Sprouting Chronicles....

One important aspect of this project is to prepare and design a small working model that can be scaled up for mass production.  Therefore, every aspect of this project has to be efficient and as low cost as possible.  In order to have a constant supply of fresh vegetables there needs to be different stages of plant and fish development.  On the plant side there needs to be seeds sprouting, plants ready to be transplanted, plants in the rafts, and plants being harvested. 

While thinking about the above aspects I attempted to use two different medias for plants production.  As you recall in the previous post I used a media  of coconut noir/vermiculite (CV) and a media or Rockwool (RW).  Failure (I will comment on failure in my next post).  My plants did not grow well.  The CV media had a 75% germination rate and my RW media had about 12% germination rate.  Only one species, the leeks, sprouted in the RW media.  Of the plants that did sprout they did not take well to their environment.  I will comment on what I think happened in my next post.

 

Therefore, I took most of the plants out and started over.  I did take the opportunity to use the transplanted plants and put them in the system to test the procedure for drilling holes in the rafts and placing them in them.

I need to test, as stated above, how to efficiently plant and transplant to the system.  The seedlings are starting off in a tray with 92 slots.  The idea is to transplant the mature sprouts to 2" or 3" pots to go into the rafts.  Below you see some premature transplanted plants placed into 2" pots to be placed into the raft. 

The spring season is underway and I have no plants so I concentrated on planting summer plants in the above trays.  I do have some spring plants but mostly summer now.

tomatoes
serrano chilis
green bell peppers
jalapenos
squash
cucumbers
pak choi (spring)
leeks (spring)
cilantro
oregano
beans
onions

 I then cut holes needed in the Styrofoam.  It was fairly simple and will not take much time to finish the others.  Different plants need different spacing.  This is a small plant raft.

Here is the raft in the water with the premature plants inside.  I expect the plants to die and will discuss this in the next post.  For now I have gone through the initial process from seeds to raft. I look forward to a higher success rate with the plants on the next run. For now out...............

Fish Suicide

As I was walking to the side of the house to take my weekly readings I noticed that one of my fish was on the ground.  Dead.  Unbelievable.  I have a cover over the tank for a few reasons and that is one of them.  The opening between the cover and the tank is so small.  I don't understand how that he got out.  Friendly Aquaponics state in their manual that this can happen.  Tilapia explore and will jump out if there is no cover.  I took this opportunity to replace the material I used on my cover.

Other than that mishap everything with the tank and trough are doing very well.  The water is ready for plants.  The ammonia reading is low, the nitrite is dropping, and the nitrate is high.  This is our plant food.  I will explain more about the progress of the plants in the next post.

Last note:  Our fish death will not be wasted.  The fish sacrificed himself for education.  Let me explain.

I had stated that one of the goals of this project was to provide schools with a working aquaponics system that is a project based, hands-on approach to learning.  The aquaponics project involves all of the core disciplines and other elective curricula.  Disciplines include;

SCIENCE

• Physics (Engineering) ---- trough and tank design
• Chemistry - water
• Biology (zoology (ichthyology, entomology, botany, horticulture, aquaculture, microbiology,...)) -- fish, plants, bacteria

MATH

• Geometry - trough and tank design
• Algebra - trough and tank design

 LANGUAGE ARTS

• English --- research, writing technical reports, design instructions

SOCIAL SCIENCE

• History --- History of aquaculture, traditional farming methods, hydroponics, etc...
• Social Projects --- Food and Rescue Mission

Now back to the fish that will be used for education....  My daughter, son, and I will be dissecting an examining everything we need to know about tilapia anatomy just as would be the case at any school.  We will be looking at everything; eyes, scales, digestive tract, sexual organs, fins, heart, etc.  Our fish is in the freezer waiting for our dissecting scope to be brought out and utilized.  I asked my daughter a question today.  How do I know if the fish is a male or female?  She looked at me inquisitively and responded how most kids do, "I don't know daddy tell me."  What an opportunity for me!  Do you think I told her the answer? 

No.

I am training my daughter to be a critical thinker.  She has to find the answer.  Once she knew I was not going to tell her I then began asking leading questions to help guide her towards the answer.  She wonderfully commented on how her and her brothers private parts were different and therefore maybe the female fish and male fish have different private parts.

So the journey begins....  How fortunate I am to be able to guide her on her educational quest which ultimately reveals more and more about how wonderful God is.

I believe education can be looked at two ways;

1. To know more about a particular subject ... or 
2. To know more about a particular subject which reveals more about who God is and what He did for us.

I choose the latter......

Indoor Planning and Planting

Today was a good day for many reasons but mainly because it was my eight year anniversary.  I love my wife.  I am so lucky.  Thank you Jen for the amazing eight years and the many more to come.  We were able to go down to Santa Monica over the weekend and eat at RFD (vegan restaurant.. good food!!), see Cirque Du Soleil OVO, and then hit Barnes and Noble.  What a night! 

I did have some time, while hanging with the kiddos to tackle another aspect of my project, the indoor planting of spring seeds.  The hardest issue is deciding on this first time around what to plant, how many to plant, and how many different variations for scientific purposes.  This will drive me to the looney bin so I decided to just get things going.  The plan is to get spring plants going that will not do well in the sun. 

The tank and trough are ready to go the only concern is frost.  Where I live we should be clear at the beginning of March so now is the time to plant.

I decided to go with two different medias for my seed trays which will eventually be transplanted into 2-3" net pots.

Media 1:  Coconut Noir (coconut fiber) with 50% Vermiculite.  This is the mixture that was recommended by Friendly Aquaponics in their manual.  I do not like the consistency of the substrate.  It is too fine.  I am afraid much of it will end up in the water.  We will soon see.

Media 2:  Rockwool:  I found this at our local Hydroponics shop.  Rockwool is a growing media that is made of rock and sand, is inexpensive, and has the consistency of cotton candy. 

I planted eight plant total for each vegetable.  Four in media 1 and four in media 2.

The plants I am starting with are as follows;

Romaine Lettuce
Bib Lettuce
Great Lakes Lettuce
Arugula
Spinach
Pak Choi
Leeks
Green Onions
Broccoli
Corriander
Swiss Chard

Mini Greenhouse trays, Vermiculite, Coconut Noir Block, Vegetables, Rockwool, Square Foot Gardening Manual

Coconut Noir in water

My daughter mixing the Coconut Noir and Vermiculite

Half Media 1 half Media 2

Off Season Planning

Short post.  The fish are adapting well and have doubled in size since the last post.  My wife has taken on the duties of feeding the fish daily.  The water quality has been ok.  The only issue seemed to be the turbidity of the tank.  I believe this was due to rainwater dripping into the tank from the roof.  I recycled water through it from the trough and the water is clear again.  I will monitor this to see if this was the problem.  There are a few projects that I will be working on next to prepare for the first planting.

I am planning my spring and summer garden layout and what I will be planting.  This will be a first test run of the project and so I will be planting a variety to see what grows well and what does not.  I need to get net pots, coconut coir and vermiculite for the planting medium, seeds, and another air pump.  Also, I will need to cut holes into the Styrofoam for the net pots. 

Until next time.....

The Fish Are In!!!

This morning we woke up with grand plans.  Get the fish...  My wife, daughter, son, and mother-in-law, took a trip to the operation facilities of Blue Beyond Fisheries in Palm Desert, CA in hopes of obtaining our Tilapia fish.  Blue Beyond Fisheries raises mostly strains of the red and gray Oreochromis mossambicus. 

Here is my daughter giving us her fish pose before we go.

Here we are at a gate in Palm Desert hoping this is the farm???

 All of those little dots in the tank are Tilapia fingerlings.

My son checking out one of the many holding tanks.

Observing one of the breeding tanks.

At home.  Fish need to acclimate to the new tank first.

My daughter taking her scientific recording duties very seriously.

Recording the number and size of each fish.

 My daughter's data sheet with number and length of each fish.  :)

Final Notes:  

Water Temperature:  78.5 degrees F.

Dissolved Oxygen:  1.75 mg/l

Time: 4:30pm

Pump.  The pump from the grow bed is turned off so I do not have to heat up that water also.  I will turn this on once I get the temperature to a level I know it can sustain.  Then I will turn on the full system again.

Observation: Fish appeared to take to the tank very well.  We will see tomorrow.

The Fish Chronicles....

You would think that obtaining fish for my system would be easy.  Drive over to your local pet store pick out some goldfish and then put them in.  Ummm, not when you want Tilapia apparently.  Let me take this time to give a shout out to my wonderful wife.  She is so supportive and I am so thankful for that.

Now, I wasn't naive enough to think that Tilapia were at my local Pet Co. but I did think there would be many sources in southern California or online. 

Online

Yes, there are Tilapia fingerlings readily available online but the shipping costs were more than the fish so I began my search for a local Tilapia source.

Local

I was sure there would be plenty of Tilapia sources because of the close proximity to San Diego and Los Angeles.  My Google searches were not that easy. After much research my mother-in-law (such the enthusiastic helper) and I did come across Blue Beyond Fisheries.  I called the manager Oscar and he said it would be no problem to come down and pick up some fish.  Yes, mission accomplished, sort of.....

He asked what it was for and I was describing my OUTDOOR aquaponics system and he stated that Tilapia were warm water fish and needed a minimum of 75 degree water.  I admit that I have not researched every aspect of this project and assumed, due to the hardiness of Tilapia, that they would be fine.  Not so.  This was a detail that needed attention.

Setback... for now.  I did some research and bought two 250 watt aquarium heaters to heat up my 150 gallon outdoor tank.

Once they arrived I plugged them in and hoped they would bring the water temperature up from the frigid 51 degrees F.  The next morning the water was at 61 degrees.  Great sign.  It is now resting at 74-75 degrees.  This will be just fine.


Next...... the fish farm.

Final projects before the fish

It is has been a while since my last post.  I waited until the Christmas vacation to continue my project.  Here are some of the final touches I had to accomplish before I added fish.

1. Build a cover for my tank to block sunlight and stop fish from jumping out.
2. Build a small box to house the air pump unit.
3. Make a filter so the small fish cannot leave the tank.
4. Research the most cost effective way to obtain Tilapia. (Internet)

The cover for the tank did not take too long.  I bought a three more 1x2's and constructed the lattice you see below.  I then used some left over "weed mat" material and staple gunned three layers to the bottom.  This will work for now.
.

Next, I used some of the scrap pieces of plywood, 2x4's, and 1x2's to make a small box.  I then bought a couple of hinges for my door and then painted.  This did not take long

I then bought a 1 1/2" pipe.  I did not have any left over from the initial plumbing.  Black pipe was what Home Depot had at the time.  I then drilled a series of holes in the pipe as seen below.

I need to find a small mesh to place over the pipe.  My local Pet Co. had the small filter bags you see below. 

I placed a 1 1/2" cap on one end, placed the bag over it, secured it down with the clamps and then added the male 1 1/2" coupling and then screwed this into the female 1 1/2" bulkhead fitting in the fish tank.

Lastly, I placed my box in its location an ran the temporary electricity to it. 

Now I am ready for the Tilapia.  No problem right.......  Well, lets just say it wasn't as easy I thought.... Stay tuned.