HD Aquaponics Ep.29 - Swirl filter blowdown, harvesting fish waste, fertilizer, sand filter

[yahmana]

ammonia from human urine

[NATURE23405]

Is there chlorine in your source water because if there is, each time you clean the filter you could kill beneficial bacteria.

[jackiechan00729]

Thank you bro!!!!! So Much!!!! Missed u and the valuble info, take care from the caribean!!!!

[ScalerWave]

How are you keeping the ammonia levels down? I didn't see it circulating thru any grow beds. Also, was it Nitrite or Nitrate that was 20 PPM? If Nitrite, how are you going to get that level down?

[edpozek]

@ScalerWave Well from what I know about aquaponics my nitrate levels should hold my ammonia levels down. Since this isn't an aquaponics system I can't control my nitrate levels. This system was built as an experiment to see if we could attach a swirl filter to an aquaponics system so most of these fish will be moved to the new systems. More on those to come.

[ScalerWave]

@edpozek Nitrite is different from nitrate and nitrate has no control over ammonia. The growbed media bacteria is what controls ammonia and nitrites. Both ammonia and Nitrites are toxic to the fish. Nitrates are not toxic. With that many fish in that IBC, the ammonia level should get pretty high really quick.

[incognrod]

great job ! everything looks awesome.. inspiring

About the side swimming tilapia..I heard something about a genetic disorder with the swim bladder. Its not a concern if you don't use that fish to breed.

[edpozek]

@incognrod That's interesting. I will need to look into that more. Thanks for the heads up and thanks for watching!

[FloppyHatPhotos]

Do you heat the water over the winter?

Why does the drain from the bottle go threw the tote?

Thanks

[edpozek]

@FloppyHatPhotos We have a small 55 gallon heater running all the time in the tank but I think all that is doing is running the meter for PG&E. The tank is inside and it doesn't get cold enough to harm the fish. The bottle goes through the side of the tote because it was the easiest way to access the blowdown valve to harvest the fish waste. Thanks for watching!

[youtubsuxfv]

How much do you feed the fish, what do you feed them, and how much does an idvidual fish eat in average.

[edpozek]

@youtubsuxfv I will have to get back to you on that, we feed them basically until they stop feeding. I would say with that many fish we give them at least two nice size handfuls 1-2 a day depending. They let us know if they're hungry by how many come to the surface when we check on them. We have a high quality commercial feed that we buy online. I will be testing out some alternative feeds but more on that later.

[kazmie]

Hi there, thanks for showing us your aquaponics project. I just wondering if slow sand filtering would be suitable to your project since it'll clean up your fish water more effectively than what you currently have. Just search slow sand filter in Youtube to find out more about it. Cheers.

[edpozek]

@kazmie We actually changed out this fast moving sand for pool filter sand but we just didn't have enough pressure coming out on this particular system to get it to work right. My new system rips water though so we'll be adding this pool filter sand to the new system and giving it a try. Thanks for watching!

[enticed2zeitgeist]

Lol at the intro! I hate it when shit like that happens!

[edpozek]

@enticed2zeitgeist Lol yeah.

[thanson77]

I especially like the demonstration of pouring water into your grow bed. LOL. Great vid.