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.......

 

[RupertofOZ]

Agreed TCL... removing tomatoes, notoriously heavy nitrate feeders... can certainly bump nitrate levels... until new plants use  them again...

 

But as a general caveat... nitrate levels aren't a concern even to fish... nor are zero levels, if your plants are growing abundantly...

 

I do know of some people, including Wilson Lennard... that deliberately manipulate their nitrate levels prior to harvest...

 

Some suggest better shelf life, and/or nutrition values accordingly... those that extol "brix" values often do the same... but usually, being soil based... by heavy additions of nitrogen fertilisers...

[TCLynx]

Yep, as I say (and probably learned from you and Joel) you are only short of Nitrogen if you numbers are 0 AND the plants are showing signs of nitrogen deficiency.

 

Anyway that said, Francois pictures of his plants didn't make me think nitrogen deficiency, they actually all looked nice to me but sometimes it's hard to tell with pictures.

RupertofOZ said:

Agreed TCL... removing tomatoes, notoriously heavy nitrate feeders... can certainly bump nitrate levels... until new plants use  them again...

 

But as a general caveat... nitrate levels aren't a concern even to fish... nor are zero levels, if your plants are growing abundantly...

 

I do know of some people, including Wilson Lennard... that deliberately manipulate their nitrate levels prior to harvest...

 

Some suggest better shelf life, and/or nutrition values accordingly... those that extol "brix" values often do the same... but usually, being soil based... by heavy additions of nitrogen fertilisers...

[Safwat Zaki]

Thanks for the clarification. The most important is to achieve a balance in the system.

 

 

[Francois Lemmer]

Hi All

The way I do my PH check is very simple and cheap

I started of using the test kit Ph tablets and soon to find the checks are expensive.

So I started using normal pool PH testing …5 drops

This pool test I would then compared colour wise to the testing kit tablet solution that is more accurate.

If my tablet test was PH 7.0 I would compare that reading to the colour of the pool kit.

The tablet test would be my guide in the beginning but later I only used the pool test.

Now I am using a third test, the strips for spa or pool, but these I use when I do alkalinity and hardness adjustments to guide me how much calcium I have to add to maintain a constant alkalinity and t/hardness in my size system.

Cheap and worked for me

Yust me thinking

 

not cheap

 

works just as good

 

cheap

 

[Francois Lemmer]

Hi All

Update on the plants

I want to plant 25 pepper seeds today

I want to start replacing these plant in the system with peppers

All these plants I have been using as a guide to their growth and

What I needed to add and when I saw the plants asking for it

I want to learn to recognise the needs signs of the plants

i now now what the plant looks like when asking for calcium

i think my plants are begging for potassium

I am battling to get potassium here so I have been using bananas and now also adding

A wood ash water mixture

Today I added wood ash mixture to the system how much??????

I will check the fish and plants and PH/alkalinity……

but hoping to see the difference in the plants and then stopping

For now the plant are doing what they are there for...the fish

Yust me thinking

 

 

 

[Francois Lemmer]

this is how the beans are doing

[Francois Lemmer]

I wanted to add this

[TCLynx]

I will be interested to know how you do with the wood ashes.

Keep in mind that soaking/leaching wood ashes is how they used to make old fashion Lye (potassium hydroxide) so you may need to be a little careful about how much you use but I expect they should be a really good source of potassium as well as a way to buffer your pH up.  (see too much calcium carbonate to buffer pH can actually cause problems of potassium lock out so you will probably want to alternate the calcium carbonate with the wood ashes to come up with a balance between the potassium and calcium.)

Eager to hear how the wood ashes work for you since I'd like to try the same for my systems.

[Francois Lemmer]

Hi TC

i have done ph check on the mixture and the PH is very high

i will add over a few days... slowly

watching the ph, alkalinity and t/hardness

this is new to me so .........

Yust me thinking

[chuck]

thank you for being precise and clear with your info, the fack that you named the maufactur of your tank and didnt just say "big tank i foud somewere for cheap" is very helpfull to all of us. we could all learn a bit from you.

[Francois Lemmer]

Hi TC

i googled lye and now have more insight

thank you

TCLynx said:

I will be interested to know how you do with the wood ashes.

Keep in mind that soaking/leaching wood ashes is how they used to make old fashion Lye (potassium hydroxide) so you may need to be a little careful about how much you use but I expect they should be a really good source of potassium as well as a way to buffer your pH up.  (see too much calcium carbonate to buffer pH can actually cause problems of potassium lock out so you will probably want to alternate the calcium carbonate with the wood ashes to come up with a balance between the potassium and calcium.)

Eager to hear how the wood ashes work for you since I'd like to try the same for my systems.

[Francois Lemmer]

Hi all

Update on the plants and fish

The fish are happy and they are on a diet of duckweed worms and Kio food

Checking all the time that they are eating what I feed.

The plants look ok