34
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    Re: Aquaponics 101 Part Three: System Design, Continue

    Quote Originally Posted by JCO
    I have built my FT outside by building a frame work of 4"x4" post 3' or so in the dirt and about 30" above ground. Then I use 1"x6"s to build the sides above ground. Then I dig out the interior into the dirt the desired dept going from shallow to deep to encourage the poo to the deep end to be pumped out.
    I hope this helps.
    JCO, do you have any pictures of the construction from that kind of tank or grow bed. I would be interested. Also, do you require heating for your tank?

  5. #35
    Members Shas's Avatar
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    Re: Aquaponics 101 Part Three: System Design, Continue

    Oliver, thanks again for this excellent treatise.
    I'm learning a lot from you.
    I'd like to ask about this statement:

    Quote Originally Posted by Oliver
    You should never have any metal in your system or plumbing, including the fish tank, metal grow bed containers without liners, valves, especially copper, zinc or brass because they will leach toxic metal into the water and kill your fish. Just stay completely away from any metal coming into contact with your system water with the exception of iron or stainless steel..
    I have heard this warning for forty years,
    and have passed it along many times.
    But somehow my own experience doesn't seem to support it.

    I know that copper is the traditional biocide in marine paints,
    and it seems to do a decent job
    at discouraging both plants and invertebrates from growing
    on boat bottoms and submarine structures.
    Yet humans have been drinking from copper pipes
    and cups and kettles since the Bronze Age.
    And I'm guessing that very few of us are filling our fish tanks
    with water that has NOT travelled in copper pipes.

    When I was raising angel fish commercially back in the 1980s
    I found that the lead water pipes in my old house
    interfered with the development of both eggs and fry.
    After a house fire (arson, unrelated to the fish business)
    I replaced all my pipes with copper
    and my cichlids seemed happy and healthy,
    breeding freely and with high hatching, survival, and growth rates.
    I was doing some selective breeding
    and had probably up to twelve generations of breeders,
    with no decrease in health, growth, or survival rates,
    so there didn't seem to be any cumulative ill effects from the copper pipes.

    So what is the real-life effect on fish and gardens
    of heating and delivering water with copper pipes?
    Are we perpetuating a myth?
    If the risks of low-level Cu-contamination are purely hypothetical,
    we can save a lot of cost and effort
    by simply using domestic water heaters directly.

    Can you educate me on this issue?
    Thanks.
    Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you're a nice person
    is like expecting a bull not to charge you because you're a vegetarian.

  6. #36
    Moderator davidstcldfl's Avatar
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    Re: Aquaponics 101 Part Three: System Design, Continue

    Just my 2 cents Shas...I think it has to do with the water 'in' the system having a lower PH. The system's water in theory, would break down the metals faster, then regular drinking water.
    Plus, in AP, generally we aren't doing 'water changes'....so the metals have a better chance to accumulate.


    Just a side note....in a domestic water system with copper pipe....most leaks occur just after fittings, especially 90's. The extra turbulence and the minerals in the water, actually wear right through the pipe's wall.
    "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same." - President Ronald Reagan

  7. #37
    Members foodchain's Avatar
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    Re: Aquaponics 101 Part Three: System Design, Continue

    not just the minerals. Municipal water is full of dirt, crud, and metal chunks. Pull off the screen of your faucet and see the build up.
    I used to do the potable water tower inspections while they are full of your drinking water...there's inches of sediment in each one of those tanks. Kinda gross that you often find critters, etc floating in them too. Enough to cure you from drinking tap water.
    At first I left this blank...but now I believe: "It's better to keep your mouth closed, and have the world think your a fool, than open it and confirm it."

  8. #38
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    Re: Aquaponics 101 Part Three: System Design, Continue

    Quote Originally Posted by Shas
    Yet humans have been drinking from copper pipes
    and cups and kettles since the Bronze Age.
    And I'm guessing that very few of us are filling our fish tanks
    with water that has NOT travelled in copper pipes.
    I've wondered about this too, Shas. Without question, copper is toxic to fish in sufficient concentration, but is contact with copper plumbing apt to leach toxic levels of copper ions into the water? Perhaps so, perhaps not. Grain mashes used in the production of beer and liquor are typically conducted at pH levels in the 5 to 5.5 range - much more acidic than our AP system water. Then the liquid is boiled in copper kettles and in the case of liquor, condensed in copper pipes. You would think, if copper is indeed this soluable, that toxic levels would build up in beer and liquor drinkers.

    It would be an interesting experiment to recirculate water in a small aquarium using copper pipe plumbing along with an identical control system set up using PVC plumbing, then test the water after a period of time for copper. I wouldn't know how to even begin testing water for copper, but maybe we can talk Urban Farmer into trying this out for us. Given his penchant for scientific analysis, I bet such an endeavor would be right up his alley! :P

  9. #39
    Members foodchain's Avatar
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    Re: Aquaponics 101 Part Three: System Design, Continue

    Wouldn't a heavy metals test achieve this? Readily available testing kits for it. As well as agriculture, and soil/water testing facilities. I looked into buying a private lake, 113 acres and a hydrologically connected system of ponds for fingerlings. And had to look into these kinds of testings.
    At first I left this blank...but now I believe: "It's better to keep your mouth closed, and have the world think your a fool, than open it and confirm it."

  10. #40
    Aquaponics 101 Oliver's Avatar
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    Re: Aquaponics 101 Part Three: System Design, Continue

    Quote Originally Posted by Shas
    Oliver, thanks again for this excellent treatise.
    I'm learning a lot from you.
    I'd like to ask about this statement:

    Quote Originally Posted by Oliver
    You should never have any metal in your system or plumbing, including the fish tank, metal grow bed containers without liners, valves, especially copper, zinc or brass because they will leach toxic metal into the water and kill your fish. Just stay completely away from any metal coming into contact with your system water with the exception of iron or stainless steel..
    I have heard this warning for forty years,
    and have passed it along many times.
    But somehow my own experience doesn't seem to support it.

    I know that copper is the traditional biocide in marine paints,
    and it seems to do a decent job
    at discouraging both plants and invertebrates from growing
    on boat bottoms and submarine structures.
    Yet humans have been drinking from copper pipes
    and cups and kettles since the Bronze Age.
    And I'm guessing that very few of us are filling our fish tanks
    with water that has NOT travelled in copper pipes.

    When I was raising angel fish commercially back in the 1980s
    I found that the lead water pipes in my old house
    interfered with the development of both eggs and fry.
    After a house fire (arson, unrelated to the fish business)
    I replaced all my pipes with copper
    and my cichlids seemed happy and healthy,
    breeding freely and with high hatching, survival, and growth rates.
    I was doing some selective breeding
    and had probably up to twelve generations of breeders,
    with no decrease in health, growth, or survival rates,
    so there didn't seem to be any cumulative ill effects from the copper pipes.

    So what is the real-life effect on fish and gardens
    of heating and delivering water with copper pipes?
    Are we perpetuating a myth?
    If the risks of low-level Cu-contamination are purely hypothetical,
    we can save a lot of cost and effort
    by simply using domestic water heaters directly.

    Can you educate me on this issue?
    Thanks.
    First, thank you.

    Regarding the metal pipe statement, if you have copper pipes in your house and say you have 100 feet that all the fish tank water passes through one time before reaching its destination, we can call that 100 X 1 = 100

    Now, let's say you have 10 feet of copper pipe in your aquaponics system and you recirculate all of the water through that 10 feet of copper pipe twice an hour, that's 10 X 2 = 20

    Lets run the system for a whole day, 24 hours, and we now have 48 circulations of all the system water through that 10 feet of copper pipe, that's 10 X 48 = 480

    We continue to run the system for a whole year recirculating the water through that 10 feet of copper pipe which gives us 480 X 365 = 17,520.

    Now compare the original 100 from the water coming into your home through copper pipe to the 17,520 after a year of recirculation through 10 feet of copper pipe in your aquaponics system.

    How much copper is now in the water from the copper pipes in your aquaponics system? I do not know, but it will be more than if you didn't use the copper pipe to begin with.

    One can also make the same argument for PVC. Another, "I do not know", at this time.

    As foodchain suggests, to measure is to know.

    It would be of interest to me, and I suppose some of the aquaponics community, to know the answers to these questions; and we will. As we continue to push for more knowledge by asking these questions, someone will write a grant proposal or otherwise self fund the study that will eventually reveal these answers.

    Oliver
    To measure is to know

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