A Community and Forum For Aquaponic Gardeners

My pilot project Francois

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.......

5 members like this

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Permalink Reply by Francois Lemmer on March 9, 2011 at 3:48am

Reading about the growth rate compared to soil based growing of plants I proved to myself in practice...

see with my eyes
This was sweet corn test in soil/outside, watered every day, and then in my system...hardly/no maintenance.

the soil was sandy and i did not fertilize at all

top 20 mm of soil was natural composted ...forest floor

50% per sun summer / inside the tunnel 80% sun summer

Inside the tunnel in the background

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Permalink Reply by Francois Lemmer on March 9, 2011 at 4:01am

2009 i planted sweet corn again and again they grew well.....

worth growing even if you grow for your family

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Permalink Reply by Francois Lemmer on March 9, 2011 at 4:41am

Making vermi tea was something else I tried....

not to the book but followed my thinking...less work but maybe.....
Using 20 litre bucket and 3 or 4 litres of worm castings aerating them good over night

and adding to my grow trays and using as spray on my plants.
this and iron was all i needed to get these plant back....

these are the type of things, challenges with aquaponics that draws me ...i am stuck in this web

Again this was something I read about but after seeing my result's and

improvement of my plants it is clear to me this way of making tea, my slapdash way... worked....
This was barley at its worst in my system......
From looking like this

and then my bubbling tea...when i used as spray i used to stand for 15 minutes and then scoop of top and spray plants...never bothered thinning down...did no harm...I was using 2 of my airration stones from my dam to airrate the water over night

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Permalink Reply by Francois Lemmer on March 9, 2011 at 8:34am

These are photos taken over a few days 31/3

6/4

8/4

13/4

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Permalink Reply by Harold Sukhbir on March 9, 2011 at 8:51am

I see only health in all your pictures.Using the worms to keep everything in the loop is a great idea and fits in smoothly with the AP system.

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Permalink Reply by Francois Lemmer on March 9, 2011 at 9:26am

These spinach plants grew well in my system for more than a year

20/5/2009

21/10/2009

22/11/2009

they were moved a few times in this year and still did well

17/12/2009

25/7/2010

29/7/2010

29/8/2010 and finaly i took them out because i took my system down

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Permalink Reply by Francois Lemmer on March 9, 2011 at 9:42am

this was basil in my system

2009

2010

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Permalink Reply by Francois Lemmer on March 9, 2011 at 10:20am

Oktober 2009 after the wind finally won the battle...I was ready to pack up...
The travelling up and down every day ......water restrictions...
So what was planted in my system I left and I left the system to run itself without any care to the plants...?
Use to feed the fish and and checked ph.....
This carried on until in January 2010 and for the first time I bought seedlings for my system.
I was getting worried about the fish and so for the fish I had to plant something that could work at the water quality.
I bought four trays of seedlings 12 off cabbages and 12 celery seedlings for my system.
This was smack in the middle of summer and this was how those plants grew...
The cabbage...did not do well but the celery amazed me...

5/1/2010

22/1/2010

9/2/2010

23/3/2010

5/6/2010

13/6/2010 i had to take out... I started haveing problems with my water flow.

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Permalink Reply by Francois Lemmer on March 9, 2011 at 10:38am

With the growth results of the celery I started planting celery and cabbage seeds to replace these plants taken out.
My cabbage did not do well before and I see some of the photos posted...beautiful cabbages...why were my cabbages not doing well...so I wanted to try growing them again.
The celery ...well my previous crop of celery told me...
They grew well and no maintenance...very little...and I had changed my mind to try and keep the system running a while longer.
Totally roped back into this form of growing food......

17/5/2010