Koi Group Presentation

At the last minute, I was asked by Terrance (the owner of Island Koi) to give a short presentation about Aquaponics, as it would be something pretty easy to incorporate into their koi ponds. This was on 11/8/09.
I tried to get a demo unit ready, but just couldnt squeeze it in, despite painting at 11 at night.



The presentation went okay, I made a quicky powerpoint and winged it. There were about 30 people there. Only a few seemed interested.

Meet up

Our first meet up for www.aquaponicsinparadise.com is set up to happen this Saturday, September 19th at Olomana Gardens. Check the forums for info!

IBC is the way to go

Aside from scrubbing down the IBC and cutting it, I would recommend an IBC over barrelponics if you can find one.

8/18/09




2 Weeks later, 9/02/09

Break

Took a break from the leaky 'monster 300' and set up the IBC tank. Much simpler to setup, but not as nearly as pretty, but definately much cheaper. It was 250 gallons and cost around $100.




here it is right after it was cut and scrubbed. you have to be careful of what it used to contain as it may leach out chemicals over time.







its filled with water and a few plants

how not to fiberglass

the new 299 gallon tank is almost done. spent all day sunday 'fiberglassing' the tank. actually, we didnt use fiberglass, but instead used an iso resin.

learnt some interesting things about applying resins
1) adding too much catalyst makes the resin harden in 10 minutes, also whatever resin you have will solidfy, heat up, and start to smoke.
2) 4 rollers is not enough for 2 n00bs trying to do 3-4 coats of resin. buy at least 8 rollers and a few disposable brushes.
3) change out of your good clothes and into your crappy clothes BEFORE starting to paint.

=p

New website almost up!

A new AP forum, localized for people in Hawaii, but open to all

>>>Go here<<<

stabilized

looks like my barrel system has stabilized. need to do some water tests but the fish have finally stopped dying and the duckweed/azolla has finally started to multiply.

the big tank has hit some work stoppage. hope to have it finished this weekend or early next week at the latest.

its almost done!

Looks like the new system is almost done. All told it will be about 285 gallons. By next weekend I hope to be testing it out for water retention. Will post pics and info when its done.

In other news, I planted Hawaiian sweet corn, swiss red chard, purple bell pepper, Waimanalo long eggplant, and hybrid eggplant. Guess we'll see how it goes.

Discovered that theres a leak in the system. Turns out that the water pressure/weight pushed out the pvc fittings, making me lose 4 buckets of water a day. As I had tweaked the water height (higher) on the raft bed, I thought I had changed the fill rates, didnt occur to me that water was leaking out somewhere.

Going to do a full water change today, as the new water should be dechlorinated (to get rid of the bad salt water)

found the culprit

well i am a big dummy. apparently i have been using the wrong kind of salt. even though i had problems with tilapia deaths before i started salting my tank, i was told to use sea salt to calm the fish. a small measure of plain sea salt calms the fish and it will not harm the plants.
i had a bottle of mortons sea salt, right on the front it said 'no iodine, from the plains in spain' or something. stupid me, i didnt check the back where it says 'contains: salt, yellow prussian sdfljkiug anticaking agent"

i will now be changing out all of the water. looks like its going to be a few weeks til i can put in any tilapia, and by then i will have my prototype tank up and running.

it is recommended to use 2ppt of sea salt. (1kg per 1000ltrs = 1ppt) or 3.5 oz of plain sea salt (no iodine or anticaking agents) per 100 gallons.