Aquaponics - Let fish be your Nutrient!

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ttystikk

ttystikk

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This is the rust I talk about.
Seeing this on mostly one plant, and by the looks, seem to affect more and more of the plant.
View attachment 332509View attachment 332510View attachment 332511View attachment 332512

This looks more like a calcium/magnesium nutrient deficiency, and not disease. Good news! Feed your fish more yoghurt, lol...

To improve the results of pics taken under HID light, hold a lens from polarized sunglasses in front of your camera lens and the light/dark lines will vanish. It only works with a polarized lens.
 
ThePreacher

ThePreacher

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Funny how a Norwegian....
Free cannabis, veggies and fish? Sure! Just pay my €1300 power bill!


Don't think they talked about AP, but there was measurement of outdoor air/soil temp compared to indoor, and I would think that water holds on the temp much better than air. Also helps to stabilize the temp all around.

Just need to make a correction with the F to C calculation I made in previous post. When talking about Norway, I meant to say was -22 F, which would equal -30 C.

My uncle lives on a farm next to my dad, retired farmer but with lots of space. Indoor would not be a problem, but that takes away the sun. Have you read anything about using fiber optics to transfer sunlight indoors ?

 
ThePreacher

ThePreacher

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Dude.. Why have I not thought of that, brilliant.
Like the instant I read it I was like:"Yeah, when I tested the sunglasses in the store compared to none-polarized ones in the small mirror box, you can easily see the stripes.".
Newest rust1Newest rust2Newest rust3

Thing is tho, I have been told and also read that Ca and Mn is the stuff that you never have any trouble with in a AP system.
 
ttystikk

ttystikk

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Not sure what AP refers to? AquaPonics, got it.

Water's 'thermal density', a measure of many calories it takes to heat a unit volume of a given material through a given delta T, or change in temperature, is quite high. From my college SCUBA diving class, I remember that they said waters thermal density is some 900 times that of air. That may not be strictly accurate, but it certainly illustrates the relative temperature stability of water compared to air! This is the reason why liquid process chilling is so damned effective in controlled environment agriculture; an eyebrow raisingly small water cooling system can effectively manage temps and RH in a sizeable space, due to this property.

In practice, the water tank outside will lose heat by conducting it to the ground and the air nearby directly, by convection anytime a breeze blows, by radiation since it will not be heavily insulated, AND by evaporative cooling, as water evaporates from the surface either due to low humidity, a breeze- or running a jetpump. It won't stay warm on its own just because it's massive, but even if the temperature inputs are large, it will change its own temperature only slowly. This is good for fish. Thus, it's also going to be an excellent way for my op to shed some serious heat all winter!
 
ttystikk

ttystikk

6,892
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Dude.. Why have I not thought of that, brilliant.
Like the instant I read it I was like:"Yeah, when I tested the sunglasses in the store compared to none-polarized ones in the small mirror box, you can easily see the stripes.".
View attachment 332515View attachment 332516View attachment 332517

Thing is tho, I have been told and also read that Ca and Mn is the stuff that you never have any trouble with in a AP system.

That's Mg, for magnesium, not Mn, for manganese. Magnesium is very important in the absorption and transportation of calcium within the plant. 'Calcium is the truck; magnesium is the driver".

I think that in these relatively early days of aquatic experimentation, not enough consideration has gone into exactly what constitutes the diet we feed the fish, in order to ensure availability of materials for the plants later. Feeding fish bone meal as a supplemental part of their diet would very likely address your issue.
 
ThePreacher

ThePreacher

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AP, you got it brotha.

Thermal density, sounds about right.
I am thinking of getting a bigger setup and try to breed tilapia. A fellow AP grower have started breeding them in Valencia, small time scale but I recon I can get some fingerlings.
They do sell them in Spain, but the law seems to have outlawed them because when released in the wild they tend to take over huge areas pretty quick.

Fish bone meal feed to the fish you mean ?
Currently researching this, if I can swing down the market and get some to make home or if it is available in Spain from the grow / organic stores.
 
ttystikk

ttystikk

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They sell bone meal in many forms, there has to be an appropriate form for this one.
 
ttystikk

ttystikk

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I spoke with a grad student who was helping at a research greenhouse doing work in aquaponics. She said they fed the fish the very dried herbs and veggies they'd grown in the same system the fish lived in! They would process tomatoes, basil and more into pelletized fish food and feed it back to the fish. More leaves went into their biofilter, where they had red wiggler worms to eat them and convert that back into nutrients for the plants.
 
ThePreacher

ThePreacher

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That is very useful information, indeed.
A pellet mixture of tomato, basil, and cannabis seeds - should be just the thing for my little fishies!
Heading down to the stores to check what they run over counter, perhaps I need to order it online.
 
ttystikk

ttystikk

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That is very useful information, indeed.
A pellet mixture of tomato, basil, and cannabis seeds - should be just the thing for my little fishies!
Heading down to the stores to check what they run over counter, perhaps I need to order it online.

They made it themselves as part of the experiment. I doubt you'll find fish food that's balanced for aquaponic activities, at least not quite yet.
 
MegaSuiter

MegaSuiter

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This is awesome. I am catching fish right now to put it mine. You should do the same so you can have meal come harvest time. I also added organic tea and bat gaunu and the fish didn't mind at all. But those look plants look great.
 
ttystikk

ttystikk

6,892
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This is awesome. I am catching fish right now to put it mine. You should do the same so you can have meal come harvest time. I also added organic tea and bat gaunu and the fish didn't mind at all. But those look plants look great.

A good point, that natural soil amendments are generally fish friendly...
 
ttystikk

ttystikk

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Yeah I found out real quick that fish do not tolerate chemical notes. All natural is easier anyways...so far anyways....

Speaking of all natural, what about the fish food? This is going to be the ultimate source of most of the plant's nutrition, so it needs to be high quality and well stocked with P, K, Ca, Mg and micros. If we feed the fish properly, there should be no need to supplement with any other guanos.
 
MegaSuiter

MegaSuiter

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I feed mine minnows for the most part and have crayfish to devour all the remaining fish that may die. Why not add more? I mean I think it would help yield at least!
 
Seamaiden

Seamaiden

Living dead girl
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Fish:
8 * Goldfish, where as four are Comets and two are Black Moor(they looked so hella cool!)
2 * Algea eaters (cant remember the name, small quick bastards)
2 * Algea eaters - Catfish (the bottomfeeders, suckers of glass)
FANtastic! Another aquaponics thread. A warning about the algae eaters, though--if they're Chinese algae eaters they may start going after the goldies, especially the black moor because it's so slow-moving. They will eat the slime off the fishes' bodies, and ultimately will kill them. They can get rather large and aggressive, so you may need to use another fish to serve their duties.


I used to work the aquatic ornamental trade, including import/export, learned some of these lessons the hard way.


Folks, don't forget that everyone who runs the best planted aquariums in the world uses leonardite as their substrate. What's leonardite? Humic acids. ;)
This is the rust I talk about.
Seeing this on mostly one plant, and by the looks, seem to affect more and more of the plant.
View attachment 332509View attachment 332510View attachment 332511View attachment 332512
That appears to be a Ca-. You mentioned egg shells, you can also use crushed coral, dolomite lime, or aragonite as part of the substrate to help add back Ca, however, know that it will also buffer your water pH upward.

Haha! Go easy on a fellow noob :bookworm:

I would think that if you have a large scale system, a sump is required to some degree. But my testing shows no signs of ammonia overload, so I do not worry.

The drip system is always on, so far no problem except some algae build up between the pots, but I think this will also adjust itself.

As for the extra nutrient for the plants, which cannot be added through the water stream, here is where the foilar feed comes in handy.
Read about it and some scientific studies show that compare foilar to soil feed you have a 90 - 10 % difference in what is absorbed by the plant. I recon the % is higher with hydro, tho.
Perhaps it's because your system is still new, but you should not be getting an readable NH4 or NO2, it should all be being converted to NO3 once you have a fully active biological filter bed established. Also, IIRC, doesn't stutter add some nutrients? I'm not sure what you mean about the utilization of nutrients via foliar vs root delivery, can you elaborate on that, please? Is it a 90% difference, or a 10% difference? I thought it was more related to the size of the molecules than anything else (what can fit through stomata openings).
Dude.. Why have I not thought of that, brilliant.
Like the instant I read it I was like:"Yeah, when I tested the sunglasses in the store compared to none-polarized ones in the small mirror box, you can easily see the stripes.".
View attachment 332515View attachment 332516View attachment 332517

Thing is tho, I have been told and also read that Ca and Mn is the stuff that you never have any trouble with in a AP system.
Depends on the source water, plants *must* have Ca. I think you're confusing a Mg- with Mn (magnesium vs manganese). My experience says Mn- is very difficult to achieve, whereas Mg- is very easy to achieve. Totally different from the Ca- that I think your plants are experiencing, though I also see P- and possible Mg-. If you like I can attach some charts that I like to use to help me with Dx.
I spoke with a grad student who was helping at a research greenhouse doing work in aquaponics. She said they fed the fish the very dried herbs and veggies they'd grown in the same system the fish lived in! They would process tomatoes, basil and more into pelletized fish food and feed it back to the fish. More leaves went into their biofilter, where they had red wiggler worms to eat them and convert that back into nutrients for the plants.
I wonder why they went to the trouble of pelletizing it instead of just feeding it to the fish. Did she happen to mention why?
 
ttystikk

ttystikk

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313
I do not know, perhaps I'm wrong on that detail. I will make a point of asking the next time I speak to her.

Thanks for the tip re. Leonardite! Good to know!

Ca- may be rare because most water has Ca in it- it's a primary component of what makes hard water hard. I'm familiar with Ca- issues because my city's municipal water supply runs at just .05 EC!

What about feeding fish cheese? It's high in protein, minerals, and especially Ca!
 
Seamaiden

Seamaiden

Living dead girl
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But it's also milk-based, and not something they would naturally have access to (kinda like beef heart for discus!). I would be careful, and start only with very fresh, young cheeses, like chickenman's chevre, a farmer's cheese, something that isn't very salty or so well aged.

This morning I was reading again about pacu. I've handled them, larger specimens (but not as large as they get in the wild, I think they can become a 2'-3' slab o' meat in their natural environs) and knowing how *easy* they are to keep, how large they get, how voracious they are, and that they are said to be excellent eating (if fed properly; i.e. NOT with pelletized, pre-prepared foods, but using a more natural diet, bugs, fruits, nuts, shit that falls into the water, probably frogs and that sort of thing would be something they'd take, too), and knowing how the ones I handled went absolutely fucking NUTS for any BUGS we threw in there, I'm thinking they may be like the chicken of the Amazon.

Ever seen those fish, pacu? They're related to piranha, which means they're actually giant tetras, and their teeth look like human teeth. They also have a reputation for tagging mens' testicles if they're just hangin' out there. Low hanging nuts and all. Apparently they can live in Nordic waters, too, so that should suggest a huge degree of adaptability to varying water conditions, especially with regard to two huge important parameters--pH and temperature.

I can't tell you how many fish I've killed by adjusting pH too quickly. I've popped a coupla mollies moving them from fresh to salt water, too. Felt awful about it every time!
 
ttystikk

ttystikk

6,892
313
Your description of pacu sounds exactly like what the doctor ordered- even in the homestead security department. All I need now is a moat!

Cheese = salty = no bueno for aquaponics, thanks for the heads up.
 
ThePreacher

ThePreacher

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Seamaiden,
thanks for the info!

Do not think they are Chinese algae eaters, bought them with the goldfish at the store and they dude said they would gel together, he could be wrong tho.. :shifty:

Like a mentioned in the first post, I has some issues with a rapidly rising PPM read, so I have used distilled water.
Now it seams that the read has slowed down, only bumped 40 in 4 days.
My tap water is loaded with chlorine and other salts, after boiling some water I get lots of white salt residue in my pot, so I do not really think the tap water is any good. PPM read on it is 650! :doctor:

My pH is down to 5.4, so I really need to fix that issue. Just keep going down, even after adding 5 crushed eggshells.

If I add a organic guano that contain Ca, P and Mg directly to the water, this should not be a issue for the fish ?


For your foliar question, it is a bit tricky. I have just started reading up on it but what I have figured out is this:

"Ever since Dr. H.B. Tukey et.al back in the 1950's, showed the true importance of foliar feeding of plant nutrients, it has been widely used in agriculture as a dramatic and fast way of getting nutrients into plants. Foliar feeding is not only useful for regular fertilizing to gain higher quality crops, but it is especially important for the correction of nutrient deficiencies and the addition of micronutrients.
Dr Tukey’s research used radio-active phosphorous and radio-potassium to spray crops. They then measured with a Geiger counter, the absorption, movement and utilization of these and many other nutrients within plants.

They compared the nutrient uptake at the roots from a soil application versus foliar spraying and found that a 95 percent efficiency of uptake compared to about a 10 percent efficiency from soil applications


They also found the speed of absorption and use by foliar applications was immediate, whereas from soil applications absorption and plant usage was very very slow.

Furthermore in soils that have a high pH or low pH, certain nutrients become unavailable for uptake into the plant in the soil. However with foliar spraying you can get the minerals into the plant until you make corrections to the soil.

Foliar spraying also stimulates nutrient uptake from the soil. The leaves after spraying will generate more carbohydrates that it will transport down to the root and release as exudates. This will stimulate the microbial life in the soil and the microbes will thrive around the root mass making more nutrients available to the plant.

..Now!
Several studies since then have showed flaws in this study:
Obviously, materials applied directly to a leaf are more likely to enter the leaf in large quantity than the
same materials applied to the soil. Leaching, chemical reactions, microbial activity, etc. can decrease
what actually reaches the roots and is taken up into the plant. But materials applied to the leaf do not
necessarily travel throughout the entire plant as effectively as they do through root uptake. They often
remain in the same or adjoining tissues but travel no further. This is especially true of those elements
recognized as “immobile” within plant tissues (apart from root uptake and xylem transport).

In the end, seeing all these people testing this method not as a only mean for supplementing nuts to the plant, but more as a added mean, and to test for deficiency.

http://www.ecochem.com/t_foliar.html
 

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