Progress Update

A week last Sunday I had planted some seeds in the barrels. Corriander, Basil, Spearmint and a couple of Thai Herbs. So checked up yesterday on progress. Thats 10 days on and were doing OK. Also the tomatoes and egg plants aer doing well. These we had put in earlier. Tomatoes are not red but getting bigger. I do think they are slow but cannot be sure. Just me in a hurry as always.

The cat fish are another story.  We put them in on the 16th Dec, they were tiny back then. And now 5 weeks later. they are big Difference in size is amazing. My wife will probably give them a few more weeks before they do a one way visit to the Bar B Q....

When we purchased the Cat fish back in December they were about 6-8 cm long. Now I estimate them to be about 12-16 centimeters. Only guessing! If I was a real fisherman I would be telling you 30 centimers!!!! As would any other self respecting fisherman.  Thats me on the right with the newly bought Cat fish.

But seriously, the next time round the system is going to be very closely monitored and recorded. I want to get a real feel for costings. I know a small barrel is not the final solution but its a start, a very good start.

System Progress Update

Been a while now since I posted anything on my system progress. The past few weeks its just been a day to day routine thing, where I have been feeding the fish and at weekends emptying out the fish waste. We use the fish waste on the garden and the plants seem to like it.

Its not so exciting at the moment. That makes it difficult to write a lot but .... Today we had a good clean up and checked the water quality, pH of 8.0, bit on the low side but OK. Im still looking for DO and Nitrate test kits. So if any of you out here can point me in the right direction please do!

The plants are doing well. Tomatoes are turning red and the chillies are surprisingly hot! Also thinned out a few of the basil and will be planting some more in next few days.

Wanna is beginning to take an interest which can only mean one thing. They are nearly ready for the Bar B Q!!!!

On a separate note Ive been looking into a commercial system and will be getting round to my business plan shortly. Need to decide just how big to be and as long as it is sustainable I can employ someone to look after it up on our farm. Will keep you updated on developments.

Progress and Shade Cloth

Not much to report at this time except we seem to be making steady and positive progress. Wanna sent me a few photos and tells me all going OK. She has installed a shade cloth over the fish tanks. Looks like she has done a good job.

No more dead fish since last report and she has been harvesting the morning glory. She did this by cutting the leaves rather than remove the whole plant roots and all. She also added some more small plants. Their growth should give us a good indication of how much we can grow as a ratio between fish weight and plant  numbers.

Shade Cloth to Fish Tanks

Fish Feeding

And were off

Added some fish. Tilapia today and some banana plants 2 number.  We put those in first last night. Not possibly the correct order of doing things but could not wait. Wanna added some seeds so now we wait to see if anything will grow. Interesting and strange the pump cuts out when I turn on the florescent light which is on the same circuit.  Any ideas why this should happen?

Progress To 8th February

Ressurected System

Hi,

Having met up with a bunch of like minds Aquaponic types last weekend in Bangkok I decided to get my system out of mothballs.

Started setting it up yesterday and today. Gone away from the high level flood and drain system to a sump tank. I think in my case this should be much easier. Need now to get pump working properly.  The old one  lasted 5 minutes and died. Then I need to add stone to the grow beds and buy some fish. Going again for using Tilapia. Fairly hardy and it gets me up and running. To think Ive been sitting around here doing very little and had all this gear stuck in a store... Oh well no excuses now....

April 24th 2010 progress

Well... Progress. nothing much to report. All going well and no major problems.

I did have a minor difficulty with the flushing system. Seems for no apparent reason to stop flushing and just act as an over flow. Made me loose a few plants which dried up and died as a result. These were leaf plants but the tomatoes and chili plants survived. However it was an easy fix done by reducing the size of the outlet pipe at the bottom of the bottle outlet. Worked well since then.

We ate 5 cat fish a few weeks back and left the Tilapia to carry on in the tank. All fine and seem happy enough. Interestingly the amount of solid waste has reduced considerably. Not surprising as I had reduced the Bio mass by approximately 50%. (I.e removing the cat fish). So much was the difference in water clarity that I decided last week to dispense with the filter system and see if it made any difference. It consists of simple netting and some old geotextile I found laying about on my construction site.

So after 1 week I checked the pH. It was 7-7.5 today so thats OK. I do suspect that the plants are a bit short of nutrients as they appear a bit pale. But that could be me and my imagination just looking for something..... Produce has continued with chili, tomatoes and greens. My single paw paw is still hanging on in there. I really need to make a separate container for it to enable the roots to grow better. New project.

Recently I planted some coriander and last week some new narga super hot chilies. Will wait and see progress.

Replanting and general progress

Been busy just doing nothing... Watching fish grow is not so exciting. However this weekend I decided it was time to clean up the reservoir tank. I try and make a habit of doing this every weekend. This time there was no internal filter tank have removed a few weeks back. The reservoir was full of green algae and suspended fish waste. So rather than remove it I stirred it all up.

Then I opened the flush unit and let it flow into the gravel beds. Works really well. We had also the same day removed several Thai herbs and chili plants from the garden and placed them in the system. They seemed to thrive almost immediately. I had expected some wilting but actually very little. Checking this morning (Monday) all looks good and the fish water is clear.

I also planted a a small tray several chili, tomato and Chinese cabbage seeds. Well see how they do later in the week.

As a small note my air blower/stone finally gave up on Friday last week. I opened it to see the rubber plunger had perished. Its lasted 5 months at a cost of Baht 300 so approx 150 day. Thats 2 Baht per day. At 34 Bath to the dollar I am not complaining!!!

Earlier we had eaten the Cat Fish but I did not post any photos. Dead fish do not make for good Photos but here goes... From-tank-to-grill

From Tank To Grill

We removed the Cat Fish and gave them a quick blow to the head. That prepared them for the Bar B Q. It is never nice to kill something whatever the circumstances. However these fish were bred for eating so here goes.

Progress 5th June 2013

Quick update.  Things are improving.  Must be Wanna doing it and me being away.  Sure a good logic to that as I keep adjusting everything in sight....

Still no complaints.  Ive also been working on updating my feed calculations.  Should be done tomorrow. My main problem/delay is messing round with the files to get them uploaded.

Fish looking good. Plants improving and only down side is the shard cloth.  Could be I installed it a bit tight at the beginning. More slack with the wind etc. Still all coming right slowly. Will start to weigh fish a bit more often now.  Well check on dead ones as well but they have already lost some weight. So not so accurate.

Paw Paws

Things have been plodding along. The paw paw tree has been growing really well. So much so that I was worried that its roots would take over all of one of the drums.... What to do.

Take it out and plant it in the garden. Just look at the roots on it.... We replanted on Friday afternoon in the garden and it seems two days later to have been taken very well.

Ph was also checked still running at 7.5Ph. So all OK.

Fish Feed Rates

Just added a few tables on the other page "Our Feed Rates"to keep track of fish feeding and growth rates.

Sunday Progress

Nothing much of interest to report.  Ive left the testing to give it a week to settle down. Dont want daily bad news anyway....

Two more dead cat fish in the sump tank. Not so surprised as there is little nutrient but a lot of crap in there. Again Ill leave them for now.

In my concern for more veggies I have added in some Paw Paw I found starting in the garden, also some onion cuttings and some herbs again from the garden. Should help the plant side a bit.

Progress

After my self pity with loosing so many fish Ive now got back into the grove. The seeds I planted a few weeks back are now in the system. Put them in yesterday. This morning they looked OK.

I did remove one of the large chili plants and was amazed to see how well developed the roots had become.

All in all things are following along with no real hassles. See no more moaning about the dead fish.....

The one plant that has amazed me in the Paw Paw Tree. It is going up and up getting into quite a real tree and many, just maybe will produce.

Revamp of system

Been having trouble with the pump clogging up. Noticed a lot of fish waste going into the gravel beds. I realized this was due to the cat fish I was keeping in the lower tank. Nothing was filtering their muck. Ive now transferred them all into the 200 litre blue tank joining the existing fish. All seem happy enough. Now Ill monitor the cleaning out of my filter bucket and see how we can add some more improvements over next coming weeks.

They system is beginning to resemble something out of a mad professors laboratory with odd pipes here and there. Ive got far to many holes in the blue tank and lots of stop ends etc. I even turned up the main discharge pipe upside down to get a higher level of water in the tank. It must have about 170 litres in there. Cannot go much higher without overflowing....
Still it is working and thats the object of it all.

Real Progress

All going well.  Wanna sent me a couple of photos.  Fish are healthy and eating well. Morning Glory is growing. So very happy with progress.  I’m beginning to  enjoy this remote farming……