If you are just getting started with aquaponics, you are probably reading all you can about the miracle of the bell siphon.
Well, they aren't miracles they are physical science in action and while they do fall in the nifty, keen-o, fine-o category we have found several problems with them.
Add one more to that category.........root intrusion from the grow bed!
We recently stepped out of town for a little over two weeks. We had someone periodically peek in on our systems and feed the fish a few times. We were shocked when we got the panicked phone call that one of the systems was over-flowing on the grow bed and loosing water in the fish tank. While we had a good bit of rain in our absence and that might explain an over-all higher water level we do have overflows installed to take care of heavy rain. Also, rain wouldn't explain why we would loose water from the fish side of the system. What fun to troubleshoot from 1500 miles away!
Every thing was humming when we left town. The plants were uber happy and the fish appeared to be happy (hard to tell when they are smiling) so all should have been good. What happened?
Well, the plants were so uber happy that they grew like crazy and even though we had the bell siphon guarded, the roots grew into the siphon itself. The entire thing was so totally clogged with roots that the siphon could no longer drain. Now you know it is a serious root blockage if water, one of the most persistent and powerful forces on earth couldn't make it through that root ball!
So, we will develop a new guard to protect the bell siphon from roots. But, this has only reinforced our decision to stick with loop siphons on all of our other systems. The design of the loop siphon does not allow for root intrusion and all of the other systems utilizing this design had no problems with roots.
So, bell = bad
Loop = good
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Sunday, April 7, 2013
When it Rains it Pours
It is going to happen, no matter where your survival garden is located, it is going to rain one day.
Rain can mess with your pH and increase the water levels. If you are on a flood and drain set up, you should plan for this.
Look what happened after it rained one day.
The water got cloudy. Even though the fish we were using as test subjects were just feeder goldfish, we felt sorry for them and exchanged some of the water. If you do this in an attempt to stabilize the pH without chemical intervention, don't swap out more than 1/3 of the water because you don't want to loose too many of the fish poo nutrients from the water.
The big lesson learned here is to have an overflow mechanism so that if the water level raises too high, it automatically drains out of the system. No matter where your survival garden is located, this is just a good practice.
And speaking of practice, look how we'll our practice green onions are going. You will notice that we added rosemary to the bed as a test to. See how plants that normally like to be dry will respond to an aquaponics system.
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Growing Media
There are a couple of ways to set up your grow beds. We started with a flood and drain system. In this method the water from the fish tank cycles from the tank to the grow bed where it floods the bed and then drains back into the tank.
Using this method we started with regular pea gravel from the garden center. The gravel is perfect because it won't absorb or hold water and has so many little crevices, nooks, and crannies between each pebble that roots can easily spread. Because the gravel. Is dirty, we put it in buckets and rinsed it with a garden hose to remove the dirt.
The lesson learned is that gravel makes a great grow media, but even when you think it is clean...it is not. We put the gravel in the grow bed and waited for the first flood and drain cycle to see if we had the water level correct. The water level was correct but the gravel wasn't as clean as we thought. The dirt fouled the water so bad that the first set of fish pretty much died within 24 hours. The survivors were temporarily released into the pond in the front yard. Good thing that we conducted the test with feeder goldfish!
Lessons learned. Gravel is a great grow media. Gravel must be thoroughly washed until all the water runs clean. Always conduct tests with feeder goldfish.
Oh, by the way...some pepper plants and a green onion are the test plants to see how different root systems interact with gravel as a grow media. They are loving it!
Using this method we started with regular pea gravel from the garden center. The gravel is perfect because it won't absorb or hold water and has so many little crevices, nooks, and crannies between each pebble that roots can easily spread. Because the gravel. Is dirty, we put it in buckets and rinsed it with a garden hose to remove the dirt.
The lesson learned is that gravel makes a great grow media, but even when you think it is clean...it is not. We put the gravel in the grow bed and waited for the first flood and drain cycle to see if we had the water level correct. The water level was correct but the gravel wasn't as clean as we thought. The dirt fouled the water so bad that the first set of fish pretty much died within 24 hours. The survivors were temporarily released into the pond in the front yard. Good thing that we conducted the test with feeder goldfish!
Lessons learned. Gravel is a great grow media. Gravel must be thoroughly washed until all the water runs clean. Always conduct tests with feeder goldfish.
Oh, by the way...some pepper plants and a green onion are the test plants to see how different root systems interact with gravel as a grow media. They are loving it!
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