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For DVD's and Books about Aquaponics and Permaculture. HERE
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Newsletter 2010 # 5-a
One weeks in and and Aquaponics has been a steep learning curve !
Anthony's Aquaponics kit system.
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| Even though I have watched the DVD from beginning to end 4 times and selected other segments of interest at various times I found I still didn’t know it all. I guess ever situation is unique so things were a bit trial and error. |
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My bore water contains 0.25 ammonia and in the first couple of days it rose to 2.
The bore water pH is 6, but it rose to 8.2.
I thought I would exercise some patience to see if the clay beads would bring it back down, so I waited, and waited, and waited, but I waited too long and my plants didn’t enjoy the high pH levels.
I added pH Down and lowered the pH to 6. The next afternoon it was back up to 8.0. Each day it has been going up and each day I bring it back down again. The plants responded straight away with better colour and good growth.
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Since I took control of the pH levels the ammonia levels have self adjusted to 0, but the nitrites and the nitrates have both risen to 5. Early next week we will introduce the fish.
In the first week I have purchased and electronic indoor/outdoor thermometer for $12. The outdoor probe I dropped in the tank so I have air temperature and water temperature. I bought some more besser blocks, a 250lt pond, a pond pump, and poly hose and fittings. This will become our excess water tank in the event that I need to do a water change and will later double as our fingerling tank.
We are still amateurs at the aquaponics game, so to see if we are on the right track we brought in a professional for her opinion. “Red” the hen said it looks pretty good to her. The corn was very tempting, but what fascinated her the most was the auto siphon units at work.
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Two weeks in and it is all coming together ! I have learnt a lot over the last two weeks and at last I am being rewarded for my efforts. I have now set up the water holding tank come fingerling tank. And then today the system just decided to return to me great results on my water test.
pH 6.6....Ammonia 0....Nitrite 0....Nitrate 10
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All our plants are looking good or almost all. I will talk about the ones that are not as good in a minute but have a look at these shots first.
The eggplants and capsicum are flowering and all these plants have lovely lush colours. I have found that if you bring home some fairly ordinary seedlings, just one night in the aquaponics and they are looking great.
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Left:-
Just for the fun of it I decided to try direct sow of a couple of seeds and “looky here” Mr Zucchini is on his way through.
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| Left:- Our beans have almost made it to the roof ! |
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Now I said I would come back to some that weren’t looking so good. To fit our tanks into the designated area we had one tank sitting higher than the next to permit some overlap.
Most of the time the system worked well, but on occasions the siphon would take ages to start and sometimes ages to stop so I would either have plants sitting with wet feet for long periods or dry feet for long periods.
I tried repositioning the auto siphon surround to make it more central over the unit. I experimented with the flow controls, but I could only get the siphon to start better or stop better, but never both.
I bought an elbow and put on the end of the pipe and tried it in numerous positions to see if a bit of resistance would help, but no.
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Late last night I tried my final option. I put a couple of bricks under the tank and sat an old scissor jack on top. I wound up the old jack under the discharge pipe, just a couple of turns which changed the angle of the pipe and whoo hoo! Instant success.
You can now set your clock by this system. I was wondering what use an old scissor jack could be. It will stay there now and as long as I keep some grease on the thread it will allow me to make adjustments when needed......Anthony. |
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| Aquaponics.NET.au last updated 5 March 2010 |
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