Aquaponics Walkthrough Episode 8 Which Plants Grow Best

Here is a video walkthrough that will show you some of the growth in the indoor aquaponics garden and discuss which plants have been growing and producing the best in our system. ?

The green peppers are doing exceptionally well.

And so are the beans and lettuce, weve already harvested from those plants.  It is so fun when you can walk right downstairs and cut fresh lettuce for your afternoon salads, even in the wintertime!



The current pH is still at 8.2 which is much higher than what most plants are able to thrive in. However, we have had great growth still and will be planting more of what has been growing well.  The type of rock we are using is causing the high pH (Vigoro river rock from Home Depot).







The following resources will help you determine the pH requirements for most vegetables:

http://www.growinganything.com/soil-ph-for-vegetables.html
http://www.howtogardenadvice.com/soil_prep/vegetable_ph.html
http://www.thegardenhelper.com/soilPH.html


In the upper-right hand section of the following picture, you can see the tomato plant.  The leaves are yellowing.  Tomatoes do much better in a lower pH, and although we are seeing tomatoes, our plants are struggling to absorb the nutrients they need.  Our solution for the summer is to stick with plants that grow in a higher pH for the summer, and grow the lower pH plants outdoors in our square foot gardens until we find a pH neutral grow media for our beds.

 

 

This post was shared at:  Simple Saturdays Blog Hop, The Homestead Barn Hop


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Teaser Video 8

Heres the latest teaser video for the geodesic dome greenhouse!  Enjoy!

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Adding the polycarbonate

Here’s the latest in the dome greenhouse series showing the polycarbonate installation. It’s nice having it enclosed and not working out of the wind. It’s still cold, but the heating system is next on the list!

Transcript:

Welcome Back!

This video will show how the exterior of the dome is covered.  The northern face of the dome has no polycarbonate and is covered in OSB and will eventually be shingled.  Each of the triangle sections needs to have studs added to support the boards.  Placing them can be tricky when it’s difficult to reach all the points.

Sometimes the best laid plans don’t always work…

Once all the studs are installed, it’s time to install the OSB.  I found it was easier to set the sheathing by ripping the OSB into two foot strips instead of leaving them 4 feet wide.  It also reduced the amount of scrap that was generated.

The shed roof and part of the dome are covered in water and ice shield.  This will protect the building during the winter and will allow me to shingle the roof in warmer weather.  The shielding has an adhesive backing which helps to hold it down to the OSB and a few roofing nails insures a gust of wind won’t peel it off.

The polycarbonate sheets are 6 by 24 feet long.  I set up a couple of sacrificial sheets of OSB on the ground as a cutting area.

I decided to repurpose an old tape measure and cut it up so I could easily measure out the various leg lengths for the triangles.  With a couple of clamps to hold the ends, it made it easy to triangulate all the points.  I found it was easier to make my marks by just poking a nail through the material.  Trying to mark the frozen poly with a frozen Sharpie was a futile effort.

The polycarbonate cuts very easily with a sharp circular saw.  After I filmed this, I discovered it was even easier if I placed another scrap piece of polycarbonate under it so the blade didn’t have to also cut into the OSB.

Setting up a guide allows for a nice straight cut.  After each piece is cut, the protective film can be removed and the sawdust in the flutes is blown out with compressed air.

Installing the panels was quite simple providing there was no wind.  Before cutting each panel, I did measure each opening to insure the measurements matched the computer calculations.  There were a couple of sections that were slightly off which was probably from slight errors in the hub construction or the strut measurements.  But, for the most part they all went in as planned.

Each panel was cut so that the flutes are orientated to allow for condensation to drain out.

Once I got down to the ground level, it was even easier to install each section.  All the panels are held in place with stainless steel screws that have a neoprene-backed washer.  The screws pierce right through the polycarbonate and the washer creates a watertight seal against it.

All the joints will be taped in the spring since the waterproof tape needs to be applied when it’s over 60 degrees.  During this filming it was 20 out.  You may have noticed that I’m wearing insulated boots, long-johns, a sweatshirt, insulated hoodie sweatshirt, scarf, winter coat, winter hat under the hoodie, and insulated gloves!

All the panels intersect nicely over the hubs.  The original plan of rabbiting each stud so that the panels wouldn’t interfere with the bolts worked out well.  Also adding the bevel to the studs made a large flat surface for the panel to rest against.

The panels along the base are cut extra-long so that they will hang over the knee wall.  This will help to shed water and prevent it from getting into the dome through the knee wall.  The overlapping pieces are simply cut off with a razor knife.

The northern face of the dome that isn’t covered by the shed was also studded and covered with OSB.  Unfortunately, my HD camera was broken so I wasn’t able to film this part, but this is what the final construction looked like.

When I laid out the building, I oriented it so it faced due-south.  It now acts like a huge sundial and it’s very easy to tell when it’s time for lunch!

That’s it for now.  Next up may be the heating system.  It’s getting difficult to work in the freezing temperatures!  Don’t forget to join our Facebook page!

This phenomenon is called “needle ice” and it occurs when the soil temperature is above freezing and the air goes below freezing.  The water in the soil is drawn out by the cold air and quickly freezes, building these long strands of ice.  They’re also fun to crush!

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12 Installing a Float Valve

Float Valve Hardware
It isnt fun going to my garden and finding the pump grinding away in a mere 1-2 inches of water. When the water in the sump gets that low, you no longer get adequate water circulation in the system. Plus, its hard on the pump.

I spent hours trying to figure out how to modify a standard toilet float valve to add water to my sump to replace evaporation. I may yet figure it out. Or you may figure it out and explain it to me. But using toilet bowl hardware to regulate my water levels is still a mystery.

Luckily, I have a smart mother who has lived much of her life in desert conditions. When I explained the problem to her, she said, “You need a float valve like they have in swamp coolers, to replace the water that evaporates.”

Oh.

I live in a humid climate where there are no swamp coolers. So no one sells the bits to replace swamp cooler parts. The big hardware stores don’t even list these parts when you do online searches, because no one in a moist climate would need to buy such a thing, and they stock them in dry climates in such quantity that there’s no reason to allow dry climate folks to buy them online.

There’s a flaw in there, somewhere. It turns out it is possible to buy such bits via a site like eBay, once you know what you’re looking for. Better yet, have a friend in a dry climate buy the bits and ship them. I assume fine aquaponics stores everywhere will start stocking them soon, as well. In the mean time, you can search for "aquarium float valve" on a site like eBay and find something to do the trick. The float valve itself will run you about $15. The tubing and bibb to connect to your system will be additional.

The way it works is the plastic bulb floats on the top of the water. As long as the water is high enough, the float keeps the valve closed. But once the water level drops, water will flow in (from a special bibb and tubing you connect to your faucet or some other water source, like a water barrel). Easy peasy.

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Dome Teaser video 9

Heres the next teaser video on the dome project.  All is going well.  Im still scrambling to get the building enclosed before winter set in.  Its getting challenging working in this weather...everything is frozen in the morning, then barely thaws during the day, making it wet and slippery.

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8 The Durso Standpipe

The very first Durso Standpipe™ ever made
Say you want to have a bed that is constant flood, always filled with water. Water comes in through the hose. Water drains out via a standpipe. Very easy to understand.

But if you’ve ever used a simple standpipe, you know it can be crazy loud. I experimented early on with a constant flood hydroponics system. Over time the standpipe started to gurgle noisily. It was terrible.

It was so bad, I was desperate to quiet the standpipe. I came across mention of a "Durso Siphon." Turns out this isnt a siphon at all, its a modified standpipe that Richard Durso developed to quiet the 1500 gph flowing through the 180g Reef Aquarium in his dining room. Richard describes the reason he was driven to develop his standpipe design at his website:

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"The aquarium came with a perforated pipe (a tube with hundreds of holes in it) inside the overflow chamber. This allowed the water to flow into the pipe quickly. However, this also meant that the water level in the overflow chambers was very low — about 3 inches (8 cm) deep.

"With such a low water level, water entering the overflow chamber had about a 20 inch (50 cm) drop! This sounded like Niagara Falls with about 1,500 gallons (5700 liters) per hour enter the overflow chambers. Secondly, each chamber made a gargling noise — sounded like a toilet flushing 24 hours a day. It was so loud my wife could not sleep. I had to fix it fast!

• Little to no water fall.
• Whisper quiet, no splashing or gurgling.
• Each chamber becomes a refugium.
• Chambers will not drain in a power outage.
• Pipe is self priming."

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If you want to convert one of your grow beds to simple constant flood or to floating raft, here’s a quick video clip showing how it is done.

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