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Aquaponics


ROB83R

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So basically the fish water gets pumped through the bed and then off somewhere else and you top up the fish tank? 

Couldn't that waste water be treated and reused? 

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  • Puff
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So I was thinking about grow beds. On the site linked earlier in the thread there are 500 litre tubs for nearly $400 a pop.

 

Ain't nobody got time fo dat!

 

Bunnings has 170 litre tubs for less than $20 a pop. They are made from a different type of plastic but appear to suitable.

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38 minutes ago, ROB83R said:

So basically the fish water gets pumped through the bed and then off somewhere else and you top up the fish tank? 

Couldn't that waste water be treated and reused? 

in an ebb and flow situation we flood the growbed and return it to the tank. great for leafy greens and whatnot. so the water gets re used. we struggle to use pesticides here even organic ones. this is the standard setup that most people would go for and for a beginner I would start here. simply hook it all up then watch it for a while in order to vary the flow rate into the tank so the bell ciphon is able to empty the growbed completely for a brief moment.

 

I should stop confusing people. just plan on a system to flood growbed and ciphon it back to the tank.

 

but if it was me I will definitely be doing some form of run to waste system as well as an EBB and flow growbed as you'd use a negligible amount of water for it and you could treat that water to grow anything. I.e you can PH it so the plant is getting the ideal nutrient uptake as you can't really mess with the PH of a fish tank much unless you want to kill fish. its kinda why I like goldfish as they dont mind crappy water so I can push it to be more acidic.

 

I stress, despite what you might see or read, it is for nitrogen loving plants. so you might have a lovely big tomato plant but then get stuff all fruit in an ebb and flow situation. but if we treated the water a little, you could grow anything and especially if you correct the PH the plant(s) will go bonkers. then combined with the fact the run to waste system is coco which is far more like soil than expanded clay is.

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keep it coming johnno. Most might not understand what you're saying now but after a bit of research or mucking about with it it'll sink in. 

 

7 hours ago, Puffwagon said:

So I was thinking about grow beds. On the site linked earlier in the thread there are 500 litre tubs for nearly $400 a pop.

 

Ain't nobody got time fo dat!

 

Bunnings has 170 litre tubs for less than $20 a pop. They are made from a different type of plastic but appear to suitable.

Gumtree has ibc's for $100 each. Just gotta make sure it had food grade stuff in it not oil.

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I hope I makes sense though right? whenever I am gardening I always look up the plant I intend to grow and then figure out the ph that it prefers.

 

if fish tanks pumping out closer to ph 7 but the plant you grow wants like PH 6.2 then it wont be uptaking all the nutrients and you won't get ideal results.

 

the main issues with aquaponics can be resolved by taking the fish water and treating it then feeding plants with it. then using a growbed that has a medium far closer to soil.

 

but I stress, for beginners I would definitely start with a ebb and flow system.

 

I was going to setup another aquaponics system, but...

 

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You're making sense man. Any knowledge shared is highly appreciated. 

I never really looked at it that way in regards to the ph level. Makes perfect sense though. Would explain why most things I've tried to grow in garden beds fail. 

I've got a tomato plant growing behind my car where I park at home. Never planted it. It just showed up. Someone has thrown a piece of tomato on the floor there I reckon and it's growing from that. It's sitting in a mix of blue metal and dirt. It's on the side of a concrete slab. I'm just staking it and leaving it alone and it's is going really well. Already got over 20 tommys growing. 

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