Would You Like Some Fish With Your Hops.

[pdilley]

I just found a guy at work that is into hydroponics.

He told me about some crazy stuff. A large fish tank with a box on the side breeding insects, there is an escape tubing that goes over the fish tank and points down just above the water line. Escaping insects fall into the pool and are eaten by the fish. Free fish food! (well almost).

Lots of fog up here, so fog collectors are just canvas stretched out and litres of water come off it, even your roof when it gets foggy. Thats free water that can be harvested to fall into your fish tank and top up the water free of charge! Canvas is used on sun shades which are over most hydroponic setups so you simply need to tap your existing setup to harvest the collected water into the fish pool or into a water reservoir.

Man I'm excited about this, he also has some handbooks and newsletters he loaned me to read.

Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[Tony M]

I cant grow anything higher than about seven feet. I would be interested to know if hops can be trained to grow within those boundarys. Any hops I have seen all seem to grow about 20 feet high.

Have just answered my own question. I was going for an early morning ramble along a country lane about ten miles outside Prague this morning, breakfasting off wild plums and apples, when I came across some hops growing wild along your stock standard four strand wire fence. They were doing very well with bunches of flowers everywhere. When rizomes become available again, it looks like vegies are out of the glasshouse and hops are in. Now all I gotta do is dig a big fish pond!

 

[ausdb]

Have just answered my own question. I was going for an early morning ramble along a country lane about ten miles outside Prague this morning, breakfasting off wild plums and apples,

Hey Tony you don't like making us jealous at all do you? next thing the copious amounts of incredibly cheap czech beer you have been quaffing is going to get a mention too

 

[Tony M]

I tell you mate, when I first started coming here 11? years ago, a pint was about 80c and is now about $2.20. A pack of pipe tobacco was around $3.50 and is now $12.00. The country is going to rack and ruin. How do they expect an old pensioner to swan about the world if they keep doing that.

 

[Scruffy]

Not mine, but a mates system; the stuff is all solar powered (well, not strictly true). All the water is rainwater... (well there's some truth here...), they grow duck weed for the fish in the run off/hospital/breeding tanks (they're behind his chicken shed)... they also make their own sour dough pizza bases that they cook in their pizza oven... ...Hmmm

Fish tanks:




Grow beds (some of them):

 

[tcraig20]

('s) are a pet hate of SWMBO. When we go out for dinner and she tells waiting staff that they need to change their specials boards, menus etc as unless you 'own' something it should never end with 's. e.g. Sam's Special pizza = correct. Pizza with tomato's, three cheese's served with a side of mash potato's = incorrect. I never hear the end of it!

Taking things back offtopic:

 

[Mantis]

Bringing this thread up again as a few folks are very interested in this stuff
Would be interesting to try to grow some dwarf tomatoes in an aquaponic system

I will be heading up to Swan Hill to get a 500L aquaculture tank in the upcoming school hols and will start from there.
Got over 22000L of tank water that I could use for water changes, topups etc
Will probably start with straight aquaculture with filters and water changes but can see getting into aquaponics gradually as a real goer

 

[Kai]

How would the rhizome go immersed in liquid however, would it be susceptible to rot of some sort? A rhizome is basically a swollen root such as a sweet potato (regular potato is actually derived from a stem that buries itself underground but similar principle being a starch reserve 'organ') and I hate to think of what sweet potatoes and regular potatoes would look like after a few months immersed in liquid.

I've nothing really to add on controlling rot, but I will say in my experience hop rhizomes will start growing in a wet paper bag in the fridge. Hardy little buggers.

 

[pdilley]

Good timing as I just finished watching the how to DVD on aquaponics and just handed it over the fence to the neighbour who is extremely interested.

It's amazing. Watching cabbages grow in only 5 weeks and 24 days for lettuce to grow. In fact a lot of plants you only need one of them because they are so prolific. Tomatoes growing up to 12 months continually fruiting, etc.

What I've seen are both gravel systems and puffed clay ball systems and the clay is so much easier to work but also more costly to setup. Ratios are 1:1 and in intensive operations can go up to 1:3 fish tank to grow beds.

Smaller setups are possible but the smallest fish tank recommended is 1000 litres. Smaller tanks heat up more during the day having more temperature swings and the pH can swing more widely in smaller tanks.

Plants go in on day #1 so it's plants from the get go. They live off of seasol in the water which provided a small bit of amonia to let the two bacteria grow and develop. It only takes 6 to 8 weeks to get the bacteria going enough to intoduce the fish. Daily water checks after introduction for a short while to see how well or not the bacteria build up as the fish build up. But soon the system locks into perfect balance and not much testing unless fish die etc.

Plants not only grow very fast but also all year long. Their is not soil rest as there is no soil. The nutrients are there year round and never have to worry about crop rotation. Only worry about mass plantings as you want to stagger things so you always have balance of plants in play and plants in harvest. Easy with lettuce as you pick a few leaves from each bush at a go leaving the plant. Harvesting big plants like the cabbage is easy because you immediately replant in it's place.

I've seen the syphon system and I'm sure I could build them from plumbing parts from the hardware store.

Low wattage pump is run all the time and another with four air stones. Electricity is minimal and it's been calculate that for those northers who can raise barrumundi that fish purchase plus electricity plus water plus fish feed will cost you about $6 for one kilo of fish. Very very inexpensive compared to supermarkup stores like coles or woolies or even the local fish monger.

That said perch are favoured becuase they are also herbavores. Toss in the mountains of lettuce you can't eat and your neighbours are chock full of freebies from your setup and off they go nibbling it clean. Carnivores you need to spend a bit more on your setup with multiple staging tanks so you can sort fish by size every few months as they start eating each other as soon as one grows faster than the rest.

Besides the mains pump, a boat bulge pump on battery backup covers any electric mains outage. It just pumps water out and into tank splashig and oxygenating because you care more for the fish which can start dying off after 45 minutes of no oxygenation.

Fish density is one per 10 litres so 1000 litres is 100 fish. Seems like a lot until you find out they grow different rates and the piggy feeders get sent to the BBQ first letting others shoot up in size to take the piggies places.

I'm a bit too far south for the best eating fish, the sleepy cod and probably too hot in summers for the southern Vic fish like trout so I'd probably have to look at one of the perches like silver perch or Murray cod though the latter is the extra tank setup as they eat each other.

The best fish if all for highest stockig density and hardiest tank fish is tilapia which is just highly illegal in Australia but fine in all the other countries.

I can't imagine what it would do for hops!

Mints a monster out of control so it's a never plant in aquaponics setup plant. Everything else seems fair game!

Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[Mantis]

I am confused as to what sorts of fish I can try to raise in a tank in my shed.
Not knowing what temps the tank will fluctuate between is not helping LOL

I will get the tank and set it up, get it cycled with some goldfish from the pond and see what temps it holds, with daily water changes from the rainwater tanks

 

[pdilley]

Silver Perch seem the hardiest. You need a cover to keep fresh water overfilling your beds and tank and washing fish away onto the floor.

Trout needs water under 23C as once there or over they die.

Other fish that have wide temperature ranges can still live at lower temps sometimes down to 5-7C but don't feed much and grow very little.

The big five are Jade Perch, Silver Perch, Murray Cod, Barramundi and the king of taste the Sleepy Cod.

You can keep all the fish in Vic just need to add in fish tank heater to keep the water warm enough during the winter.

I'll have to wait for the DVD back to get the information but I'm sure google will tell you all the temperature ranges.


Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[litre_o_cola]

Great thread, I am planning to set up twin tanks in a shade house near the patio for this very reason (shade house will be 3.4 x 12m).
I have previously grown fruit and vegies in a flood drain system using pearl/verl mix but after having probs with drains and blockages will be going to expanded clay, yes it is more expensive but it is easier to handle and clean (also you can get it at Bunnings).
I was only going to use koi for ornamental reasons but the silver perch idea has got me rethinking my plan as some fresh fish would go well stuffed with home grown tomatoes and herbs.

 

[kirem]

a few pics of my updated system. when I emptied the water I found these little white yabbies in the bottom of the tank

View attachment 36331

 

[kirem]

proud mum or dad, I didn't grab this one to sex it from memory this is dad. I found mum dead elsewhere

View attachment 36335

 

[kirem]

1000L IBC Fish Tank
View attachment 36336

 

[kirem]

Grow Bed and Sump

View attachment 36337

 

[kirem]

Sump pump
View attachment 36339

 

[bonj]

fun fun fun!

Since kirem steered me towards this on the chat one day, I now have grand plans for an aquaponic system with redclaw... I'm just a little stumped on how to match the pump flow with for a flood and drain system (probably using auto-siphons)... and matching the fish tank to growbed sizes. Anybody have any magic algorithms?

 

[kenworthy]

A large bottle of Barley wine will make you spel funy.
Gb

one too many tomatos

 

[kirem]

fun fun fun!

Since kirem steered me towards this on the chat one day, I now have grand plans for an aquaponic system with redclaw... I'm just a little stumped on how to match the pump flow with for a flood and drain system (probably using auto-siphons)... and matching the fish tank to growbed sizes. Anybody have any magic algorithms?

I have a sump pump that does about 100L/min

so from the bottom of the fish tank I run a pipe that feeds the grow bed by gravity. I have an irrigation valve that I set so the grow bed doesn't over fill but does drain. Inlet is maybe 1.5-2in, outlet is probably 0.5in. I just throttle the inlet to get the flood level I want, trial and error. this changes as I lose water, but is good enough

The grow bed drains into a sump with an auto float sump pump back into the fish tank

So if I lose power the worst that will happen is the the fish tank will gravity drain to the height of the grow bed. from 1000L down to maybe 800L.

so for my system, the trick is to gravity feed the grow the bed and be able to adjust the gravity flow rate and have a fast pump as the sump to return it to the fish tank.

Aquaponics is awesome and very easy really