|
New fish tank.
Because of the possibility that there was something in the old galvanised tank that was killing the fish I decided to take them out of there and into a 200 litre Fibre Glass tank I had in the back of the shed left over from a number of boats I had built about 3 years earlier. I had boats these boats for live trout fishermen to keep their live catch in these tanks until they get back to the mother ship.
The tank proved to be just the right size.
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Left:
Fibre Glass Tank - some of the small Jade Perch can be seen in the corner. The orange conduit is the air supply from the compressor. It has 3mm holes drilled along the length every 50mm. (Air was turned off for the photo.) Tank size 1260mm L x 500mm W x 340mm D
Capacity =200 litres |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
Jade Perch at 4 months old...now approx 125mm long.
Jade Perch are ideal for Aquaponics.
An Australian Native species.
See here for info on
Jade Perch....... |
|
The Jade Perch have done very well in the 200 ltr FG tank and with plenty of aeration they settled in well although they appeared not to be feeding, they were looking good. I was a bit worried not seeing any of them feed, but I concluded that they must be, I just could not observe the process. The feed I use is "Native Pellets" 2mm in size. These pellets mostly sink and some of the floaters only float for a very short time...
The next step was to start growing some vegetables of some sort to help balance out the aquaponic system and act as a filter for the fish water.
Tower System:-
|
|
|
 |
Many years ago I had come across this idea in the National Geographic (April 1982 pp 453/ 454 That's how long I have been dreaming about this type of thing)
Below:- English Spinach growing in a PVC tower. |
|
|
 |
|
|
| The Mini Tower was made from some 90mm PVC downpipe x 2000mm long. I held this upright attached to a old steel frame I adapted for the purpose and attached the PVC pipe to the support frame with "Duct Tape". Then filled the mini tower with 20mm river gravel. I had been give some Strawberry runners by a fellow Aquaponist, so in to the mini PVC tower they went.
I used a 500gph RULE 12 volt bilge pump to pump the water from the fish tank to the top of the tower. The fish water then ran down continuously through the tower to a small sump at the base of the tower, then the water was picked up by another 12 volt bilge pump and sent back to the fish tank. The lower bilge pump was activated by a float switch.
Conclusions:-
The Aquaponics tower system ran very well for around 3 months, we had a few nice strawberry desserts from the tower system. It is evident that this system on a larger scale would be very good. The tower started to suffer from blockages, this was because the root system of the plants began to block up the tower and further to that, I discovered that the flow rate of water through the tower was too high. It needed to be slowed down much more to be totally effective.
When building my next Aquaponics tower system I will use a larger diameter pipe.
The Jade Perch were getting bigger now and needed to be transferred to a slightly larger tank. My next Aquaponics system is based on a 600 liter fish tank...................
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Murray Hallam
Call Me on 07 3200 0272 if you wish to talk about Aquaponics for your home or commercial Aquaponic project.
|
|
|
This page posted 10th September 2006
Page updated 20th Feb 2007 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
