Paku - Athyrium esculentum


Athyrium esculentum is an edible fern, the fronds and fiddle heads are all edible, due to this I decided to head for the swamp and get myself few of these fern and plant them in my aquaponics growth bed.

Today, I'm busy getting them ferns and planting it in, this particular fern thrive in swampy area, therefor I guess they will make good aquaponics plant, they filter water very well.


In the Philippines they are called "Pako", here in the Malay Peninsular we call them "Paku", the similarity very close, that's because we are more or less the same people.

Lets see whether I can successfully grow this fern. I use the rhizome not spores, next time I'll try spore propagation. Spore propagation is interesting and you can get plenty young fern if its done correctly however it will takes longer for the fern to mature.

Fern is a very fascinating plant, careful do not pick the poisonous variety for the dinner table :(

Valve & High Capacity Pump



Someone asked whether my valve work with a high rating pump, I have a spare 40 watt pump, hook it up to the growth bed and here is the video evidence.

I can now say it work for pump from 12 watt ~ 40 watt. That 40 watt is a lot of water and I guess it about the limit for this size of a valve. If you need to use a bigger pump, just step up all the sizes to make it work.

However, with the standard 25mm design it should work for most of us.

I use Nokia E71 for these videos, they are great !!!

Bell Valve - Explained

I'm back from Borneo, the fishes are over fed, and I decide not to feed them for the next 2 days. Fish are hardy, you can stop feeding them for about a week to stabilize the water. After new fish introduced, its best not to feed them for a day or two.



This video I post is a brief explaination on how my valve function.

Cheers

Time Out - Borneo Paradise


I'm away from home this week, away from my aquaponics quest, away to Borneo for a quick getaway, its paradise........ :))

Google Earth coordinate of this getaway :
113° 58.482'E 4° 22.739'N

Germination - Tomato Plant


The tomato seeds that I sowed starting to germinate, there are chillies too but I'll have to wait for them to get big enough to differentiate.

I don't expect the plant will do well, the growth bed is new and not matured yet. However, just hope for the best and see what happen.

Injured Yellow Tail

A bit sad today, one of my Yellow Tail catfish was injured few days ago and it conditioned worsen. It got trap in a pipe and in trying to free it, the skin got peeled on the underbelly and the dorsal.

I quarantined the injured Yellow Tail, with a plastic basket within the tank, so that other fishes do not attack it.

Bell Valve - Operation



Video on the bell valve flushing, no moving parts on this valve and the maintenance is zero, due to its self cleaning properties.

Bell Valve - How to



This is how the bell valve in my previous videos made. Its a very simple design, with no moving parts.

I make this valve as "Open-source" for the benefit of the Aquaponics Enthusiast Community, and if anyone decide to use this design, appreciate if you could give some credit for designing this.

It took me about 6 months of experimenting with various design to finally satisfied with this final product.

Check here for updates on my valve : Bell Valve Update


Valve : Explained

Aquaponics - Video Update



I've transferred all the fishes from the old tank to the new

The Old tank I've 100+ Puyu (Climbing Perch) fingerlings , 25 Red Tilapia fingerlings , 20 Patin (Yellowtail catfish) fingerlings and 20 Jelawat (Mad Barb) fingerlings

In the Canvas tank I have 15 Kelah (Malaysian Mansheer) 20 Patin (Yellowtail Cat Fish) 30 Lampam (Tinfoil barb) , Puyu (Climbing Perch), 10 Sepat (Gourami) and few Koi

The growth bed, I am starting to plant, I'll take sometime for the system to mature and reach a good balance so meanwhile I expect the plant will not do well.

Aquaponics - Fresh Vegetable


Fresh vegetable from the Aquaponics growth bed, mint and selom. I ate them raw just after picking, how fresh can you get :)

There is sign of iron deficiency in the veg, I need to do something about this. Either Chelated Iron (expensive) or old rusty nails (cheap) or Fish Blood (messy) .., these are the remedy.

Aquaponics - Fishes New Home


Above are Puyu (Climbing Perch) fingerlings, about a hundred of them, these fish will jump out of the water when they are new to the tank. Luckily I've the water level low, so they jump but can't get out.

These are Koi, Patin (Yellow tail Cat fish), Kelah (Mansheer), Sepat (Gourami) and Lampam (Tinfoil Barb), most of the time they will be swiming underneath the growth bed, maybe because its darker there.

Aquaponics - The fishes



The fishes in my aquaponics - tank, awaiting to be transferred to their new tank

Aquaponics - New Begining



I removed the old setup and build a canvas fish tank. once completed I transferred all the fishes to the new tank and add some new fingerlings to the old.

Aquaponics - Previous Setup

The growth bed above is relatively new, so nothing much growing in it. I've since redo the bed.





My aquaponics video, on my previous setup.

Aquaponics - The Begining

I started experimenting with Aquaponics about a year ago, before that I was into water gardening and making bio filters for the water garden.


Its natural to progress into Aquaponics, as water gardening was for flowering and display plants. I'm posting a bit late, since then I am already into my 3rd phase of Aquaponics setup.

I'll post video and picture of the setup as it progress.

Regards


Affnan