SentencedToBurn's crayfish aquaponics

SentencedToBurn · Apr 20, 2015

Trippa said:
Kaura love calf/lamb/sheep/beef liver bro ... As a youngster eeling in creeks the liver would always bring them out of woodwork ...lots of nutrition in it as well

Oh sweet will add this to the mrs's shopping list cheers bro!

newril · Apr 20, 2015

Awsome!

SentencedToBurn · May 9, 2015

Looks like at least pepper plant is progressing well (the White Naga), the rest are a bit slow. Lettuce and rock melon are loving it though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7YjtS8kHKY

PaulS · May 10, 2015

Thanks for the video update really interesting, you've inspired me to make a simple hydropot with pump.
Its interesting how the chillies aren't doing so well. Do the roots reach the water nicely?

SentencedToBurn · May 10, 2015

PaulS said:
Thanks for the video update really interesting, you've inspired me to make a simple hydropot with pump.
Its interesting how the chillies aren't doing so well. Do the roots reach the water nicely?

Hey Paul yeah the water level gets pretty high, probably half inch below the surface before it drains, so they definitely reach the water. But I have my hopes for the white naga which is looking very healthy.

I've been looking to make an outdoor pond next to the greenhouse next year and just run the water from there. This way I won't be restricted by the dimentions of the greenhouse. But I gotta get my wife to agree to that first haha.

Elvis Has Left The Forum · May 11, 2015

Great stuff, Anthony!!!

The crayfish look like they are doing quite well...
Good luck with the over winter growing and I hope your heat panel keeps your greenhouse temps up to acceptable levels...

Thanks again on the temperature probe info... I think I have found a wifi USB hub that will let me run probes without the need for a laptop in my greenhouse... Of course I have to build my greenhouse first!!! LOL

Please keep the updates coming... :onfire:

Bill

SentencedToBurn · May 15, 2015

Looks like the water is improving - the white naga is looking even healthier compare to last week:

SentencedToBurn · May 21, 2015

Walked in this morning to check on the plants and smelt something a bit funky. Right in the corner of the greenhouse was this guy, mustve climbed out during the night and probably ate some snail bait I layed around the corners of the greenhouse. I checked and the other two are still in the tank though so all good.

The only place I can think where this guy climbed out from was where one hose and the pump cable lean onto the edge of the tank - otherwise its at least 4-5 inches from the surface at it's highest point to the edge. So I'll make sure that nothing touches the edges of the tank in the future. I was also thinking of getting some small aquarium fish in there too to liven up the place, might do that.

Sawyer · May 22, 2015

That's a bummer, but at least the other two are okay and you've eliminated an escape path.

The White Naga looks good. Where did you get the seeds?

SentencedToBurn · May 22, 2015

Sawyer said:
That's a bummer, but at least the other two are okay and you've eliminated an escape path.

The White Naga looks good. Where did you get the seeds?

Hey thanks man, I got the seeds off my old neighbour - he orders tons of stuff from pepperlover and others.

SentencedToBurn · May 23, 2015

I got hold of an old fishtank yesterday and decided to set it up in the greenhouse as a miniature aquaponics experiment with two more plants.

This isnt flood and drain but I left it as constant flood for now. I might have to get more gravel to top it up but that's all I have at the moment. Lucky I don't have to wait for the water to stabilise as I used some straight out of the crayfish tank.

The tank itself is just 40L, I found some cheap baby guppies - got 13 of them, but those guys breed like mad, so once I have enough I'll release some into the crayfish tank too.

I had two identical Aji Amarillo plants sitting in 1L pots, so I've planted one into this aquaponics setup, and will leave the other one in soil to try another comparison.

SentencedToBurn · Jun 25, 2015

Long time no updates - I've been having deficiency issues with my setup, so finally after getting some sound advice from people on here I decided to introduce low dose of my hydro nutes I usually use.

From reading I figured that Zinc will be one element to watch out for as it seems to be the most toxic as far as concentration goes.

The nutes I'm using have 0.02% of Zinc. The ratio of nutes that I'm trying to achieve is one of the lowest recommended ones, which is about 1tsp per gallon i.e. 1.25 ml per Litre. I'm underestimating the size of my tank to further dillute the nutes, so am assuming the overall volume of water is 100L not 160L.

I've just added 5tsp of nutes to the tank (25ml) which is only 1/5th of the minimal concentration of nutes that I'm after. Will check water levels and crayfish state in the next couple of days to see what happens.

The Zinc levels (which are the ones that worry me the most) will currently be 25x0.0002= 0.005ml if we assume 100L volume of water that comes to 0.000005% (0.05ppm) which is exactly the threshold of the suggested zinc level http://scottspridefarm.com/zinc/ so hopefully this will not stress or kill the crayfish.

Keeping in mind that this level of nutes is only 20% of what I need for young plants, if all goes well I will add another dose of the same amount in a week's time, to further reduce deficiency but that'll probably be as far as I go.

SentencedToBurn · Jun 27, 2015

3 days since I've introduced the nutes - I've also done it in a small tank with the guppies, both the crayfish and the guppies seem to be ok so I have doubled the dose (which means that the amount of zinc is nearly twice as high as recommended, but the amont of nutes is only 40% of what you'd want for young plants. So I think it's the best compromise I can reach.

The water levels seem the same with one difference that NO2 is now actually registering, before it was on 0. It's still way below the threshold so no problem for the fish.

I have moved the guppies into the crayfish tank so all fish is in one place, and have moved the Aji Amarillo from the fishtank growbed to the main barrel growbed. So far so good - the plants still don't look very healthy but this will probably take a while. I have also planted a few Red Morugas into soil, into DWC and into the 2nd growbed, so hoping to get a 3 way comparison of soil, DWC and aquaponics this summer.

This guy is always easy to find - the pot is the favourite spot, the other one always hides behind the bricks where the camera is sitting, I don't want to piss them off too much and move stuff around, so I just let them be and take pics of whoever is visible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhIatLs1M0o

PaulS · Jun 28, 2015

Nice update dude.
Looks like everything is coming together.
I hope your plants get better

SentencedToBurn · Jul 4, 2015

It's been 10 days since Ive added the nutes, and can see clear improvement. The White Naga has gotten bigger and the leaves seem to be filling in with dark green from the inside. And the other two small plants in the other bed which stopped growing for about 2 months have both increased in size:

SentencedToBurn · Jul 9, 2015

Just 5 days since the last update and it's grown quite a lot again. And it's now growing buds too. Just shows how much good stuff was missing from that water.

Also all new leaves are one consistent colour, so looks like the patches that are filling out the old leaves are perhaps the colour the leaves should have been if the nutes were there. Not sure. Either way, looks like we're sorting this out.

SentencedToBurn · Jul 18, 2015

Have pruned the white naga a bit. All plants are still doing much better than before I've added the nutes. Many more buds on the white naga too.

SentencedToBurn · Jul 31, 2015

A lot of progress over the past two weeks, the Devil's Heart and Peach 7 pod have really filled out, and the white naga is much bushier and is growing a ton more buds now. Looks like some of them might even be opening soon!

On the downside - the 2nd crayfish died a few days ago, at least this one didnt climb out. Not sure what caused it - the water levels (that I'm testing for anyway), temperature, etc, all is sweet. I guess adding hydro nutes perhaps was a bit too much for one of them.

White Naga:

Devil's Heart (left) and Peach 7 Pod (right). Red Moruga is at the back - this one I only planted just recently, it's a comparison vs a soil red moruga and DWC to see how they are different.

ronniedeb · Aug 8, 2015

Cool Glog.

SentencedToBurn · Aug 8, 2015

In the last week these 3 plants have grown quite a lot. I did change the light timer so instead of 3 hours of light the plants now get 7 hours (plus all the daylight). Maybe these extra 4 hours of artificial lighting is what's helping.