Another BIG Weekend

And because its a big one, Im going to get into it A.S.A.P.

Disney Friends for Change Takes the Initiative Worldwide
Five Projects To Receive Disney Funding Thanks To Kids Around The World

First Place, $100,000 award:
BirdLife International, Saving Spoonys Chinese Wetlands: The project contributes to the conservation of the Spoon-billed Sandpiper, a unique and highly threatened migratory shorebird. The project raises awareness among
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Aquaponics Home System – Part 12: Plant Tank Liner

This is truly an Ultimate Aquaponics Home System I’m building, like the title of the guide says, right on the dinner table ;-) :
In order to keep the liner in place before it can be secured I’m using three planks resting on the bottom to make sure the liner
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Grow Fish and Vegetables at Home with Aquaponics

?Have you ever wished that you could produce more of your own food from home, but were discouraged because you thought the amount of time and money it would take was too much? Or maybe you thought you didnt have enough space.

All of things will no longer be an excuse once you learn about what aquaponics can do for you. Aquaponics can bring you a steady supply of fresh fish and vegetables with a minimum amount of work and space. And for less money than what you might pay for lesser quality food at the store.
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Aquaponics Association of Maui
A group of diversified individuals united in the promotion and development of aquaponics and sustainable living through the sharing of information and collaborative effort for the betterment of our island.
Location: Maui, Hawaii
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Aquaponics - GT Stewardship Initiative // GT Academy HS
by GTCD
Local water usage, water quality, aquaculture, and agriculture - Just a few things a class at the Grand Traverse Academy HS is learning about through the Grand Traverse Stewardship Initiative (GTSI). Students in the class create an aquaponic system as they learn about these important issues and...
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Backyard aquaponics
By Susan Kirk
G Magazine
Growing your own fruit & veg and keeping chooks has been embraced by many seeking a sustainable lifestyle, but have you ever considered harvesting your own fish? We take a look at aquaponics – a potential solution to the overfishing of our oceans.
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Elementary School Garden Inspires Health and Nutrition with an Organic Garden
Filed under Gardening, Lifestyle one comment
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Snacktime at the Organic Garden Club at Palmquist Elementary School

By Kerin Van Hoosear, LuxEco Editorial Assistant and author of Season Cooking with Kerin

In a country where childhood obesity rates have more than tripled in the last thirty years, it is refreshing to see teachers like Mark Wagner combat that statistical nightmare.
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Affnan’s Aquaponics – Amir Feeding Tilapia
 Amir feeding Tilapia Temporarily I am using my Nikon D5000 for video, its good but no auto focus on video. Need to look at D7000 that have this feature.
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HERES A Forum (where we hopefully learn...
How much lemon juice or vinegar?
I need to lower the pH.... have a 75g tank its like at 8

or should I just leave it?
__________________
Yeppers,
Aaron

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Easy Aquaponics   by Ethan Mills
in Home / DIY  
An overview of aquaponics

Aquaponics has been around for many of years, however, many people are new to the concept. It is simply using fish waste from the fish in your tank to feed the plants you wish to grow. The nitrogen cycle takes care of the magic by filtering the dirty water in the grow bed before it
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Planted Tank Aquaponics
Maybe this is a long shot, but has anyone on here experimented with aquaponics?

I enjoy cooking as much as I enjoy my planted tank and was thinking the other night that its gotta be possible to grow some herbs and lettuces using aquarium water as the main nutrient source. How awesome to have the herbs grown so close to home!

In my preliminary research I came across:
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Hows that for variety. and while I have your attention, dont forget to dig into those forums. You will often find a wealth of information in them. It may not be what youre after right now, but who knows maybe next week or next year the need could arise and because you read it here it will Hopefully jog your memory.

Hey guys and gals, Have a great weekend and be good to each other and yourself.
See you real soon....
A.U.S.S.I.E

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Gravel Bio Filter

Here is a concept drawing of a bio filter which filters from the bottom up
I have used this is the type of filter for many years without problems.

A spray nozzle is angled on the bottom of the power wash tube which is connected to a garden hose to stir up the waste.
The 2" inlet also serves as a waste drain.
A tee with either a diverter valve or two separate valves allows switching from normal operating to backwash mode.

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This page continues to get a lot of Google hits, so I have added this drawing to demonstrate how the bio-filter in my pond was built.

The gravel media is suspended above an open space.  I did this by building a cement block cistern on top of a 6" concrete slab.  The blocks were laid dry and then filled with concrete.  Inside I laid 1-1/2"x8"x16" paver bricks on edge to create a shelf for the PVC tubes to rest on.

The PVC tubes are 1" pipe and contain a piece of 5/8" rebar to give them the strength to support the gravel.  The ends are capped to prevent the rebar from rusting. Yes it takes a lot of these pipes laid side by side. Over the top of these PVC tubes I placed a piece of PVC fencing material to further support the gravel.

There is a drain and an inlet pipe placed at the bottom.  Both are mortared in place as is the outlet near the top.  Then to prevent leaks I coated the entire inside surface with Thoroseal .

I have also built small filters inside of plastic olive barrels as depicted in the drawing at the top of this page.  The gravel is supported by a PVC cage.  Ill let you use your imagination rather than attempt to draw that.

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 Another idea I have is to plumb the spill tube down to the bottom and bring the inlet to the top.  Dirty water is filtered down through the gravel.  A mesh on top of the gravel would facilitate cleaning

This would facilitate cleaning.  A mesh could be laid on top of the gravel and periodically rinsed off

SketchUp Link

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Cleaning New Gravel and Pipe Size

Cleaning Gravel:

Yesterday I cleaned about 5 cubic feet of new gravel.  In the past I have used progressive tubs and a bucket filled with holes.  I would start at one end and work my way down three or four barrels of progressively cleaner water.  This proved to be insufficient and the barrels became quite dirty very quickly which meant that I would constantly have to start over with more clean water.

But yesterday I used a small cement mixer.  Id put 10 shovel fulls of gravel in and filled it with water.  Then turn the mixer on for 15 seconds, and dump the water.  I did do this about 7 or 8 times until the water was running clear.

This next step may not be necessary, but then I did a final rinse in a white bucket.  I was able to easily see how clean the water was in the white bucket, and two quick rinses generally finished the job.

It took a few hours to perform this cleaning, but after several bad experiences with cloudy water, Im very happy with the results.  Today my water is perfectly clear.  

Pipe Size:

A couple months ago I added 10 feet of 1-1/4" pipe to the line from my fish tank to the grow bed.  It has worked well until recently when I noticed that the water in the fish tank was beginning to raise.  Closer inspection of the pipe revealed that gunk had built up on the surface and was slowing the water down.   I replaced the pipe with a clean 2" pipe.   Ill let you know in a few months how that worked out.   Im feeling confident that this is going to work out much better.    As a general rule Id say 2" or larger pipe should be used everywhere.

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Filtering Poo with Continous Flow Media Bed

My indoor system started out with a gravel bed. After repairing a leak in the 45 mil EPDM liner of that grow bed, I decided to go with a Deep Water Culture (DWC) raft.  With only one 10 wall glazed my grow bed is 30"x10 long which is a rather small 25 sq ft..  I found it easier to utilize that precious space with a  raft system.

A panoramic view inside grow room.  800 gal fish tank on left grow bed on right

But loosing the large media bed meant that I would also lose the filtering capability of the 3/4" rock media.   So I decided to build a filter using evaporative cooler pads.   This works great at first, but after a few months the fish population began to grow and the fish got bigger.   The filter could no longer keep up with the poo.   Cleaning filters everyday was more work than I was willing to do.

So I decided to return part of the bed to a gravel media, and keep the rest as a DWC grow tank.

The DWC tank with gravel to the right of a plastic fence partition

I built a partition out of plastic fencing and PVC pipe.  Filled one side with 3/4" gravel and extended the return water pipe from the fish tank so that it dumps on top of the gravel.   One thing Id like to say about that is I also used 2" pipe rather than 1-1/4" because the smaller pipe tends to clog.

At this point I began to have concerns about a continuous flood gravel bed.  RupertofOZ was kind enough to dispel my fears by pointing me toward a very good experiment done by backyardaquaponics.com.  

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