Ongoing Aquaponics Build

He arrives at 6:30a and will work until 6:30p, without question. The Boss has a hard time getting him to stop so she can prepare him a bit of lunch, daily.

I have to say, I have lived in Southeast Asia for a very, very long time. I have never, not once, ever seen anyone so meticulous about his work, almost anal retentive. Even on cuts that will never be seen by anyone, he makes sure they are as straight as possible, filed and sanded accordingly. He got mad at me, because I made him hurry on drilling the holes in the strainer, above. (You can see the holes are not straight and orderly, as he would - most definitely, had done. I was impatient and wanted it in the system.)

I have found the guy to build our home at the farm, for sure.

They will do a similar job that K1 or K3 media will do, without the cost. If I find I need to buy it, I will. But, it won't be cheap. I will need between 60 and 75 liters of it. Here, this media runs about $10.00 per liter. Plastic bottle caps have cost me between .50c and .75c per kilogram.

Oh, they, over time, build up "good" aerobic bacteria for the system. The aeration helps them to grow and be strong little bacteria, and it knocks the old, dead bacteria off the media (bottle caps), to make room for new to grow in its place.

 

@Asia-Off-Grid how is the system? Any up-dates? Was wondering if you have plants growing and if you have any tips for those that are considering an aquaponics system.

 

Sincerest apologies. I will update the build soon. But, no. My grow beds keep having delays. At the moment, it is leaky fittings. By "leaky", I mean like a sieve.

Naturally, it didn't leak a single drop during the test. That only started after we glued the 300 pieces of PVC pipe together, from the bulk heads.

 

You have no idea how ticked off I was. Nothing is consistent here, even PVC pipe / fitting sizes.

 

I am so sorry to hear that. But I guess that is part of construction. My first thought when reading your post was did you tape the ends before screwing them together. Unsure if you have the white tape over there but it does act like another barrier then the glue.

 

Yeah. We have - teflon tape? I think it's called? White. I didn't want to put PVC glue on pipe threads, due to it curing before we could tighten the threaded fittings down. I have never used PVC glue on anything but slip connections.

Anyway, That was one issue. The other was the bulkheads I ordered from the US - $50 (bulkheads) $75 (DHL shipping). Yeah!

The bulkheads I got were 2 each slip / threads, 2 each threads / threads, and 2 each slip / slip fittings. The problem is, the fittings here, when mated with the bulk heads, have to have about 4,000 yards of the tape on them before they will draw up tight. Fortunately, though, I found one stick of PVC that will fit - snugly, into either slip end of the bulk heads. So, in another week, when I feel I can work on it again without taking an axe, machine gun, or rocket launcher to it (Would you believe we can fire rocket launchers here? No joke, if you know the right people.), we will cut the pipe, remove the bulkheads, replace all with the other bulk heads, and test again. I have been pumping more water than a fire truck the past two weeks, from the storage tote, to the grow beds - and back. Just getting old to me, now.

 

July 3 to July 6, we started thinking of the grow beds. But, with the sump tank so high up (a 55 gallon / 208 liters drum oriented upright on the ground), this was not going to work. The sump would have to be lowered, so the grow beds could be at a reasonable height for maintenance. So, we decided to bury it part way in the ground. Perfect idea.



Next, to continue - and start on the grow bed areas.



And, she's a comin' along, at this point.

 

July 7, more bed construction and electrical installation.

 

July 10 - Fish in their new home, enjoying duckweed.

 

On July 22nd, we discovered a minor problem in our first (solids separating) filter, called the Radial Flow Filter) - a bunch of very small invaders. Apparently, two of the fish in the tank did not get the memo we sent out, stating no mating until we had prepared both a breeding tank and a nursery. These little guys were small, I mean to tell ya. I thought "The Boss" was messing with me, when she originally spotted them in the filter. (Keep in mind there is tons of poop and other impurities in this water, along with these almost microscopic fish. Okay, maybe not that small, but you get the idea.) She started dipping the net in to catch them, and put them in a bucket. In mean time, I prepared the former home of the adult fish - a 70 liters aquarium.

Turns out, we ended up with 101 of the little guys that we transferred. Some were too sneaky for "The Boss" and she was unable to get them. At that point, we weren't sure how many more.

 

Very interesting . I've enjoyed watching your progress . Any updates ?

 

Yep. Coming.

 

July 23 - The difference between a man and a boy? The price of his toys, of course.

So, since I knew I was already going to be considerably over my $1,000 USD original budget for this little project, I figured - what the heck. So, I rang up a company in New Zealand and ordered a Blue Lab Guardian Monitor from them, with associated accessories. Not the cheapest thing I ever bought. But, hopefully, it would earn its keep - by helping me keep track of nutrients, water temperature, and pH levels.



Also, on the same day, we continued grow bed construction. Time for the plywood to be put into place:

 

July 25 - All plywood installed in both beds, time to start lining them with styrofoam. This helps insulate the water, and prevents the liner from being punctured by the plywood.


If I have not stated it thus far, these two grow beds should have a combined capacity of about 1,450 liters of water. For you metrically challenged folk, that would be about 380 US gallons of water.

 

July 26 - The plumbing supply people thought we were nuts, when we went back for a second order of styrofoam.

 

July 30 - A brief pause for fry update:

The fry in a homemade nursery (waste basket and shade screen), at eight days old.

 

Update:

First, since I took the time to mention them, I will show you how the fry are doing. Growing. We gave away just under half of them, to a guy who had given me some Black Soldier Fly Larvae, to help me get a colony started. Here are the ones we have left - and are growing like little weeds, and eating us out of house and home.


Grown a bit, ain't they? They were 1 month old on August 22nd.

My apologies for more bad photo taking. I may be a lot of things in this world. A photographer, however, is not one.

Now, onward - the grow beds - Act II, Scene 1.

 

I will preface this with, if I had started with the construction of the grow beds - I would have stopped with this entire gig prior to getting fish. They have been a thorn in my side since we began piping the drains. But, I cannot blame anyone but myself, for not getting samples first and seeing how it would all work out. I just assumed.

To start off with, buying PVC fittings (bulk heads) from other countries, and then expecting (Asian made) PVC pipes to mate up with them nicely was a bit of a stretch (READ: pretty stupid on my part). I guess, after buying the Uniseals from Australia, I was hyped up thinking this would be a universal fit and all would work out great with other parts of this build. Fortunately, with little filing after the drilling was done, the Uniseals fit fine and the PVC pipe (only 1" (25mm) and 2" (50mm) so far) worked out like a champ. Knock on wood (taps self on head), since day one of the build, I have not had a single Uniseal leak. Not one drop. (Since I said that, I will now prepare for a flood this morning.)

So, we just purchased the 2" (50mm) male threaded couplings, to mate up to the rear of the bulk heads that were going to be the drains for the grow beds. We piped them all together - without glue, and filled the grow beds. This was to be a test to see if the fittings would leak, which were attached to the bulk heads. Obviously, we expected a bit of dripping from the other PVC pipes down the line from there. 24 hours passed. No leaking. Apparently, our reliable worker had put enough plumbing tape on the male threads, that it sealed the connection to each bulk head great.

Great! Time to glue some PVC. We drained the beds to points below the bulk heads and began gluing the drain pipes to the sump. Gave the PVC ample time to cure and filled the beds again.

All looked okay. No leaking. We left it overnight and waited for the next morning, before doing anything further.

The next morning, the boss woke me to give me the bad news. One of the bulk heads leaked like a sieve. It was as leaky as a screen door on a submarine. I ain't never seen so much water leak from a single plumbed fitting in all my life. I was as mad as a wet hen. I was so mad, that had him drain the beds and I didn't touch them for about two weeks, or so? Finally, a couple days ago, after I had done enough "woosahs", I was ready to begin again.



So, we cut the PVC pipe out, removed the male threaded couplings, and removed the bulk heads. (I am sooo glad that I bought different types of these things, when I placed the order.)



I had him replace the slip / threaded bulk heads with slip / slip bulk heads. This morning will be 48 hours since they were installed. We will start by sorting the pipe and fittings to the bulk heads, glue them together, and let them set tomorrow.

IF all goes well, I expect to be adding water to the two grow beds by tomorrow afternoon.

 

I always use bulk head transfers fittings that are in the international thread of 1.25 or 14tpi , plastic has / can relearn the root /crest of thread & work.
I would not of done slip till out of the thread & major . Bulkhead to thread nipple & then a thread valve to a thread to slip adapter . MY thoughts