Water Quality Graphs

I finally got around to transferring my water measurements onto a spreadsheet. Bascially, when you have time to do this, you know your system has stabilized!

For those that are interested, below are my pH, amonia, and nitrate measurements. Unfortunately, they only go back about two weeks. There were some pretty major disruptions to my system in the time before then (gravel switch and then the tank repair job) so who knows if even those measurements would have been very meaningful. I know they would have made for some interesting charts, as my pH got up to 8.6 several times when I had the old gravel, and my nitrates ventured into 160ppm several times which led me to do some water changes.

I think these graphs capture the "tail" end of the maturation of my system, as pH, amonia, and nitrate all appear to abruptly stabilize. I have not added any phosphoric acid since last Saturday (5 days ago), so I think we're in for some smooth sailing.






Very bad news on my fingerlings. Last weekend, I pulled the floating basket up out of the water to check on them and found several dead fingerlings. This led me to semi "panic" and I decided to give them a salt bath. I had seen recommendations on giving finegrlings a salt bath once a week, but I do not know how much salt is the right amount. If I measured correcty, I gave them a 10% salt bath for one hour. I then put them in the sump, not back in the floating basket, which seemed a bit constraining.

Every day since then, I or my caretaker has pulled anywhere from 15-30 dead fingerlings off the pump filters in the sump. I do not know what is killing them, but I'm pretty sure they will all be goners at this point. Whatever it is, it is not affecting my big fish (so far, knock on wood).

I definitely need to identify the source of the problem so as to not repeat it. In the meantime, time to find more fingerlings or play some romantic music for my big fish to propogate again.

So far, so good.

There is not a whole lot to update this week. The plants are looking really good. Growth is very noticeable. The color is deep green and healthy.

My fish tank appears to be suffering through an algae bloom. I constructed screen covers for the whole thing and for the sump tank. I also put a makeshift lid on the swirl filter. Hopefully the algae levels come down in a few days.

Water PH is 6.6 and is holding. Haven't added acid for 1 day now. Amonia is at 0.25ppm and nitrates are around 10ppm.

Here are pics of the various plants:

Basil. This is what they looked like when first planted 6 weeks ago. (originally planted in the bathtub bed, and then transplanted into this grow bed.

That's a lettuce trying to come up under the shade of the basil plants. I should have moved it to another area of the bed where it would receive more light, but forgot. It's doing OK regardless.

Basil, three radish plants, and rosemary.

Rosemary, mint, oregano, purple basil.

Lettuces and spinach, 1 week after planting. Most are noticeably bigger than when planted, others do appear to have "taken".

Tomatoes and sweet peppers (left hand row), other stuff are various herbs and spices.

More lettuce and spinach.

Back in Business

Got my fish back in the main tank and got the swirl filter hooked up this weekend. My main tank had required a repair job prior to being able to convert to a CHOP system.

I'm very glad to have things back to "normal". Having the fish in the sump required me to run one grow bed at a time, and I was constantly worried about the fish stressing out in the smaller space and with the drastically changing water level.

Pictures of the fixed tank and swirl filter below. Also, I decided to go with a much simpler and less costly sump container. It is now a much bigger hole lined with pond plastic liner. The first picture shows the sump. It only looks dirty because the liner is clear and the dirt you see is the earth underneath the plastic. You can tell it's crystal clear by how visible the pumps are underneath the water. This plastic is used in commercial tilapia farming, is UV-resistant, and is supposed to last 5 years. I think I'll get a little more out of it in my semi-shaded and small-scale operation.

Tank repaired. Here is what it looked like during the "surgery". The floating basket is for my fingerlings. There must be 100 or so of them, but I have not counted them (nor would I know how without putting them in mortal danger). That 3" pipe is an overflow pipe for the tank to drain into the swirl filter. It extends to the bottom of the tank, where there is a 3"-2" reduction. This helps it grab solids near the bottom and send them to the swirl filter. The reduction adds some suction power I am told, but I have yet to confirm this. Since there is no vacuum created, I do not quite see why a reduction would increase suction, but then again, I am not a fluid dynamics expert. I think the amount of suction would depend on the amount of water being pumped into the tank, since this determines the amount of water leaving.

New Sump. The Fish Tank outer wall is to the left. Don't let muddy floor fool you - it's transparent lining over a hole in the earth.

New Swirl Filter. Water is gravity fed from the fish tank the via the 3" overflow pipe which discharges water about 2/3 of the way down the tank in counterclockwise direction. It exits through a 2-1/2 " inch "funnel" near the tope of the barrel which is connected to a 1" drain pipe that send the water to the sump. This type of filter works in two ways: first, by discharging the water below and making it travel up, that provides time for solids to fall out of suspension; secondly, the swirl effect caused by the vortex in the middle causes water on the outer perimeter to spin much more slowly than water in the middle, also providing time for solids to fall out. Once in the sump, water is pumped both back into the fish tank and to the grow beds.
The barrel is a "blue barrel" of about 200 liters.

The run from the fish tank is long and awkward, but that's what the space I have allows. I've wound up changing much of the original plans, but I think it will ultimately make for a better system.

The plants are doing much better now that the PH levels are under control. They appear to be growing more quickly and are definitely greener and more healthy-looking. I got a handle on the situation starting last week, with the careful addition of phosphoric acid. It still has not stabilized, but I believe it is on its way. Washout from the gravel is completely ruled out as affecting the PH. A sample of the gravel soaked in water yielded stable PH after a small addition of phosphoric acid, and held over a week.

Below are the latest pictures of the plants. The squash plant died back when I transplanted the plants from the bath tub to the large grow bed, and my jalapenio plant died this week. That one had already been dying in a dirt pot but revived in the AP system - until this week. Now it really looks like it's kicked the bucket.

I am not dissapointed by the plant results. AP system take a while to stabilize anyway, during which time plant growth is weak. That, plus the PH problems in the beginning and the transplant of the bath tub plants did not lead me to have evry high hopes to begin with, so I am pleasantly surprised.

My next plan is to set up a floating raft system as part of this system. There is plenty of space for it and it is reported to be the best way of producing lettuce. An additional filter to take finer solids out before sending the water through a floating raft system will be needed.

Click here to see what these looked like when first planted into the bath tub bed. They were transplanted from the bath tub bed to this bed 2 and a half weeks ago.


The bath tub bed went back into operation this week. I could only run two beds with the temporary sump/fish tank. Lettuce and spinache (barely visible here) were planted. Can't wait to see what they look like next week!

Minor Surgery, Swirl Filter and PH Woes, Nifty Screens

My swirl filter turned out to be a partial success. That also means it was a partial failure. The problem was with the drain pipes from the tank to the swirl filter. These pipes were a "left-over" arrangement from when I had my system set up with the grow beds emptying into the fish tank. The water returned through these 1" pipes into the tank.

With the CHOP system, these pipes were to act as overflow drains so that the tank water could fall into the swirl filter and then into the sump. The problem is that I had too many 1" pipes too close together, and there was not enough concrete between some of them, resulting in some serious leakage. When they acted as drains from the grow beds, there wasn't a problem since the water in the tank was never close enough to the pipes for there to be water leaking between them.

The only way I could think of to fix this problem was by removing the pipes completely by knocking the tank wall down to the pipe level, replacing them with one 3" pipe, and re-pouring the concrete tank wall. Then I'd need to wait at least a week for the concrete to cure enough before applying tank sealant, which itself will require another 3 days to fully seal.

Of course, this would mean draining the tank and coming up with a makeshift tank and aquaponics arrangement in the meantime. I removed the blue barrels that were acting as sumps and replaced them with my third cattle water reservoir container. This is now in place and receives the grow bed water. So, we're back to the original type of arrangement while I wait for the concrete to cure.

Current Tank - Grow Beds Drain Into Tank. Former Concrete Tank Undergoing "Surgery"

New 3" Overflow Pipe and Repaired Tank Wall

Swirl Filter

The swirl filter worked pretty well. I used a discarded washing machine drum and fitted a pipe down the middle. The pipes from the tank (the 1"-ers) I connected to large 3-inch pipes that went vertically downwards into the tank. These I drilled plenty of holes into the bottom so that all the tank water falling into the swirl filter would be coming from the bottom of the tank, where most of the particles are. The over flow pipes were connected to elbows and extended so that when they drained into the swirl filter, they entered the filter all the way at the bottom. This would force the water in the tank to travel from the bottom all the way to the top, and allowing for the maximum distance possible for particles to drop out of the water before the water drains through the stand pipe.

Washing Machine Drum Acted as Swirl Filter. Sorry I didn't Get a Picture of it When Fully Set Up

Although it only ran for a day and a half before I had to shut everything down due to the leakage problems, it collected quite a layer of particles in the bottom. Unfortunately, these washing machine drums are not made with the same fittings as PVC so in addition to my tank leakage problems, there were also leaks in the swirl filter.

In my next version, I'll just use a portion of a blue barrel. The principle works quite well, which is all that matters. The washing machine drum will have to find another use.

PH Woes

In the meantime, PH levels continue to be high (8.2-8.4). This is after changing the gravel with gravel I had already tested to ensure it would not raise the PH. I can also rule out the concrete in the tank since for the last week no water has been in contact with any concrete. I've gone from trying to lower it with lemon juice to using phosphoric acid. Every time I lower it (to say 6.8-7.2), it just climbs right back up to the 8.2-8.4 range in a day or so. I've also changed a good portion of my tank water (on several occasions when my nitrates were too high) with water from the spring which has a PH of 6.4-6.6.

I have to say I am completely befuddled. For now, I will continue to lower it by adding a little phosphoric acid every day. If there is something in the water that is buffering the PH, it will eventually be neutralized by the phosphoric acid and then I can keep it at a lower PH. That is the hope, anyway.

Removable Greenhouse Shades

Since I've had extra time while waiting for the tank to cure and so forth, I decided to install some greenhouse shades.

My greenhouse consists of a double-pitched roof, with one side pitched about 3 feet higher than the other so that there is a natural exhaust vent for hot air to escape through. The roof is transparent polycarbonate roofing sheets and the sides are wrapped in anti-aphid screening.

When I first installed the roof, I thought it would be a good idea to also seal the roof on the inside with anti-aphid screening, since there are gaps and cracks in any roof that may allow bugs in (even though it may be water-tight perfect).

It turns out that is not such a good idea. The screening material is white, and when installed horizontally, it makes the inside of the greenhouse painfully bright - to the point you do not want to be in there.

I decided to remove this material, and also looked into installing some shade material over the plants. After researching typical greenhouse shade material by talking with a local provider, they told me the most I want to shade is by 50%. Shading material comes in different "densities" allowing you to block anywhere from 50% up to 99% of sunlight, and what you use depends on what you're trying to grow. Leafy vegetables, tomatoes, and just about everything else I have need lots of sunlight, so there is almost no reason to shade at all. However, I wanted to be able to put something up, if only for when working inside the greenhouse.

I devised a removable shade clamped on PVC pipe and hung on wires. So far, it works pretty well. I can make the shade open or shut by pulling on one of two sets of ropes. It works just like a horizontal curtain. It took a while to figure out all the "bugs", but now that I have one quadrant of the greenhouse done, it won't be too difficult to do the others.

I also decided my fish needed some shade. They are supposed to prefer dark spaces, plus all the sunshine promotes algae growth. This makeshift shade will do for now:

Moving the fish to the temporary tank I assume was pretty stressful on them. Unfortunately, one of the bigger fish died. So far, it looks to be a one-off incident as none of the others have died and that was three days ago. The good news is the fingerlings are doing quite well. I know you are supposed to separate them from the grown fish, but so far they do not appear to be being eaten. Here you can see three different sizes of fish:

The "Everything-Got-Changed" Video

Well, we managed to do all sorts of work this weekend:

• Took down the large grow bed, cut the table legs down, and refilled it with new gravel.
• Installed a second large grow bed and changed the gravel in the bath tub grow bed.
• Dug a hole for our sump tanks. These are two interconnected "blue" barrels.
• Built a steel, lockable lid for the valuable equipment area.
• Built a swirl filter and stand.
• Reconfigured the pump to function out of the sump, from where it fills the tank and the grow beds, in a "CHOP Mark 2" setup.

In all, too much to write about, so I made a video:

The PH will probably take some time to come down. It hasn't yet. I've added lemons and will add a few a day until it does. And if this gravel turns out to also be bad, I just might put myself in the sump tank and bury myself in it! I tested it first, so this unusual AP maneuver should not be necessary.

I'll fix the problem with the overflow system next week. I'm also glad I can now route the drain pipes around the outside of the grow beds. I can walk up and down and across the greenhouse and between beds without worrying about pipes.

Cha - Cha - Cha - Change is gonna come....

Got out to the farm and AP set up Thursday. Earlier in the week, I tested gravel samples from four different quarries for their effects on PH. I just put some gravel in a small container and added tap water. I tested the PH of the tap water before adding it to the rocks, and a few hours after adding it. All samples caused the PH to rise. This could be do to residues left on the rocks and may not necessarily mean they actually contain limestone. In order to determine whether the PH effect was due to residues or to the rocks themselves, I brought the PH in all samples down to 6.0 by squeezing a little lemon in each container. Then I waited a day t see what happened. Two of the samples held at 6.0 and the other two rose back to above 8.0. Counting the gravel I'd already used in the system, that means 2 out of 5 quarries produce rocks that won't raise my PH.

Unfortunately, this means I have to haul gravel from the city all the way out to the farm, in my truck. I took 300 kilos out yesterday and am sending a truck with the rest tomorrow.

The plants are doing remarkably well considering they're living in the PH equivalent of Mars. Alright, I know they don't look good, but I am just surprised they are standing at all. The squash (lower right) has about doubled since Sunday. The other have grown a bit, though I haven't taken actual measurements.

The plants in this bed aren't doing as well. They are the ones that suffered through the siphon-failure last week. In any case, I'm happy they're even standing!

Since I have to change my gravel anyway, I've also decided to make a major, but I think worthwhile change to the system. Right now, my beds are higher than my tank, and they drain into the tank. This is OK, but the beds are pretty high up. The tables they sit on are 70cm high, and the top of the beds are another 40 cm high. That's well above my waist and will make picking tomatoes or cucumbers later a bit of a chore. You can probably appreciate the height issue in this picture I posted earlier.

What I'm going to do is cut the legs of my beds down so the beds are 40cm off the ground. I am then going to sink a barrel into the ground near the fish tank and drain the beds into there. I will move my fish tank pump into this sump and use it to pump water into the tank and into the grow beds. The tank will be fitted with an overflow tube that drains into the sump. This system has been tested and featured by Murray Hallam out of Australia. It's called "CHOP", for Constant Height, One Pump. The "constant height" refers to the fish tank water remaining at a constant height, as it overflows into the sump, and no longer raises and falls with the filling and draining of the grow beds.

Yesterday, we cut one of the tables down, put a new grow bed on top, and filled it with new gravel. Unfortunately, the 300 kilos of gravel were not enough to fill the bed, so I could not get it hooked up to the system yet (or transplant my plants to it).

Tomorrow, I'm getting 900 kilos more delivered and will fill the rest of this bed, one more large black bed, and the bath tub. I also plan on getting the barrel sunk and the pump placed in it so the system is fully working in the new configuration. Will post lots of picks with the new set up after it's all done, if I'm still standing!

Almost forgot: One of my fish has delivered dozens (maybe 100?) of fish tadpoles! I knew this would happen eventually, but was very pleased and excited to see it happen. Maybe I won't need to buy any more fish. Will try t get some pics taken, but they are so tiny, I don't know if they'll show up.

Tropical Storm Thomas and Other Adversaries

I was not able to get to the farm until Saturday (I normally go Friday). Tropical Storm Thomas wreaked havoc across Costa Rica, knocking out bridges, roads, water and electricity all over the place. One community suffered a massive landslide that killed over 20 people. In another, 50 homes were destroyed by a wall of mud (fortunately, people had already evacuated).

By Saturday, there was one route open to the farm. The storm had passed and clean-up was underway everywhere. The road was dirty, but passable. Here's a pic of one portion of the road, mostly cleaned up after a small landslide:

(Between Puriscal and San Pablo)

Upon entering the greenhouse, I immediately noticed something was wrong. My bath-tub grow-bed was just fine: the plants had grown some, and despite looking a little pale (due to nutrient block-out caused by high PH), they were upright. In the other grow-bed, the plants were severely wilted - some completely lying down on the gravel.

Bath-tub grow bed - plants are fine

Other grow bed - major trouble!

What had happened was the siphon failed. It only failed for a few hours, but in this climate, that was enough for the sun to heat up the bed and gravel. The bed and gravel were warm to the touch. The good news is the siphon didn't fail on its own. Carlitos had shut the pressure-release valve that allows some pump water to spray out upon the surface of the tank. Without this valve set correctly, inflow into that bed is too high for the siphon to auto-shut-off.

Also, I noticed the drain pipe from the grow-bed to the fish tank was sagging big-time in one point, essentially making it so water would have to go uphill. The pipe was fine last week, but with the heat and the weight of water going through it for a week, it sagged. I fixed this with some blocks and got the siphon going again.

After just a little more than an hour, the plants had begun to resuscitate, which I found remarkable.

Last week, I wrote about my PH problem. I decided to drive down to the nearest river in order to extract and test some river stones. I put these in a plastic bin filled with water Saturday.

On Sunday, I tested this water and the PH was again high! I couldn't believe it! It wasn't as high as my gravel water, but it was still higher than what the water that was added to the stones was.

Suspecting that this may be due to residual sand left on the rocks, I decided to add a lemon to the mixture. This immediately brought the PH down to 6.0-6.2. Four hours later, and that PH is still holding, so I think whatever caused the PH to rise initially is either not something in the rocks themselves, or if it is, it's not something the rocks will release more of when the PH drops. I brought the bin and PH test portion of my water testing kit back to the city with me and will test throughout the rest of the week.

If the river stones prove useable, I will next have to devise a way to get down to the river with a rock-sifting arrangement and load the truck up.

In other news, the fish look good despite nitrates at between 20-40ppm. PH continues to be through the roof. Quite frankly, I'm impressed with how good the plants look despite the high PH. Ammonia continues to be about 0.25ppm. Carlitos has also been measuring ammonia daily, and it's yet to have gone above 0.25ppm. This could be due to the large size of my fish tank, and small quantity of fish. I'll keep things just as they are until I can replace my gravel.

PH, high PH, Ammonia, Nitrate

And here's a better picture of the set-up as it now stands. There will eventually be at least 2 more of the large black grow beds. The fish tank is in the back left corner.

Basic Components: water pump and air pump.

My "Basic Components" compedium was left in the dust for a while and it's time to bring it up to speed.

I'd written about my main fish tank pump before. It's a Little Giant brand pump, and here are the specs for anyone that's interested. It works in-line, or submerged. I have mine submerged. So far, it's worked great, and it's easy to clean. I assume pump technology is pretty well advanced, and have faith this thing will perform for a long time. However, I am planning on getting a second pump ASAP, just to have on the shelf in case I need it. These are mechanical devices after all, and if there is one thing I've learned over the years, it's that if something can go wrong, it eventually will - usually when it's least convenient!

My air pump I had to get on line. The local aquarium market is aimed a small household fish tanks, probably for people with a few gold fish and such, which I consider extremely boring and a waste of time and money. I mean, if you can't eat it, and it's not a dog, what's the point?

In any case, I tracked down a nice air pump online. This delivers 16L of air per minute, through eight outlets:


The air tubing is sold separately, as are the air-stones. Right now I only have four air-stones hooked up (because I didn't buy enough tubing), but that should be way more than enough air for the amount of fish and water I have.

I'll be posting the specs and set-up for my battery-back-up pump system hopefully this weekend. After that, I hope to get some plant and fish action soon, or there will not be much to write about for a few weeks!

Think Twice Before Feeding Your Fish Chicken Shit, and Other Mysteries.

Today I had the rare opportunity to visit the farm and my AP system during the week. I had to pick up Tora, a Malinois half-breed 10-month "pup", and bring her into town to get her fixed.

As I posted last week, I was surprised to find my nitrate levels were through the roof. I was initially very pleased to see this, until I began to really think about why this shouldn't be possible. Also, a full 30% of my readers (Ready), commented about how this was likely due to something other than the presence of nitrogen fixing bacteria. He suggested the chicken waste, which in an earlier post I had indicated was likely to be in my gravel, was the likely culprit. If so, and if more chicken waste was being somehow added to the system, this could pose a serious problem.

Well, as it turns out, someone (me) had suggested to my caretaker, Carlitos, that Tilapia were such hardy fish they could eat anything, even chicken shit. Well, sure enough, Carlitos took me up on my suggestion and was feeding them a few pellets per day (four to be exact). Mystery solved!

Now, even with this gross introduction of nitrate to the system, nitrate levels were down today compared to last Saturday and Sunday. When I added the extra bed, I also added more water to the system, so that obviously helped. The good news is that nitrite levels are now detectable, as seen in this nitrite and nitrate test:

Those nitrite levels were not detectable in my weekend test. So, some bacteria has apparently started to make itself evident.

Other than chicken-poop, we were feeding the fish dead bugs and dog-food pellets. The dog food pellets did not prove very popular, but they did eat them, grudgingly. Both of these ideas were spawned by my desire to avoid buying fish food, and by wishful thinking that I'd get my own fish-food supply system going soon (duckweed or worms). Well, today's realization and experiences led me to go straight to the agro supply store and pick up real fish food:

That's 14 kilos for about $22. Enough to feed my existing fish for a very very long time. Of course, I'll be adding more fish very soon. The fish loved the pellets. Of course, after a week of dog food and chicken shit, who wouldn't?

My other "mystery" revolves around my PH levels. The water I used to fill my tank comes from a natural spring. Its PH is around 7.0-7.2. The water in my system, for whatever reason, is at PH 8.0. JAG suggested I check my gravel. I did so by filling a small container with natural-spring water and checking the PH before and after adding gravel. After letting the gravel sit in the water since Sunday to today, the PH is at 8.0, so sure enough, it's the gravel.

I am not quite sure what to do about this at this point. Changing the gravel is a huge proposition and I am hopeful I can get the PH down over time. Maybe hope is not a good strategy. I have read of systems going from 8.0 down into the preferred 6-7 range over time, but I do not know if their high PH situation was caused by gravel or something else.

For now, I am content to wait, watch, and see how the plants behave. The ones I planted in the bath-tub appear OK. One, a jalapeno plant, I took out of a planter because it looked like it was drying out and getting ready to die. Since being in the AP system, it has recovered significantly.

The Jalapeno plant is the big one on the left. Everything else is basil (mostly), one cantaloupe, and there are two asparagus crown I took out of my dirt garden and am testing here.

I went to the nursery last night, picked up plants for the other bed, and planted them today:

That's Carlitos in the background. Here's a close-up of the plants:

I installed these laundry baskets in the tank today in preparation for hopefully getting more fingerlings this weekend. They're meant to provide shelter for fingerlings - a place the can be away from the big fish. I don't know if this is really necessary or not, but it seems like a good idea I got off Murray Hallam's site.

And here is Tora, who made today's progress possible:

Fish

I just realized I had not posted any pictures of my fish, so here they are! I also realize I was so tired last weekend when I posted my update, that I mistakenly said I had 5 large fish. Well, there are six. Plus, there are two fingerlings. Those I couldn't take pictures of or even find, but they must be in there or they'd be floating on top.

I've also decided to name these and all future fish. There is just nothing better than a personal connection. I've established an elaborate and sophisticated naming system for said purpose.

Basically, these fish are named as follows: Grill-Dinner-1; Grill-Dinner-2; Grill-Dinner-3; Grill-Dinner-4; Grill-Dinner-5; and the cutest one of all, Grill-Dinner-6. If you would like detailed instructions and the basic formula for my naming algorithm, please write and send $29.99. :)

Where the Wild Pre-Grill-Dinner Things Are:

My tank, when full, and when my system is fully operational, should hold around 180 fish. That's a lot of BBQs. The naming system though, is guaranteed to work for well over that number, so act now while supplies last.

Week One: Oh-*hit and Yeehaw!

The phone rang Tuesday evening. It was my caretaker at the farm, where my AP system is. I didn't leave him with with very many instructions, and this is a completely alien concept to him, and just about anyone else in Costa Rica (hydroponics is fairly well know, but aquaponics? - fuggedaboutit). The main reason for the lack of info is he leaves Saturday at noon and I didn't finish getting everything set up until Sunday. I didn't even get the fish until Sunday. So Sunday I left the farm and went back to the "real" world, without being able to give him almost any instructions. I left everything in the hands of fate and my trusty (and well-tested) back-up pump.

The point being is, I knew something had to have happened for him to be calling. Something bad. Dead fish, I assumed.

Fortunately, it was nothing anywhere near that bad. He explained, after much excitement, that one of my larger grow beds (of the cattle reservoir variety) had flipped over. Apparently, one of the footings gave way, causing it to tilt. The massive weight of the grow bed caused the rest of it to flip. Of course, that broke some pipes, sending water everywhere. By the time he discovered it, the water in the tank was near empty. If a few more minutes had passed, my pump would have been sucking air, probably burning out, and the fish would have been toast as well.

Fortunately, he did find it on time, and I was able to explain to him over the phone what to do: disconnect both cattle-reservoir grow beds, cap the pipe, and leave the bath-tub grow bed on. And, refill the tank of course.

I have to hand it to Carlitos, my caretaker. He has no idea what any of this stuff is. He probably did not get past 4th grade (through no fault of his own), does not know how to read, and to top it off, he has a horrible stutter. It took me about 5 minutes to even understand what it was he was explaining to me. Anyway, most people think he's a bit "slow" but it's just the way he comes across. He's actually pretty quick in a fix.

I spoke with him again Wednesday and Thursday, just to make sure everything was OK. He and a helper also poured concrete footings in the spots under each grow table leg. I won't even get into what I had them sitting on before. Suffice to say, there is a reason I don't have a materials engineering degree.

Here's the table that flipped and bent out of shape. It's sitting upside-down on top of a non-damaged table:

Now, the system basically ran for one week. To be more precise, it ran for three days roughly without problems. Then it ran with one grow bed attached for another four days. It's a good thing in retrospect that I only started with as many fish as I did, as I doubt one grow bed, and bath-tub sized one at that, would have been able to handle the amonia put out by a large number of fish.

The Yeehaw news is a result of my tests. Amonia levels are in the sweetspot range of .25 - .50 ppm and nitrate levels are through the roof. Here are my water tests:

I was not expecting nitrate levels to be so high so fast. This is great news as it means I have both ammonia-to-nitrite producing bacteria and nitrite-to-nitrate producing bacteria in my system after such a short time. I can only guess that because the gravel sat in my driveway for so long, and maybe because I have chickens that love to "liberate" themselves all over the place, that I had good levels of bacteria in my gravel to start with.

I'm actually a little worried about the nitrate levels. It does not cause immediate harm to fish - and certainly is not anywhere near as poisonous as ammonia is to fish, but it does seem quite high. I'll have to do some research to find out if I should be really worried or not.

In any case, the solution to high nitrate levels is to add more grow beds and plants. So I spent all Saturday (today) resuscitating one of my larger grow beds. Just filling the thing with gravel is more exercise than I usually get (none). I also hooked up my back-up pump to the fish tank for a while so I could use my main pump to wash the gravel in the grow bed, using another grow bed to catch the water and recycle it through the gravel-filled bed:

There is gravel in the upper bed, I promise! After washing it enough times to have the water come out clear in the bottom, I hooked it up to the system and put my tank pump back. I wasted a ton of water. Good thing water is cheap and plentiful here. If I didn't have cheap water, I guess I would have just hooked it up as is. I would not have been able to see my fish for several days, but supposedly, that doesn't hurt them. I don't know - I like clean water and to be able to see my fish.

I'll probably plant some things in the second grow bed tomorrow. I'll hook up the remaining beds as soon as I can. Unfortunately, only being able to be around on weekends puts a severe slow-down on things. On the other hand, it makes me work my rear end off every minute I'm here!

And now, it's beer-o-clock.

Day 2 - Got my fish!

Picked up 4 female and two male tilapias, all close to fully grown, and two fingerlings. Could not get my hands on any more fingerlings unfortunately, but it's a start. The place I got them at is no more than ten minutes from my place, so I was able to transport them in some old plastic buckets without the need to worry about oxygenation.

I also adjusted the height of the upsteens on two of my grow beds. The water level just wasn't reaching the roots, and upon inspection, I realized the level was well below the recommended 5cm depth (from gravel level down). The plants in the bath tub were fine, as the water level there was reaching about 5 cm below the top of the gravel.

My PH level got back up to 8. It must have something to do with the gravel. I squeezed one lemon into the system and will add one per day until the level gets below 7. The high PH shouldn't hurt the fish, but it definitely won't be good for the plants. This will all be academic once the system stabilizes, but for now, I'll just have to keep an eye on it.

Day 2

The tank was just as murky as the day before. While pondering what to do about this, I decided the investigate the PH situation a little more. I found both my house water and spring water had PH levels well below my tank water. Therefore, whatever caused my PH to be over 8 came from the gravel, the grow beds, or the pipes. While my spring water PH was higher than the house (house water read about 6.2; spring water 6.8-7.0), neither was anywhere close to the tank water.

That made my decision to change the entire water quite easy, so out it went. This allowed me to clean out all the small particles that were in the fish tank as well. After refilling it and running a few flood and drain cycles, the water remains much clearer than before, and the PH is in the 6.5-7.0 range. Not exactly where I want it, but much better than before.

Next, I'll be off to a local Tilapia grower for some starter fish!

New Design - OUT with you half-barrels!!

After trying various half-barrel configurations and bell siphons, I decided half-barrels just aren't the way I want to go. The bell siphon alone takes too much space in each barrel, and having 16 bell siphons just didn't appeal to me. Also, the depth in each barrel is obviously not consistent due to the curvature of the barrel. If I were doing a small system, and just had a few barrels to set up, that would be one thing, but since I am setting up a decent-sized system, I'd rather do it right from the start.

I redesigned my layout based on larger grow beds, of about 525 liters each. After getting quotes from fiber glass shops on these one-off beds, and just as I was about to put a deposit in for an order of four, I discovered a local manufacturer of various rubber-based products, including tanks, pools, and water-reservoirs for cattle. It turns out the cattle reservoirs are perfect! The cost of these was about 40% less than the fiber glass equivalent.

Today I finished setting up the system with these new grow beds. I went ahead and planted what we had available - basil, arugula, and peas. I probably should not have done that before testing the water, which turned about to be PH 8 !! This water comes from a natural spring on the property. I figured that was better than tap water, and other than the PH, it probably is.

I went ahead and added crushed egg shells to the system to reduce the PH. I placed them in a make-shift left-over mesh-bag from my greenhouse screens, tying that to a plastic bottle, and floating it in the fish tank.

I have no idea how long it takes for the calcium carbonate to dissolve and bring the PH down, but egg shells are supposed to make for a good PH regulator in AP systems. I'll test it tomorrow and see if it has come down any. When it gets below 7, I will add my Tilapia.

For now, I'm priming the system using "Humonia".

Here some picks of Day 1:

All three bell siphons going. Yes, the water is damn murky. That's due to the gravel, and should settle out in a few days.

This grow bed is a used bath tub. If I could have fount five more of these, I would not have bothered with the water-reservoirs for cattle.

Backup pump system and air pump.