Aquaponics For Beginners

I had a similar problem with my GH system when I started last year. When I got flowers I hand pollinated as Leo said and it worked but I only had Bell Pepper. Tomatoes never produced.

Best of luck Phil. I hate to see a fellow trout grower bail but you need to get healthy and dive right back in. Eat lots of trout for your heart health.

Michael. this chart from "grow food, not lawns"might help:

Michael Lane your cucumber and squash plants have both male and female flowers. you will need to hand pollinate by removing the male flower and rubbing the stamen of the male flower on the female flowers. Not sure about watermelon pollination. You can look up hand pollination techniques on You Tube. 

Has anyone used the teabag packets with various minerals sold from the aquaponic store?

Dana, will just shaking them do the job the way it does on tomatoes?

  Most plants will have a male and female flower growing on the same plant.  In squash plants the male flowers first.  A week or so later the female will flower.  Look for a bulbous growth on the stem just behind the flower.  You can do just as Dana suggested and use one male flower per female, or take a q-tip and gather the pollen from the male and you can pollinate multiple flowers with that.  Be sure to completely encircle the stamen with the pollen ladened q-tip to ensure pollination. 

  Tomatoes and corn are different, each flower is hermaphroditic, male AND female parts.  All that is needed is a good shake below each flower cluster and pollination will occur.  You are substituting this shaking for wind pollination.  As in corn, you will see a pre-cobb formation with silk.  The silk is the receptor part of corn so be sure the pollen falls onto the silk.  Each silk strand leads to a kernel of corn so you need good saturation

  Look at each stem just before the calyx on the flower begins and see if it is bulbous and TAKE NOTES, this is how we learn which plants have male and female flowers and which are hermaphroditic.  I urge everyone to take a master gardener class, I learned so much from it and have never been sorry about the cost.  Granted I need a refresher course as I gained my master gardener certificate in 1998.  I am constantly referring to my course notes.

Jim Fisk I have not had luck just shaking plants that have separate male and female flowers for pollination to work. It works well for plant that have hermaphroditic flowers (male and female parts on the same flower) for the seperate flowers you need the pollen from the male to get into the female flower, which in nature is done by bugs and birds. You can use one male flower for pollinating several female flowers. I usually use 1 male flower for every 3 female flowers. You can also use the Q-tip method as Leo White Bear suggested, but since the male flower doesn't bear fruit I have no problem plucking the flower off using it up and tossing it in the compost after I'm done. (I didn't mean that in any insensitive way to human men ;)

You can install a fan inside your GH and this will mimic the wind, be sure it is an oscillating fan.  Also if you grow indoors i.e. over winter, use a fan also.  This has the benefit of not only helping to pollinate plants but will help prevent spindly stems.  It is the wind that strengthens the stem.  I once did a comparison test with identical corn, tomato and squash plants indoors.  The control plants had no fan, while the other had a fan on medium for 7-hours a day.  The ones with the fan had strong, stiff structural stems while the control had thin, spindly weak stems. I ALWAYS add a fan to my over-wintered plants and seedlings.

 You still need to harden the plants off in the spring if you intend to transplant them outdoors.

Sure, when you need us, we are always there.  Then discard us when you are done.  I See how you are ;)

Yup that's me Leo!

Although, since I do throw the males into the compost bin I guess their usefulness hasn't been completely used up, I found a whole new use for them.......now if only I could get him to fix the... :)

Instead of pulling the petals off the male squash flowers, bend them back and use them to pollinate with.  After you are done, you can then use them as dinner.  Pull off the calyx and stuff them with ricotta cheese.  Dip them in a egg wash and bread crumb them.  A bit of a shallow fry and.........YUM!!

  I know this is not a cooking forum but I couldn't help myself.

I will have to try that Leo. Thanks for sharing.

Hey guys that is a great primer. I will cut and paste to my notes. And Dana not to worry. We are used to being used up and thrown away. Right Leo?

ABSOLUTELY ;)

Wow! All the groups have been pretty silent lately and the last couple of days they lit up. Guess everyone has been planting outside.

YEP!  First nice day and we're gone.  Got to get the planting done.  I would like to know what everyone's planting.  I got 6-row barley, garlic, parsnips, dragons tongue beans, shallots and dill so far.  I have to plant my herbs in a few days.  These go into my net pots in my troughs.

What I've planted my first real outdoor season in embarrassing. The list is to long to type. I watched too much YouTube and wanted to do it all. Now I've decided that next year I'm doing all my planting in some sort of containers.

Good to see some people have a good sense of humor!

I have several types of tomatoes, peppers, melons, squashes, lettuce, mint, tomatillos, black berries, strawberries, herbs, and probably several other things I've forgotten.

And a partridge and a pear tree.....

And this doesn't include my GH, 4 IBC wicking beds, and various container plants LOL.

Hey Jeff, I will be changing our 3'x14'x 10" DWC into a wicking bed and would love your advice. My wife won't let me touch it until later in the season but I plan on starting with say 3" of our granite gravel, weed barrier and then worm castings and compost mix. Of course the plumbing manifolds at the bottom first. Sound about right? We are working hard in the dirt garden as well right now.

And yes I was floored to see my last post in February still on page 1 here. So quiet. We are used to seeing this group change pages daily just a few yrs ago. Can't entirely blame that on Spring planting. We have been pondering the quiet ourselves. FB seems to be jumping on the other hand. Many new AP pages on there along with our own. Siphon sales have been sporadic as well. We are either covered up or quiet. 2 off to Singapore this am.

Jim, this gentleman has a group of videos on wicking beds.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PlBrOnKaQI He dabbles in everything including Aquaponics.

I followed his ideas when building my 3 IBC wicking beds and assorted wicking containers. I also built an IBC DWC bed and so far the DWC looks like it's giving better results for growth but I'm doing it via the Kratky method with hydroponic nutrients. Like I said YouTube is dangerous.

Having insect problems eating my greens what can I do ?

Please, a little more information.  I.E. indoors, greenhouse, outdoors wicking beds or media beds.  What do the insects look like (size, color, how bad, what are they doing to your plants).  This way we are not shooting in the dark, trying to help you with your problem.

Thanks

I think they are coming at night cus I see nothing . grow bed is out side check my picks .

they are eating holes in leaves small holes I have looked under leafs nothing looking for what I could used to deter them

I have been waiting to see if some one could advise me on insect control

Michael, try flooding the growbed. If you have a bell siphon just remove the bell and add a short section of pipe so the water is above the media by say an inch but below the sides so it won't run over. Cut worms, slugs, etc will come up for air and are easy pickings. Then you will know what is doing the damage. Many of the critters only come up at night and hide in the media during the day. Don't ;eave it flooded more than 10-15 minutes or your earth worms will drown. You will know how long is safe when the good worms surface.

Thanks for the advise will try

I am having problems cycling my system one time it will be on it's way the next day everything is down to zero. The temperature has finally gotten where it should be working right but its not.

any Ideas.

Shirley would you please describe your system!

Shirley is your water surface exposed to sunlight?

Shirley I recently had an algae bloom and and my nitrites and nitrates went to zero. Ireplaced about half the water and shaded the tank. Thealgae is mostly gone and the nitrogen cycle is backt to normal'

My pond is in the green house but I have put a cover over it but it doesn't get shaded all the time. there is a picture on my profile.

Shirley Do you have evidence of algae? If so , I would further reduce the light getting to the water.

hi Everybody, i am going to ink down business report for commercial aquaponics. it will be for south India plant. So please give me your suggestions and if anybody has done business plan on aquaponics please feel to share with me so i can get idea how to ink it down. Thank you pals.

im reducing the exposer to sunlight for my pond, we'll see how that goes.

Shirley two of my grow beds are raft beds,one of them has a corner cut out 1/4th of the surface was exposed. I pulled out about a gallon of green stringy algae. I have since shaded the exposed area with no re-occurance. My main tank has remained algae free since I shaded it. I also installed a fan to keep the temperature at 85 deg. in deference to my Red Comets. The Tilapia don't mind the higher temperature.  

I am excited! This afternoon, it was decided we will use the old barn for our startup aquaponics. This is over twice the size we had determined was bare minimum to meet the requirements of all participants (Mom and Dad, Hubby and I). The freeze hydrant and electricity are already in place.

The work list:

• Draft up a new/larger aquaponics schematic while waiting for rain to stop 
• Remove everything in the center hall of the barn not related to our project (horsey stuff gets a new home)
• Use the tractor bucket to muck (horse poop, goat poop, and hay all in early compost stage)
• Check electrical lines and water lines for any issues
• Horse stall setup relocation (new horsey home)
• Some PT exterior plywood side walls added 
• Create chicken duplex in the shed and a chicken yard just off those - keeping the two breeds separate. Will add a small brooding area for the Silkie hens we will be adding soon.
• Build short portable tunnels to allow the chickens bug eating privileges in the planned kitchen garden (just Southwest of the West barn door)
• Build and hang doors on both ends of barn (East, West)
• Build and hang interior doors (2 for chicken pens, maybe one or two for other purposes)
• Begin rough layout for AP setup
• Start....  ....

Will post pictures of the barn tomorrow - 

020.jpgI'm having a problem with the heat my tank water is to hot above 85 % I have it shaded and the grow beds with shade screen. I have around 30 Tilapia various sizes . the  day time temp 100+ I do not know what to do.

Michael, I have often wondered why folks in warm climates don't just run irrigation tubing 4-5ft under ground and pump their fish water through it to cool it down. Not a quick fix but I think cost effective. You could do something as simple as a post hole digger as deep as you can go and put (2) 1/2" tubes joined by (2) 90s at the bottom then refill the hole.

Michael-

  Jeff may be right depending on you location and soil type.  Here in Wisconsin we are sand and rock.  By digging down as far as you can with a post hole digger equals approx. 4'.  The sand moisture acts like a heat sink and works for a while.  Then you are just pumping warm water back into your tank.

  To keep my fish cooled down, I had to build a spiral cooler, covered with burlap.  I pumped water from a designated sump tank to the top of the cooler and let it trickle down through the burlap and back into the cooler sump wetting it down.  As the breeze flowed through the unit it cooled the water flowing through the 3/4" plastic piping by 10-degrees.  This worked best for me but we all know there are many ways to skin a cat.

This I will try thanks

The nitrite level is not that bad.  If you are experiencing nitrates being 100ppm it is time to add plants.  These will take up the nitrates to a safer level.  When the nitrates are at 40ppm you can add fish.

  Stop adding the ammonia and let the bacteria balance out to 40ppm.  What species of fish do you plan on using? 

  Check your pH, with these levels, it will be throwing off your system.  If you get to a pH of 7.0 you are doing well.  With the hydroton, there should be no reason to have the high pH so I'm leaning to the ammonia and high nitrates.  Does your ammonia have any additives?  Check the back of the package and see if it is actually 100% ammonia. 

Remember that your system should be able to handle 1-pound of fish per 5-gallons of water.  Although I would go a bit less than that when just beginning with goldfish as they tend to be a bit dirtier than other species.  How large a water volume do you have?  A lot of the nutriments come from your feed and not just from your fish, you need to still keep an eye out on how your fish eat and how fast, keep notes in the beginning as this will help you to determine how much to feed them.  When you feed your fish, measure the amount of feed and see if they clean it up in the next 15-minutes.  If it is gone before that time, give them a bit more the next feeding.  If there is some left after 15-minutes, feed less next feeding.