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.