Yet Another Pump

I bought another pump yesterday. The pump I had just wasn't right for this application. This pump is actually a pond pump that is designed to clean ponds. I ran a 1/2" hose from the pump to a solid filter. This should solve my fish poop problem. It runs all the time. I've considered putting a time clock on it, but I'll decide that later. It all depends on what it takes to keep the tank clean.

By removing the old pump I also removed my water leak. I discovered I didn't have one of the fittings tight enough. It was leaking just a few drops at a time, but it doesn't take long to add up. I've gone through and tightened all fittings so I don't have the same problem anywhere else.

I've started thinning the spinach I planted a few weeks ago. I'm leaving them in the container for now, and hopefully the system will be ready when it's time to transplant. I did pull out one spinach plant with a good root system and planted it in the gravel. I didn't see any harm and if it doesn't grow, well, I was gonna throw it on the compost pile anyway.

Pump $45.00
1/2" line $6.50

Show Me the Money

I've decided to start including costs in my blog. This costs will take time and material into consideration. I mean the almighty dollar is king, but my time(and yours) is valuable also. First, I'll try to remember everything to date. These figures won't be totally accurate, but should be close.

Originally I used a bunch of material that I had laying around. I'm sure this stuff was pricey when it was purchased but I won't count this money.

Material:
2 railroad ties (for the legs of the grow bed stand)
2 55 gallon plastic drums
1 metal trough holder (holds the 55 gallon drum halves horizontal)
1 70 gallon watering tub
1 sump pump

I purchased the rest of these materials:
1 water pump   $50
10' 3/4" pvc      $2.50
misc pvc fitting $10.00
pvc glue             $5.00
20' 1/2" plastic tubing $5.00
3 1/2" brass fittings  $15.00
1/2 yard pea gravel $20.00
1 aerator          $25.00
1 quart plumbers putty $5.00
1 tube silicone   $5.50
5 dozen minnows $12.00
1 filter pad   $8.00


I'm not going to itemize the time. I figure it's been about 20 hours so far.

That about sums it up. As I spend more money and time on it I'll keep track on these posts.

So much to learn.

I discovered a major flaw in my system today after work. It turns out that fish poop adds up faster than I thought it could. My system is pretty simple, or it was until I just changed it. I had a float that controls a pump that pumps water from the fish tank to the grow bed. The pump only runs for about 5 minutes every 45 minutes or so. I do have a filter in the bed itself to remove solid waste from the tank.

It turns out that I need to pump more water through that filter than 5 minutes per hour or so. There was a ton of fish poop floating around in the water. I haven't noticed it building up because I've been getting home as the sun goes down. Since I got of earlier today, I was able to see the fish tank in full sunlight. What a mess it was.

To fix the problem, I installed another pump in the tank. This new sump pump is now the pump that moves the water to the grow bed. The float that was attached to the other pump is now controlling the new pump. The old pump is now running non stop. I have it piped to pump onto a filter pad and then back into the fish tank. This will work for a couple of days while I figure a permanent fix. I'm glad I got off early, I'm not sure how much more poop those poor fish could stand to swim through.

I've also decided to follow the advice of Monday's Child, a reader of this blog, and wait a while before I add more fish. Everything I read says let the cycling process have some time to develop. I almost didn't have enough patience for this to happen. Thanks Monday's Child.

Patience

I'm glad to report the fishies are doing good. I'm starting to think I don't have enough fish, or too much water. The ammonia level isn't moving up very fast, and neither are the nitrites. I've decided to add more fish to the water to move the cycling process along.  I'm trying to decide between tilapia, which are a favorite in the aquaponics circles, or catfish. I know catfish get pretty big, but that takes quite a while and I do have 65 gallons to work with.

I also have decided to build a homemade water filter. After doing some research I realize it shouldn't be too hard. My whole goal is to remove the chloramines from the water for the fish. I've realized that those chloramines could also be harmful to the compost tea I plan to make during the spring. If I can build a big enough filter, that should solve both my problems.

I need to come up with something quick, though. It seems I add more water to the system daily than I originally thought I would have to. I'd say every morning I have to add about 3/4 of a gallon of water. I'll try to build the filter this weekend so I don't use up all my rainwater.

I'm also planning my next fish tank. It'll be in the ground. I have a backhoe on the land and it'll be easy to dig. I'll just have to get some pond plastic and shape the thing correctly. I'll dig a hole on one end that I can install a sump pump in. I'm pretty excited about this idea. I have a plan on how to pump water out of the new fish tank without dropping the water level as I do it. We'll see how it works out.

Ok, I finished this post just in time to go watch the second game of the World Series. Go Rangers!!

The third time's the charm.

24 hours and all my minnows have survived. I'm not even sure how to celebrate that. I might have to drink a beer for each minnow. 24 minnows means 24 beers. Oh boy, it's gonna be a rough day a work tomorrow.

Speaking of work, while I was slaving away today I was designing my next system in my head. I might have to get a second job to be able to afford my new hobby. I plan, for now, to put the fish in ponds. I have plenty of room on my land for this idea. This is a long way off but, next year I should have ton more experience.

I know I promised pictures, but I can't seem to find the time. Now that everything is running smooth it shouldn't be much longer. I put a tarp over the fish tank to give it shade and protect the fish. My next plan is to build a small greenhouse around the system. I have it backed up right next to a storage trailer that we have. So all I need is a couple of posts and a bunch of plastic and I'll make a sort of lean to against the trailer.

Just in the nick of time

Well, it rained last night. Rained pretty well. Here in East Texas we needed it pretty bad. Hopefully it rains more tonight. This rain will also, hopefully, solve my problems with chlorine. I have 3 55 gallon drums set up next to the gutters of our house. I was able to collect about 140 gallons of rain water last night. So I spent the morning dumping out the fish killing water and resupplying my tank with rain water. I used rainwater once but it was so full of algae it wasn't any good. This time it's pretty clean and I plan to keep the tank away from sunlight to avoid algae buildup.

The rain solved one of my problems, but alas, I have one more to contend with. I've had this problem from the beginning but haven't put much effort into solving it until I had the water situation figure out. Well, now it's time to solve it. My automation isn't going to work the way I want it to. The float I purchased can't be set to turn the pump off and on when I want it to. I can set it to turn the pump on when it's full, but by the time the float turns it off I'll have way too much water in the beds. I can set it to turn off right where I want it but it won't turn back on. I've fiddled with it for a few hours and have come to the conclusion that I need a different style float. I was trying to go cheap and now this is the price I pay. Hopefully I can use the float I have in a different application on the next system I build.

I also plan to build a filter using activated carbon to filter out chlorine in my water. I got the idea from a response to a post I put on DIY Aquaponics. I have the design figured out, and it shouldn't cost too much to build. If the activated carbon can filter out the chloramine in my water, I can use the hose in the future. For now I have enough water stored in a 55 gallon drum to do any topping off I need for a while.

The rain also did one more thing. It helped the trees around here to drop a TON of leaves. I'm gonna spend some time this week raking and blowing leaves onto a new compost pile. This compost pile will be HUGE by the time I'm done with it.

Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center

Yesterday, on the way home from work, I stopped by the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center. I had heard about this place about a month ago. Now that I'm trying to raise fish I thought I would go and check it out. The entrance fee was $5.50. It was well worth the price.

This place is a cross between a  Texas fishing museum and an aquarium. The aquarium part was pretty cool. I was caught off guard when I entered the catfish area. The things are HUGE. As you turn the corner on the glass you're immediately face to face with these giant creatures. It startled me a bit. I also enjoyed checking out the alligators.

I learned a few things while I was there. First, they don't sell fingerlings or fish of any sort. Their main purpose is to stock lakes and tanks in east Texas. The other thing I learned is I can go fishing there. With paid admission you can fish all day as long as you catch and release. The other option is to  pay $10 and you're able to keep 5 fish. I started to think about it and realized this is where I'm gonna get my fish for my homemade fish food. The fishing ponds are overstocked with fish ready to jump into your lap so the amount of time to catch 5 fish shouldn't be long. Also, and I'll see when I do it, I think I can get fish cheaper this way than buying anything at the store.

There are also shows and exhibits there. While I was there, I decided to go ahead and get a membership for a year. It only cost me $15.00. If I can fish there for cheap fish food, it'll be worth it.

Starting over

Well the last of my minnows expired. The only good I got out of them little suckers was they were a great snack for my chickens. I posted a question on DIY Aquaponics, a good forum for people who have AP systems. The question was about how to remove chlorine from my water safely. The answer was Vitamin C. It turns out, from what I understand, Vitamin C will remove the chlorine in the water. This is only necessary if the water company uses chloramine.  The way to get Vitamin C into the water is use sodium ascorbate.  It's some sort of supplement. I'm going to try it tomorrow and see what happens to my chlorine. If it works, I'll get more minnows and start the ball rolling.

I've also decided to use a tarp to cover my open tank. It'll create shade to keep the water cooler and also to hinder algae from growing. I don't have a lot of time left. My spinach that I sowed will need to be transplanted in a couple of weeks. Hopefully that will be enough time to finish cycling the system.

I promised to have pictures a few days ago. Obviously that didn't happen. I'll definitely get some this weekend. Between work, this new hobby, and baseball playoffs I can barely find time to eat and sleep. Speaking of baseball playoffs, GO RANGERS!!!

Fish Killer

I like fish. I mean, I like the taste of fish. I've had fish that I've bought and I've had fish that I caught. Dead fish have never bothered me before. Until now. Grand Total fish deaths: 29.

Ok, ok they're just minnows. I've used way more than 29 minnows in my life to catch bigger fish to eat. This is different though. I want these things to LIVE. You would think I feel bad about the loss of my stock, or my time, or my hard work. Strangely enough I actually feel bad for the fish I've killed. I have some sort of attachment to them. Now that I think about it, I feel the same way about the vegetables I grow. If a plant doesn't make it I feel bad for the plant. Maybe it's not so strange after all.

The rain water that I used was full of algae. I didn't realize it at first but the murkiness was algae. I thought it was sediment or something. So, I've totally dumped out the 60 gallons of water and started over. I used hose water. It has just under .5 ppm of chlorine. If the remaining fish die because of chlorine poisoning I'll get something to treat the water. I don't want to do it now because the treatments I've seen for chlorine also kill ammonia. And I need that stuff to build up. We'll see what happens.

To tell the truth I'm feeling just a bit frustrated, but I know this will eventually work out. I just need to get over one hump at a time. I'm so glad there's baseball on tonight.

Eyes like a Hawk

I do live out in the country. It's nice here. I have chickens running around. Cattle mooing. Horses prancing. Hawks hunting. Yep, Hawks. That's my only guess as to why I only have one fish left. The water was a bit murky, I could never really see all the fish at one time. Over the last few days I've been working on the little problems I had it never occurred to me to protect my fish. The tank is outside and wide open. My chickens have cover specifically because of flying predators. Now I'll have to give the same consideration to my fish. I did cover the lonely little guy with plastic to try to keep him safe. It's a temporary fix, I'll figure some kind of lid very soon.

I got a few things for the tank today. I got the test strips in that I've been waiting for. Turns out I have very little ammonia and very little nitritres/nitrates. That makes perfect sense, considering I have no fish. My main concern was chlorine. I did add some water from the hose yesterday. I guessed right and it was ok to add that water. The chlorine level looks less than .5 ppm.

The next new toy was an aerator. I've never owned a fish tank and didn't realize the thing sat outside the tank. I looked over about 5 aerators and decided on the one that I'll have to protect from the elements apparently. Eventually I'll build a greenhouse around the AP system. I set it up in a spot to do that originally. For now, I'll just have to keep the thing covered in case of rain. The other thing I have to come up with is a better way to run all this electric equipment. You would think an electrician like myself would have the full set up, but no. Electricians are just like mechanics. Mechanics have the worst running cars. I'll get to that electrical safety stuff later, for now it's just extension cords all over the place.

The last little thing was a filter. It's a pretty big generic filter designed to be cut to fit. I just set the whole thing in the grow bed for now right where the water pumps in. I'm trying to clean up that water a bit. I don't want it to filter out anything but dirt. It seems to work pretty good.

So my daughter and I are going to watch Secretariat tonight. On the way home I'll have to stop and get some more minnows. I'll try not to feed the hawks this time.

Water water everywhere....

Well it didn't rain today and I need more water for my tank. I called our water supplier to find out how much chlorine they put in the water. Turns out the put in as little as possible. The good news our small community is at the end of the water service. This means that the little they put in is even more diluted by the time it gets here. I still don't have a test kit, but after talking the the water company I felt confident the amount of water that I added out of the hose day won't introduce much chlorine at all. Of course if I'm wrong I'll find out when I can actually test the water and may have to start over.

Here is a nice article about aquaponics.article

Putting my system together.

I just got the system up and running today. It's not totally finished. I would like to have some more water in the fish tank and more gravel in the bed. We're expecting rain over the next few days so I'll have more water available then. I'm using collected rainwater from rain gutters to house the little guys.

I should have pictures of the system tomorrow. I built the system out of recycled materials that I had available. The tank is really a water bin we used to use to water cattle during a drought. At the moment I have 50 gallons of water in it. The grow beds are a couple of 50 gallon drums cut in half. I set the grow beds in a water trough holder. Then built a stand for the holder to sit on using railroad ties for legs.

 The pump is external. If I had to do it over again I would use a sump pump. I have a float attached for automation. When the fish tank is full it pumps water into the grow beds until the float tells it to turn off. I'm still not happy with the settings yet but I'll adjust it tomorrow when it's daylight. I have 3 1/4" hoses attached to the bottom of the grow beds. All that I do is pump water in faster than it drains out. I have no mechanics to drain the water. It starts draining right away as soon as water is pumped in. The three hoses drain straight back into the tank.

Originally I was going to use the 3 refill hoses to be the aeration mechanism but have decided that it's not enough. Tomorrow I will install an aquarium air pump. The health of my fish is very important. I still don't have my water test kit, but it should be here soon.

Rangers are playing the Yankees now, so I'll wrap this up. Tomorrow I will start talking about all the mistakes I made and what I learned putting this thing together.

It's all about balance.

I've finished building my system. I think I've worked out all the kinks and corrected my mistakes so far. Now it's time to get some fish and get started. On the surface, you would think that it's as easy as dumping fish in their new home and start planting. Turns out though, it's a bit more complicated than that.


The next step in the building process is called cycling. Cycling is the process of building the necessary bacteria in the media while keeping your fish alive. This will take some time. Right now the there isn't enough bacteria to filter out all the ammonia that a full fish tank will produce. If the ammonia is still present when the water returns, eventually it will build up and kill the fish. Apparently I still have to have some patience.

After reading a few ideas on the internet, I've decided to start with just 4 minnows in my tank. Hopefully with 60 gallons of water the ammonia won't build up fast enough to harm my minnows. The trick is to produce enough ammonia to build bacteria, and produce enough bacteria to filter the ammonia. It's a delicate balance. Here are more ideas on how to cycle : Cycling

How do I tell if the bacteria is there? I've decided to install a huge microscope over my grow bed. Ok, I'm just kidding. I need an aquarium test kit. These kits will tell me all the things I need to know. I've already found a test kit on Ebay and I"m waiting for it to show up. There are many options when it comes to test kits. I've decided to not go cheap this one time. I figure this step is pretty important.

Testing with this kit will tell me the level of ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, and ph level of my water. I'll test the water a couple of times a day over the first week to get an idea of what's going on. The first thing I'll look for is the level of ammonia. If it rises near toxic levels I'll just replace some of the water to bring it down. If the ammonia level is ok and the nitrates start to build up, then the bacteria is there. If the level of nitrites goes up then I'm not getting all the right bacteria built up. The key is to make sure the toxicity of the water stays low.

Nitrates are harmful to the fish also. When they start to rise the next step is to drop in a few plants to eat up the nitrates. I've decided to use transplants when it's time. You can also use seeds from what I've read but for the first go round I'll put in established plants. This way it will take less time for me to see the results.

What is Aquaponics?

What is aquaponics? I'll give the quick and easy here. Aquaponics is a symbiotic system that involves fish, bacteria, and plants. Basically fish swim around and around, living their exciting lives. As they live, eat, and poop, they make a mess of their surroundings. This mess, called effluent, contains all kinds of things, but mostly it has ammonia. These poor fish will die in this water polluted by ammonia unless something is done about it.

What we do about it is pump the water out and put fresh water in. Where does the dirty water go you ask? Well, we pour it onto a porous but stout medium, like pea gravel. This pea gravel has a few jobs here. First, it's where the bacteria live that are oh so important to our system. This bacteria changes the ammonia to nitrates. There are a lot of steps involved in changing the ammonia to nitrates, but for the purposes of this blog we'll keep it simple.

The second job of this medium is to hold the plants that we are growing. Along with pumping out the ammonia we are also pumping out all the other goodies that the fish produce. These goodies include phosphorous, an important component of fertilizer. The plants feed off of the fish effluent in addition to the nitrates that are produced by the bacteria.

The third job of the medium is to use the plants and bacteria to clean the water. The newly cleaned and PH balanced water is then redeposited into the fish water. This water cycles endlessly housing fish and feeding plants and bacteria. It is almost a closed system when it comes to water. The plants do absorb water as they grow and we cannot avoid evaporation. Adding water to the system on occasion is much more savvy than dumping water onto plants every week never to see a drop of it again.

This is the basic operation of an aquaponics system. With it you can grow food of two types. Plants and fish. That's right, it's ok to eat the fish. Many aquaponic adventurers grow tilapia, catfish, or any number of tasty underwater critters. There are also many fruits and vegetables that grow well in an aquaponic system. The bacteria, on the other hand, shouldn't be eaten.

This is the absolute basics of aquaponics. I know I oversimplified the system, but not by much. It really isn't much more complicated than I have stated here. This is a great website to read more of the basics Backyard Aquaponics

Day one with Aquaponics

The title is wrong I suppose. This isn't really day one for me in aquaponics, it's more like day 6. Today is the first day of the blog. I have no real experience with aquaponics so far. I've done a lot of reading and I'm almost done building my first system.

 Why would anyone read someone's blog about aquaponics if they're not an expert? Well, my plan is to blog about my experiences as I learn about this exciting subject. It seems I can't get enough off the web to satisfy my appetite for information. As far as I can tell, there isn't near enough information about aquaponics on the web. I've been able to piece together a ton of stuff but it took many hours of reading. What I hope to do here is to consolidate all the information I've learned, while reading, with my hands on experiences  as I go.

I've already made enough mistakes just building my first system to qualify about 4 posts, and they are coming soon. Hopefully, if any first timers read this blog, I may save a few people from making the same mistakes that I have made. I'll also post all my success also. Those are the ones I'm most excited about.

A little about me. I've spent the bulk of the last 18 years in Arizona as a commercial electrician. What I know all about is construction. I am now in Texas about an hour south of Dallas. I live on a 16 acre lot and I'm trying my hand at farming. I'm currently working on building an organic farm. I plan on having it certified within 3 years time. I'm learning the whole process from scratch. One of the things I'm working on, obviously, is aquaponics.

The reason I'm building this blog specifically about aquaponics and not all the other work I'm doing is because there is a TON of information for the organic farmer out there. Like I've already said, there is limited information about aquaponics. Some of it is conflicting also. Hopefully, as I learn I can relay that knowledge and experience. I would love to hear from people as I post that have more experience on this subject(and any experience at this point is more than me). Ok, time to watch football. Go Dolphins!!