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.......

 

[Averan]

That's what I'm curious to find out.  If I put the worm bin on a siphoned flood/drain cycle, would muck ever build up too greatly?

I've got worms in my media bed now, along with plants, and I've composted a banana peel, orange peels and leaves from a bok choy right in the gravel.  I feel like if I have it regularly flushing away all the digested bits and worm castings then the muck will never build up too greatly.  If the flushed water is too mucky, I'd plumb the worm bin into a sump full of water filtering plants and invertebrates to further filter and digest the solids before going on into the plant beds.

I guess I should just setup a small demo to test this out before attempting this on a larger system!

[TCLynx]

Averan, If just burying some bits of stuff into a gravel bed and doing siphon flood with plenty of worms you will probably not see a problem, it's really just a lot like the aquaponics system you are already running.

 

A "normal worm bin" is usually a bin with no gravel and you are just dumping kitchen waste into a bin with carbon material bedding, a bin like that will turn to muck.  Heck, I've seen bins like that turn to muck only being water a little once a week depending on the moisture content of the inputs and the breath-ability/drainage of the bin and the weather.

 

To feed the worms enough to feed the plants without any fish/fish feed being washed to them though, that takes a bit more effort.  Here, so we don't totally hijack Francois thread I'll post a link to one of the biggest vermiponics discussions I've ever read through.  Vermiponics

[Averan]

Thanks TC.

Francois, so your bin will be flooded to a constant height?  Or will you simply spray water into the bin and let it drain out almost instantly?  If you have it constantly flooded, then I'm curious to find out how well your worms hold up with the lower oxygen levels.  If you just let water pass through, then I'd like to see how much the muck/solids build up in the bin.  Is the idea that you are feeding the worms fish solids?

[Francois Lemmer]

Hi Averan
This worm filter I want to fill with some type of worm friendly media and the water will be at a constant level just below the media I will add. With oxygen I don’t foresee any real problems seeing that the water will have a quick turnaround time and the inlet into the filter moving all the time to not have loads of fish poo dumped in one spot. With this I want to basically make feeding spots that moves as required. If required later I can add air stones but that will defeat the object…electricity
What I am going to use in this filter I am thinking about and will do tests with a few types and see if I can come up with a worm filter that provides all the extra nutrients the system will require for the plants. With saying this worm filter must also be maintenance friendly.
With my pilot project I found that feeding the fish max every day you end with a lot of fish poo.
In my case with my pilot project during summer I fed 2-3 kg of fish food per day and the fish poo from this all ended in my grow trays. I had problems with the blocking up media where my water flowed into my grow trays…..I changed the size of my growing media and also later added plastic baskets and catching and removing 90% of these solids.
With my system now I am trying to keep all/most of available free nutrient in the system ????

[Francois Lemmer]

Hi All
We had some very urgently needed rain over the past few days.
The rain filled my system to the brim and everything is still standing and nothing broken with all the weight.

 

 

load tested......

[Harold Sukhbir]

Hi Francois,

Are you going to keep this rain water as your system water?

[Averan]

Francois,

Thank you for the explanation.  Why not setup your worm bin with an auto siphon and just let it continuously flood/drain?  I really believe that the extra oxygen will be helpful for both the worms and bacteria and the more O2 the faster these biological processes go with breaking down poo.  Just continuing to think out loud....with a flood/drain setup, it might wash more solids out of the bin.  With a constant flood setup the solids might stay in the bin longer to give the worms more time to eat them.  I look forward to seeing how your test turns out!  =)

I haven't tried any other medium yet, but I can say that my worms are really happy in Hydroton.  They can move through it very easily and if you are only filling up that one small bin it would not take much.

I like the feeding spot idea and I'm thinking of inserting multiple large diameter pvc feeding tubes that are full of holes for worms to get in and out of.  I would feed them compostable kitchen scraps or root balls and any leaf prunings from the rafts.

Keep up the great work!

[Francois Lemmer]

Hi Harold

yes sir i will save and use most of this water
Harold Sukhbir said:

Hi Francois,

Are you going to keep this rain water as your system water?

[Francois Lemmer]

Hi Averon
I appreciate your thinking out load.
About the oxygen you have a very good point and who knows I might have to go your route.
Then as far as the PVC feeding tubes you mention I was very much thinking in the same way as what you describe.
I want that filter to be one filter but a few compartments for feeding and for the cleaning of a filter like this.
If I have to clean, having the filter divided makes it more manageable....only clean a compartment of this filter at a time.
Hydroton is something I see you people use but I have never seen the stuff sold here by us. I would love to get my hands on some. I think if I can find hydroton here it will be very expensive.
Thanks for your thoughts

this basket is what i used to catch the solids with my pilot project.....maybe fill the worm filter with +-25-30mm stones to a depth and then using these baskets on top of stones.

[Averan]

Francois,

Where do you live?  Hydroton is actually made in Germany.  That gray gravel you have on the ground might work as well if you cannot find any other options.

I'm going to be setting up a small system to test a worm bin similar to yours, but what I want to try to accomplish is to eliminate the need for any solids-catching baskets or removal.  I am hoping that I can get the worms to break down the solids for me.  I believe there are a lot of nutrients locked up in those solids that everyone is removing from their systems.  If I can convert those solids into plant fertilizer then I can grow even more plants with the same amount of fish!

I am also curious to see if I ever have to stir or mix up the media and solids inside this worm bin.  It is very likely there will be an accumulation of matter on the bottom of the bin.....I have a few ideas of how to deal with this, but primarily I would like to repeat the results of Friendly Aquaponics by introducing some detritivore invertebrates that will actively consume the excess solids not consumed by worms and bacteria.

[TCLynx]

Actually, most people with flood and drain media based systems, as long as they are balanced as to the amount of fish tank to grow bed and stocking rate, generally don't have to remove solids and don't have to clean anything out.

 

I am avidly watching Francois's project as some wonderful ideas have come to me from these projects.  I am eager to see how well this one works.

[David Waite]

All I can say is just WOW. I did use 5 in net pots as worm feeding stations and they turned into a foul smelling mess of goop. I used coffee grounds and vegetable matter but they sure got rank. I am having better luck just burying it in my gravel through out the bins in small amounts.