Picking Vegetable and Testing Microphone.

Simple vegetable is amazing in providing fresh produce, they can be grown easily and you will have never ending supplies. This video on me picking some fresh vege, and testing the microphone on my set.

There is a high pitch noise coming from my previous video when I am using the wireless lavalier, it could be an interference from somewhere and this video is trying to eliminate and narrow down what I need to do.

I will try switching channel on the wireless lavalier to see how it goes, but this video I am using the PowerDevice wired lav mic.

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Growbed Maintenance - Siphon Cleaning

Aquaponics is not automatic, you still have to do maintenance to the system. Cleaning the growbed and siphon must be done to make sure the system is running without problem.

Here I share how to easily clean the siphon and how the siphon cleaner is made.

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Installing the 15mm Siphon to the Gutter Growbed.

This video show how the 15mm siphon is made and install to the gutter growbed.

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Harvesting My Aquaponics Tank

This is a video on me harvesting the aquaponics set fish.

Short Video below.

Full video here.

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Potted Flood & Drain Gutter Growbed Aquaponics

A brief run through my gutter growbed flood and drain aquaponics set.

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Aquaponics & Sustainability in a lockdown.

Aquaponics & Sustainability in a Lockdown. During this Covid-19 pandemic, aquaponics helps to some extend.

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Update 8th Dec 2019

Its been awhile since my last post. This is an update of my setup.

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Aquaculture Resource Centre

Many queries I received on where to get Tilapia fingerling, so decide to do some scouting at various places that I had known.

One of the place is ARC or Aquaculture Resource Centre that has been in operation since 2008. They are located at Lot, 1761, Jalan Kubu Gajah, Kampung Kubu Gajah, 47000 Sungai Buloh, Selangor.

Google Map : Here

Website : Here

ARC was set up by En. Mohd Hafiz Nordin and En. Hazarul Hafzam Mohd Zaki way back in 2008. Together they run the setup full time and En. Hafiz also assisted by his wife Pn. Farhana. During my recent visit did talk to them on Aquaponics and our requirements on tilapia or other fish fingerling. 

They primarily do Tilapia and Cat fish either supplying already process catfish, or live tilapia. As mention by En. Hafiz they can supply tilapia fingerling to those that wanted this fish. However they need to be inform in advance so that it can be ready and stock at their facilities in Sungai Buluh and best to order around 100 or 200 fingerling at a time with self collect.

I do not enquire on the price, because I will leave it to those that wanted it deal directly with them for pricing.

ARC has been in the business for more that 10 years and their facilities is in Sg Buluh, Rawang and Sungai Lui.

Those that want tilapia please feel free to contact them at their website as earlier part of post.

Photo with En. Hafiz from ARC.

Screen shot : courtesy of Aquaculture Resource Centre.

Pump Upgrade

Water pump is one important item in my aquaponics set. In my setup I will try my best to use a single pump to feed all the growbeds in the system.

Water pump must be reliable and of sufficient capacity to undertake all the irrigation requirement on my set. With last redo of my aquaponics set, I have a total of 5 growbeds, four of which the gutter type and one traditional growbed.

Currently I am using a 2000 litre per hour pump which suffice to irrigate all growbeds. However the margin of excess is very little and if any deterioration of pump output due to clog etc will affect the water flow into the growbeds and could cause siphon malfunction.

This Astro 2000 pump is the smallest I can find with ceramic shaft. You can check my video on the importance of ceramic shaft on a pump : Here

This pump is rated at 26.6 watt, it's such a small pump and has work flawlessly with my 4 gutters set up without any hick-ups. With addition of extra growbed it still able to support, but I am not that comfortable with its excess margin.

Its bigger brother the Astro 3000 fit the bill nicely, at few ringgit extra it's wise to go for the bigger pump that should be better build due to its size.

How the two looks like.

Physically it is bigger and build more sturdy, with grab handle and platform suckers feet. Fittings for water feed is similar and it can take same size PVC tubing as the Astro 2000 nicely.

Being bigger in size also means it must be bigger in power, so the penalty I have to pay is its wattage has increase by about 16 watt to 40 watts for this pump.

The cost of power for this pump per month is 40 watt x 24 hours x 30 days = 28.8 kw and @ 0.40 sen per kilowatt, I have to pay RM 11.52 per month of electricity for my aquaponics set in this post.

Comparison electricity cost estimation below for 1 pump running 24/7

• Astro 2000 - RM 7.66/month
• Astro 3000 - RM11.52/month

In the tank and supplying all my growbeds irrigation needs.

Redoing my back-lane Aquaponics Set

The back lane set already few years old and it shows sign of rusting on its rack, apart from that the fish tanks was from my early aquaponics days and its about time for an upgrade.

I want it to be more compact and easier to make and maintain. So the fish tank need to be replace and those gutters shortened making it compact and suitable for average Malaysian homes.

The tank I am using is the 5 x 2.5 x 2 ft fibreglass this the biggest I can transport in my SUV thus saving on transport charges. Water volume is roughly double the existing tank so one of these tank should be sufficient to have a household productive aquaponics set.

Initially the set was assembled in the front part of the house and later after it's all done and tested I'll move it to the back.

I use PVC racking, unfortunately it bends maybe due to the size of tube use. It's too small at 20 mm, should have gone for the 25mm or larger. Well that's the price I have to pay for making prototype sets.

Once done I then reassemble the set to the back and after testing it for a few days, I decide to replace the racking with iron rack salvage from the old set. Paint it up the rusted parts, well I ran out of paint too. So this will do.

The PVC racking, replaced and all is not loss, I may turn it into a shoe rack or something.

I combi the unit with one older set but have the gutter replace it with a traditional growbed on top of fish tank. The racking for it I use PVC so that it can stand within the fish tank and not rusting away. Again I should have use a bigger pipes for it, 20mm just don't cut it.

All done, another tank of the bigger type should do nice in this setting. But that should wait until the kailan ready for picking.