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.......

 

[Safwat Zaki]

Thank you Francois this answers my question, I am learning a lot from your experience in AP.

Have a great day, 

Francois Lemmer said:

Hi Safwat

......very good question

With the right management and design I believe it can and will be sometime in the future.

Time will tell

watch this space

[Francois Lemmer]

Hi All
Not much to post…I haven’t really spent much time on the system….and I have and gone and bought another 18 seedlings and planted them into the system…risky but I need plants…….
Today I planted lettuce seeds into small pots in the system
The fish are good and the system good no problems yet.
Some photos I took off my back garden now that we had some rain …..
Yust me thinking

[Francois Lemmer]

[Francois Lemmer]

Hi All
I have started logging electricity.
One of the bigger expenses and I am stoked with the little I am currently using.
When my stocking increases I will have to add a bigger pump but……
I am currently using a small fish tank pump. The pump replaces the water in the tank +- ones every hour and for now I very happy……I am only using +-18 K/watt’s per month…...0.600 watt’s per 24 hours
+-20kw per month x R1.04 = R20.80 p/month and a packet of smokes cost +-R22.00 per packet…

the fish are happy and are eating well...
Keeping running cost down…very important when you consider scaling up a system
Yust me thinking

[TCLynx]

Nice sketch up.

[Francois Lemmer]

Hi TC

thank's TC...i do mechanical designing so the whole system is drawn up and detailed to scale.

It helps

 

 

[Francois Lemmer]

Hi All
From the extreme heat the weather has now changed to colder days and nights with showers
The tank temp’s stay in the lower 20Deg/Celsius…cold but the fish are still eating well.
the celery is doing well and the basil the same…..
Yust me thinking

[Francois Lemmer]

 

the celery

after the 1st trim

 

[Francois Lemmer]

Hi All

I was planning on using the cover in winter only but halfway through summer and I have had to use the cover again…helps heaps with water temp increase in day

The last few days the water is +20 deg in the mornings and not much better in the afternoons so I took out the cover.

The Outside temp today is +- 27-30 deg and between plastic and the black plastic tank cover just less than 80 deg…

[Francois Lemmer]

the basil i cut last week has grown back and looks good

[Francois Lemmer]

Hi All
After seeing a success with BSF larvae and the amounts larvae
that can be harvested from a box/bin….
I am really impressed
I did a bit of research and I am very…very impressed……
As fish food they are very good free source…..
I have been finding the BSF larvae in-between the worms in my worm bin.
It has really got me going into making a box for the larvae.
I had this box lying around and the rest of what I needed to make a bin.
I sealed insulated the inside with black plastic and polystyrene I had… and
Painted it white...

[Francois Lemmer]

BSF bin