Mysterious death

Mysterious death in my #Aquaponics fish tank. A good palm-sized tilapia died this morning without any signs of diseases. I suspect the culprit is a dominant fish in the tank frequently seen pecking on the other fishes.

Minor adjustment

Some minor adjustment in my #aquaponics system. Now feeding filtered water to the growbed and #biofilter is fed using a more powerful pump.

Water became the clearest I have ever had and fishes are very happy swimming around. Hope to see some positive result in the growed as well.

Hari Raya Qurban update

I have been away for a few days for the Hari Raya Qurban holidays and to my amusement, my system is holding up much better than expected. Plants are doing ok and the fishes are still swimming happily. Water quality is also fine.

No worries now to take extended holidays!

Growbed update 13/10

The plants are growing very well although I see some leaves are yellowish in color. They could be either due to not enough sunlight or the system is having an iron deficiency.

It rained heavily for the past few days and some plants have either fallen flat on the ground or suffered leaf injuries from being hit by heavy raindrops.

I found a dead fish today and foud the water is dirtier than I expected. I suspect that one of the water outlets in from the pump that feeds back water inside the tank is creating a current that makes solid waste harder to be picked up and sent to the biofilter.

I will try to feed the extra water outlet to the growbed instead and see how that goes.

Update 10/10 - Palm sized Tilapias

#aquaponics Tilapia are about palm sized now and the plants are growing well. I'm starting to think those may not be Pak Choys. Any idea what they are?

Pakchoy Update 5/10

The Pak Choys are doing extremely well in my system. They're growing up to a good rate. I am very happy and hope to be able to harvest soon. I read that the plant is a CCA ( Cut and Come Again) veg so I hope to be able to come keep harvesting every week.

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Growbed update 2/10.

Transplanted Pak Choys doing great. Water is crystal clear. Fishes are happy. Second round of lettuce seeds grew moldy and just not germinating http://instagr.am/p/QQgb42syod/

(see full image)

Growbed update

I transplanted the Pakchoys since I don't see any Lettuce germinating. Water is crystal clear thanks to the biofilter!

Fishes are happy and I am a happy grower!

New biofilter

The new biofilter is finally running. Water in my tank is already clearing up and the fishes seems happy. Added some 20 tilapia fingerlings today to test if they can coexist with the bigger ones in the tank.

Seedlings sprouting

A few pots are starting to sprout seedlings yesterday! I've forgotten to map them out so I have no idea what they are. Guess we'll find out much later!

First seedlings from new pots

They're started germinating and I am so excited!

A very interesting discovery. I also fou d some seedlings in my filter box. Sone lighter seeds was washed away during the flood cycle and ended up finding a new home in the filter box. That gives me an idea that maybe it's a better idea to germinate them in the sponges of the filter box next time.

Growbed filled

I finally have the time and budget (and confidence) to fill the growbed. Got my LECA pebbles from Mexca and my RD-150 Baba Pots on thursday and set them up in my growbed first thing this morning.

I already have a pot of Vietnamese Mint / Daun Kesum and another pot of Pegaga Kampung growing in the growbed as well as 3 unknown seedlings from previous failed germinations.

Happy to report that the water is much clearer after adding the black shading and what's left of my fish stock is swimming happily.


Enjoy the pics!

Some modification to my setup

I stole some time today to clean my Aquaponics setup and did some modifications.

I have been struggling with algae problem for quite a while, clogging up my filter and have costed me many many almost grown Tilapias. I finally had the time today to add some sun shield to the fish tank cover to minimize sunlight and hopefully algae too.

I have also replaced my big filter with a small aquarium filter placed strategically to the front for easy disassembly and cleaning. If this works, I have some space for a second growbed.

I found a place that sells the clay pallets in bulk but the price is still a little steep for a big sack that looks like a 20 kg sack. That is going to be coming from next month's budget :)

As always, enjoy the pictures.

Dead Tilapias

I found 4 dead Tilapia so far and it was due to my own mistake. Yesterday I was cycling the water where I simultaneously siphon out the water and replacing with new tap water. I usually do a half and half where I leave half of the old tank water and add in half new tap water.

Yesterday I forgot to switch off the tap and it ran the whole night. This morning the tank was crystal clear and the Tilapias started showing signs of distress.

I hope some do survive, tho 2 of the bigger ones has died since this morning.

New tanents

We have new tenants in the main tank. I've harvested all the catfishes, all 30 plus of them and now we have about 12 Red Tilapia growing in there.

Harvest for lunch tomorrow

We're going to have these 4 for lunch tomorrow!

First Harvest of the Catfish!

I decided to harvest 3 catfishes and giving them to a family friend. We will also be harvesting all of them to empty out the main tank ahead of our family vacation in mid May.

Gruesome Discovery!!

I found a dead catfish this morning and it was one of the bigger ones. Fished it out of the tank and found something gruesome!!

The catfish had died trying to swallow a climbing perch!

Talk about biting more than you can chew!!

Non-Aquaponics: Pumpkin flowering!

I have a pumpkin patch which is obviously not on my aquaponics system due to their size. This morning I noticed a flower in full bloom and several other buds ready to spring out. Hopefully we'll have some pumpkins soon.

Catfish update

The first batch of catfish has grown to marketable size but I am going to wait for another month before harvesting.

Planning to have my extended family over for some Keli-Q! Hahahha

Real men sneaks out during lunch hour to clean their filters

Enough said, enjoy the pictures.

Cat fish progress

The catfishes has been growing to a good size. It is now about 6 inches, doubling in size since a month plus ago.

I also found some Red Tilapia fingerlings at the local fish/pet shop and put them in an extra bin I have to see if I can grow them to a bigger size before I add them to the main tank.

Buku tentang aquaponics

I noticed something today while looking over projekbukuhijau's blog traffic. Seems there are readers put there who was redirected here from googling for "buku tentang aquaponics".

Hmm that is actually a good idea. With alot of things nowadays has gone SOHO, why can't publishing also go SOHO?. Sure I am no expert in aquaponics nor do some of the blogs on the subject that I frequents, but they do provide valuable information or arleast a good read.

So what say you? Would you purchase a book from a blogger on a subject of common interest?

New filter media arrangement

I am trying new filter media arrangement this week. First box is empty to act as reservoir before gravity push the water down into the next compartment containing course media and next to fine media and lastly to my biofilter and coral bits buffer.

I am also using the extra ceramik balls I have to weight down both the course and fine media filters.

I am also reducing the water to half so that the filter can keep up better.

Saturday is filter cleaning day

Gosh it has only been a week and it has became that dirty. The fishes has been growing nicely to a good size and of course pooping a lot..

I am going to try out some adjustment to the filter media arrangement today to see if that would help but honestly I think I need to start working on a vortex filter soon to saperate out the solid before they go into the mechanical filter.

Enjoy the photos!

Injury

I dismantled the filterbox and was cleaning the indivdual filters this morning when I turned the wrong way and threw my back out.

Ouchhh!!! Now I am pn bed rest and hopefully will recover fast.

System in trouble

I am not sure if it is related but after the growbed was attacked, I do not have any plants in the growbed and the water quality went straight to hell. I found a dead catfish today mybe a sign of the poor water quality.

Dirty dirty dirty! It is in a dire need of filter thorough cleaning and maybe I will need to clean the fish tank as welll.

Should I DIY a mouse trap?

Seems easy enough to construct from pieces of plastics. What do you think?

THIS MEANS WAR!!!!!

The growbed was raided again by rats last night!!! They left only the mint possibly to mock me..

This mean nuclear war on you rats!!!!

Replanted

I replanted using some spare seedlings I have and added a new pot with some mint cuttings. Hopefully it will grow and somehow help get rid of that pesky rat!

Sad day! Growbed destroyed by rats.

My growbed was attacked by rats. All gone!! Empty..

I'll need to replant...

Filter maintenance

I cleaned the filters today and boy are they dirty! It's either I have too much fish (about 30 of them) or I am overfeeding them (uneaten feeds). I forgot to take any pictures, maybe later.

Weekend update - pots

I prepared a few more pots for the growbed. Soldering iron is the best and quickest way to make the holes.

I am using Baba's RD-150 pots and I had to weight them down with a pebble because they are so very light.
I also had to make a net bed to stop the media from escaping from the huge holes at the bottom of the pots.

I now have 2 pots of Bak Choy and I just transplanted a Kailan.

I definately need more pots and Leca as media.

Bak Choy

I transplanted a Bak Choi into one of the pots yesterday to see if the system is ready. Seems to be doing ok.

Catfish!

I added a few catfish fries yesterday and today changed the plumbing at the pump to include a ball valve to help me control the inlet flow rate better.

Happy to report that it works much better than I expected.

Hope you can see the ball valve and maybe some fries under those nets.

Improvement on the bell siphon outlet

Here is the improved plumbing design for the outlet based on recommendation by Mahfudz to help with flush rate and flawless and reliable cutoff. It has been running smoothly for 3 days now.

How it started

This was the crazy idea in drawing that got me interested in aquaponics. We had to be away from home and I was thinking of a way to have a closed loop sstem to water my plants.

Welcome to Projek Buku Hijau

I’m starting this blog to document and share my adventure and misadvanture in Aquaponics. I have never really had a pet fish or have ever successfully grown any vegetables so this should be quite a fun journey! Follow, reblog and comments if you can because I am also new to tumblr so not sure if you can comment.

Full flush!

The outlet from the Siphon during a full flush. I have since changed the plumbing layout a little bit based oh tips by bro mahfudz.

Success!

Water level adjusted and we have successful start and cutoff!!

New parts for the system.

Replaced the clear PET bottle with PVC dome. Seen here with an aerator tube that I was testing (and failed)