My pilot project Francois

[Francois Lemmer]

I started messing around with tilapia 2006-2010

2010 - the end of july i had to take  my system down

i am currently trying to get a piece of property to set up a scaled system.

basickly i dont have a system that is running

but i want to share my last 4 years with aquaponics

with members.......

 

[Harold Sukhbir]

Hi Francois,

I really like how it's turned out!

[Francois Lemmer]

Hi Herold
Thank you sir and yes I am happy with the way it looks and turned out.

[Francois Lemmer]

Hi All
Today I started the fitting of my fish tank and worm filter.
Not my first choice of a fish tank but suits the pocket
I would have liked to have a round tank with centre outlet
I cut the plastic tank so that my fish tank can hold +-750 litres water.
The other piece I will use as a worms filter/sump the worm filter/sump

 

the system fish tank and worm filter/sump in place

 

 

the worm filter/sump

 

 

this will be the outlet from the dam into the worm filter comes with the tank

 

 

this will be the outlet from worm sump to the grow trays

 

 

[Harold Sukhbir]

Hi Francois,

Can you say some more about the "worm filter/sump"?

[Francois Lemmer]

Hi Harold

The worm filter sump is nothing new but I want to have a high concentrations of worms in this sump
I still have not decided what I will use as media … something worm friendly

[Francois Lemmer]

Hi All
Today I finished of the tank and worm filter/sump
Beefed up the wood framework and fitted the galvanized frame the tank came in.
I also washed the tank and worm filter and I will sterilize before I add my water
The next and last of the big things to do is my media….washing and rinsing
Hoping I can still do that in this week
Almost ready to start this baby up

 

 

[TCLynx]

You do some nice work Francois, I'm looking forward to seeing this system in full swing.  Your grow trays have given me some ideas which I will be testing out soon.

[Francois Lemmer]

This complete system is build out of what I had around and basically cost minimum so far.
Bits and pieces and my labour

[Francois Lemmer]

Hi All
Today I finished of the piping and I cycled the system with everything in place.
Checking for leaks and whatever else can be wrong or not working 100%
So far so good…I have a few leaks but I will sort them out.

the  water from my tank

into my worm filter/sump

 

from the worm filter

into my grow trays

 

from the grow trays into my duckweed sump

 

 

from duckweed sump

 

into pump sump and then pumped

 

back into the fish tank

 

[Averan]

are you going to install a bell siphon in the worm sump or simply let the water run straight through?

I like your approach to this system design and am hoping to achieve something similar....although I am really curious to try a system that depends mostly on worms and less on the fish.  It seems that fish are really great at quickly converting fish food into ammonia, I wonder how quickly worms would consume/process the same food?  I'm also really curious about what volume of worm bin I would need to replace the fish tank altogether......??

[Francois Lemmer]

Hi Averan

For now the water is going to be constand through flow

this worm filter is the first for me so time will tell

 

[TCLynx]

vermiponics can be done Averan, Just remember that you will need some sort of feed input to the system with any sort of BIO-Ponics.  I've run into a few people that thought they could simply remove the fish, fish tank and fish feed from a system and simply by adding some extra worms they would some how provide all the nutrients for the plants without necessarily adding any feed.

Biggest trick with vermiponics is figuring out how/where to feed the worms and sorting out a way to do it without creating a mud that will clog up where ever the worms are being fed.  (pumping too much water through a regular worm bin will make quite the muck bin.)