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.

General Thoughts For The Weekend

I said at the start I would be writing about other things besides my own system. Well there is after all only so much one can write about a Barrel System on a weekly basis!!!
This week Ive managed to spend some time on the Internet searching for all I can find on aquaponics farming set ups. The basics, Ive decided from all my research, is that it is not to difficult.
The hard part seems to be getting to a proficiency level where what you are doing is productive and economical. In other words it needs to be sustainable. Sounds easy I know but as I read more there are numerous factors in play all requiring to be constantly adjusted and monitored. And each system had its own set of factors with different weighting factors.
Reading the Backyard Aquaponics Magazine has been really helpful. It seems my enthusiasm is increasing the more I read. All the difficulties I read about I am keen to turn into challenges and find solutions.

Another good link was Redheeler Farm

Add in the papers from the University of the Virgin Island and you are well on the way to understanding what it is all about. They really have done some major research into it all.
However I have a long way to get to get a commercially viable system designed with any degree of confidence. Ill now get back to searching the Internet.