All Going Well

Not much to record at this time. System seems ot be going OK. Few small insects and a sort of white fly around but to be expected with no covers. Took a few photos. All growing well.

Red Wiggler Worm Harvesting

After 8 months in the same media I determined it was time to harvest worms out of the two worm beds I had started in order to provide new bedding material for the worms to grow in.  I had read somewhere that you really need to provide new bedding for your worms every three to six months as worms, like people, do not like to move around in their own poop. So I set out to harvest both worms and castings for use in some of my potted herbs. I had to build a worm sifter in order to separate the worms from the castings. I did this by building a frame out of 2x2 lumber and attaching 1/4" hardware cloth to it using staples.

This proved to be labor intensive as the smaller baby worms would fall through the openings after each load of material was sifted and I would have to pick them out of the castings. Larger worms were not an issue and usually stayed on the wire mesh after which I could dump them into a 5 gallon bucket. This took me approximately 8 hours to finish using my sifter, and wheelbarrow as a catch all.

I was able to retrieve approximately 3 lbs of worms from both beds, which was good considering that we have had 100+ degree days and the soil in the beds was rather warm.

That being said, I made up two fresh beds using peat/sphagnum moss and newspaper, layering both several times. This built up media accounted for about 1/3 of the plastic tote.  I came to find out that as a new bed the worms would try to leave; and out of one bed they did just that.  I came back after 3 days only to discover that one of my beds was completely devoid of worms, they had crawled out. Lesson learned, shine a light on the opening of the bed 24/7 for several days to keep them in until the worms get used to the new environment. I also, lost about half of the worms out of the other bed, but I have enough to continue with my composting. I will probably build a larger outside bed next spring and purchase more worms.

Construction of the DWC rafts

Well, spring is in the air, and you know what that means....its time to expand the system and add the Deep Water Culture rafts to the grow beds. So I have purchased most of the materials at my local building supply chains, along with the 12mil B/W Poly Scrim liner material on-line from Americover.com. I based part of my design on the UVI systems, while also making it scalable using off the shelf plumbing parts bought locally.  For the raft side walls, I went with Hardie fiber cement plank 12"W x 12L. This is very water resistant, and rot/termite proof, so it should be long lasting and it was comparable in price to ACX plywood. ACX plywood would have to be cut into 1ft strips while the Hardie plank is already the correct width. I went with PT 2"x4"x8 for the side rails for durability and weather resistance, with a 1"x 2" furring strip top rails to negate wear on the liner. The assembly process was pretty straightforward and I was able to complete construction of each raft, less the liner installation, in a couple of hours. I measured off an area that was 25ft x 25ft and placed woven weed block down prior to raft construction. I laid this in a cross hatch pattern, double layer which was approximately 1100 sq ft of material and attached it with ground pins. I will be adding edging material later and filling in the area with expanded shale or gravel.

Here are a few pics of the raft construction process, note that I used all galvanized fasteners for construction.

 1"x2"x24" PT stakes were added as side support and to negate any shifting, these were attached with 1/4"x3-1/2" galv. carriage bolts w/nuts and washers.

Since I have two aquaponics systems, I am building two rafts per system for a total of 4 rafts. Each raft is 4W(actual is 51")x16L, this provides me with 256sq ft of growing space, with a an average of 30 plants per 1sq meter (10sqft), I should be able to have approx. 768 plants along with those in the grow beds. I also intend to add additional  4x4 DWC rafts inside the greenhouse. This should up the count to approx. 1000 plants between both system. Of course, once the rafts were finished I had to paint them to match the greenhouse and our home.

Based on my previous design, I am using 2" PVC to connect the beds on the far end using 2" DWV 90deg ELs and 2" non caulking floor drains. The floor drains have an internal rubber busing which can be tightened down on the 2" PVC pipe and if necessary loosened later for removal or expansion.

The floor drains require a 3-1/4 hole saw which is a perfect fit. The only problem I ran into was that the concrete board pretty much destroyed the hole saw after 4 holes...so I will have to buy another one when constructing the second set of rafts..which are kind of pricey at $17 a pop, but hey, it for a good cause, so enough about that. In the pics above I used a scrap piece of board to test the size and fit of the drain...can you say perfect.

Now on to drilling the holes in the raft beds.

 These holes were placed at 5" from the bottom and 25-1/2" on center of the Hardie plank. Remember, I build the rafts 51" wide.

And with that, I end this post as it has now been raining for several days, and I will need to continue this after I have progressed further on my installation of the DWC rafts, hope you find this helpful.

Greenhouse Re design with Electrical and Water sources added

OK...so the first go around on the greenhouse was pretty good, but after completing the structure and closing the door, with the door insert window open of course, the temperature soared to a whopping 135 degrees inside the greenhouse....not good for man or greens. So back to the drawing board, and after several hours of research I discovered that while I had approx 12 sqft of ventilation, I really needed at least 10 percent on the sides of the building and 15 percent at the ridge based on the square footage of the greenhouse which is approximately 240 square feet. While the 500 CFM solar attic fan took care of the ridge requirement  the three 4 sq ft windows in the side walls were not adequate for cross ventilation, so I was off to make some adjustments...major ones. I had to remove a total of 6 PVC panels on the south facing side of the building and turn them into windows as seen below. This provided another 24 sq ft of ventilation.

 

After further testing, this only reduced the temp in the greenhouse by about 10-15 degrees, still not enough, so the next step was to cut two openings in the north facing wall to allow for more airflow across the greenhouse. These openings were turned into shutters rather than windows for protection against northern winter winds and will be insulated as time permits, both openings were cut out to approximately 2ft x 4ft, for another 16 sq ft of ventilation. This dropped the inside temp to the ambient outside temp when all ventilation was opened. I also fitted barrel bolts to all openings in order to secure them when closed....here is a pic of the north side of the greenhouse.

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House screening was placed on all openings for pest control. Next I was off to run the electric to the building, this of course took me a couple of days to complete.I have 4 -110v 20A outlets, three inside the building and one outside the building as shown above and below.

A photo of the florescent light I installed.

I also had to dig an 8inch deep 60ft trench and place 12-2 UGF wiring to the building which took the longest...especially in the 100+ degree heat...whew!!! was it hot. Next came the water line, where I dug a 2ft deep trench 35ft to the house in order to tie into the backyard faucet. I placed 3 hose bibbs inside the the greenhouse for convenience with two being on stand pipes (see photo above) and the third being at ground level so I can drain the water out of the system when needed for repair or due to freezing temps in the winter.

Well, thats pretty much it for this post...now that the greenhouse is complete I can move on to the next phase building my aeroponics/aquaponics systems...more on that in the next post.

Major Upgrade

Well weve been at this for some time. Problems with insufficient fish mass, some stolen and resulting poor crop growth.

We decided (Management decision) to expand our system. Several reasons, first being there was next to no cost involved as we already owned several concrete water tanks which were not in use and secondly to allow for two tanks giving a bit more flexibility  for faih amanagemtn. i.e. two tanks better than one.  If we have more spare we would have used them as well. Anyway thankful for what weve got.

In expanding we used the existing fish tank as our main settlement tank and continued using existing settlement tank as well.

Results for water quality. Testing scheduled for this afternoon but this mornings visual observations, water in fish tanks is clear, settlement tank a bit of floating debris but not much. Think it is some of the first fish food after relocating the fish and also poo.  Bio tank is cristal clear.

Small tank has two dead fish yesterday and three today. They only went in 2 days ago so thats not so surprising.

System is now 2 X 1000 litre tanks.
Settlement Tank 1  1000 litres
Settlement Tank 2  250 litres
Bio Tank  Tank 1 250litres
Deep Raft Grow beds 12 meters x 0.9 x 0.3 Approx 3,000 litres

All go.

Very Rough System Diagram......

Bio Filter Tank

Secondary Settlement Tank

MAin Settlement Tank

Fish Tank 1  Feeding Time

Water Quality Test for each system

I received my API Freshwater Test Kit a couple of weeks ago, and was able to test the nitrogen cycle of both tanks in relation to each units biological activity. 

After running both Aquaponic tank systems for approx. 2 weeks without media in the growbeds, and another week with media, while having approx. 10 gold fish present in each tank for the entire duration I was able to see where my tanks ammonia, PH, Nitrite, & Nitrate levels were at in the cycle.

On October 8th, I had the following results tested at 80 degree water temperature.

Tank System 1:
PH: 8.8 PPM
NO2: 5.0 PPM
NO3: 10 PPM
NH3/4:  .25 PPM

Tank System 2:
PH: 8.8 PPM
NO2: 5.0 PPM
NO3: 10-20 PPM
NH3/4:  0 PPM


Another test was performed on October 15 with the following resutls tested at 76 degrees for water temperature.

Tank System 1:
PH: 8.4 PPM
NO2: 0 PPM
NO3: 20 PPM
NH3/4: 0 PPM

Tank System 2
PH: 8.4 PPM
NO2: 2.0 PPM
NO3: 20 PPM
NH3/4: 0 PPM

As can be seen the tank systems are for the most part cycled, with the exception of the PH. which is high and is causing PH block for some of the nutrients in the system such as Iron, Calcium, & Potassium. A good organic pond fertilizer containing 10% iron, and Phosphate only was added to each tank to mitigate the iron deficiency, but due to the PH block this did not help.

I had added over several hours approx. 1/4 Gallon Muriatic acid to each system which temporarily lowered the PH to 7.8, after waiting 24 hours the systems were retested and due to the buffering action of the expanded shale, the PH crept back up to 8.4. I will continue to monitor all water quality on a weekly basis until the systems are stable, Muriatic Acid will continue to be added until I can get the PH down to 7.8, after which I will let it digress on its own.  More plants were added, some of which have shown signs of iron deficiency. I have an organic powdered chelated iron product ordered which should arrive sometime this week. I will add this to the systems and report back on the results.

Overall, plant growth has been outstanding, I have one Stevia plant which has added about 12" of growth in two weeks, and an Early Bird Tomato plant which has added approx. 6-8 inches of growth along with blooms in the same time frame.  Kale has doubled in size, and herbs have had significant growth as well. Pepper plants are putting on more fruit as well.

More to follow.