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Sunday, 28 June 2015

Sambung Nyawa Restocking

Sambung Nyawa plants has good medicinal properties hence I will always has it planted in my aquaponics set. One of the growbed I had to cleared up and replant tomatoes, in that I had to remove the existing plants and this include the Sambung Nyawa plants.
Took it out of the growbed, since I had it in pot it's easier to do.
Cut its branches and gave the Tilapia a treat.
In 24 hours those branches will be strip clean.
Those few remaining branches, cut the shoots for planting.
It's an easy plant to grow, stick it in hydroton is that is needed and plant it in a temporary area.
Two pots is all that is requires.
Temporarily placed amongst the newly planted tomatoes.
It will be transferred to larger pot once the plant has shown sign of growth.

One More Bite The Dust

Another Alpha 1000 failed on the newly planted Tomato growbed. It has a hard life anyway running continuously for more than a year for my barrel set.
 Removed the pump and found the rotor shaft broke.
 The shaft has been ground to a needle point and detached from the supporting rubber mount.
 The permanent magnet rotor has deformed probably due to scrubbing the pump inner wall.
 That's a sharp point
 The rubber mount with broken shaft inside,
Replaced with a spare rotor, no time to change the entire unit. I need to keep an eye on this over the next 2 weeks, may need to replace to a new pump before the festive break next month.

Tomatoes Overdue

Sown few tomatoes from over ripen homegrown and it was overdue for transplanting. Decide to do that on my smaller set. So out goes the buffer plants and few tomatoes seedling to take over.
Due to the overdue period, the seedling are tall and thin. I had to plant it deep so that they can developed more root from the buried stem.
When you transplant tomatoes, the rule is "the deeper the better" because more roots can developed from stem in the soil resulting stronger plants.
In forty five days or less they should fruit.

Pandanus Maximus .. :)

Stick a few of these pandan cuttings few weeks ago just to get some plants in one of my smaller set for cycling. It is now time to replace the pandan (Buffer plants) with something more challenging.
They are very easy and a fast grower, less than four weeks and their roots system already going out of the pot.
Healthy root growth and will out grown its surrounding growbed in no time. If you intent to grow pandan in Aquaponics, do it in a square foot container and place it in the growbed.
The container must have drainage hole to get water and nutrient circulated then all will be fine.

Tuesday, 23 June 2015

Aquaponics Tips - Silencing the Ornamental Set

With much of the experimenting over on the Ornamental set, it time for reducing its outlet sound. At times the siphon outlet can be loud and it's no different on this smaller set. The easiest way to reduce the sound is to put a muffler end on the outlet.

Muffler end is made by drilling few holes on the outlet final downward tube , this works as to let air water mix and thus reducing the sound.

This muffler also act as an aerator giving much needed oxygen to the water. If needed to reduce noise and giving oxygen to water, this is the simplest way to do it.

Sunday, 21 June 2015

Aquapet Aquarium Shop

I was looking for a new pump few days ago and happen to visit this place Aquapet at 72B Selangor Green lane with gps : 3.154194, 101.556361
This place has many types of pump and ideal for finding the correct type needed for my Aquaponics set experiments.
Photo as follows, basically they are a large store doing Aquarium fishes and product.









Saturday, 20 June 2015

Fresh Fish For Ornamental Set

After a redo of the Ornamental set, it's time for some fish. Bought few Pacu and Barb for the two set and the third already has few tilapias.


Pacu above are at about 2 inches, they can grow big. Later I'll move them if needed.


 Barb


Leaving the fish to adjust to water temperature.


The water due to smaller space are warmer as compared to my larger sets.

Testing New Pump For The Ornamental Set

Few types of pump tested on the ornamental set ranging from Alpha 1000, Alpha 500 and the Venusaqua E3302. Since I am trying to use the smallest siphon for the Ornamental set the Alpha 1000 and Venusaqua pump were not suitable due to the large flow rate.

The Alpha 500 works with the small siphon (15mm) but this pump construction make its maintenance high. The rotor is held by a shaft anchored at one end leaving the other unsupported and it is prone to cavitation. However it has been tested for almost eight month and still running. It only requires constant up keeping.

Test a different pump today a Sunsun HJ-600, an 8 watt pump with a flow rate of 600 Liter per hour maximum at zero head.


List of pump parts below.


The HJ-600 Specification.


The HJ-600 output verses height.


This pump has a front dial to adjust output. It does work, on my ornamental set with 15mm siphon I set it to slightly above the minus mark.


Side view, this pump is in 3 section, the front is the intake with the grille and flow adjuster. The mid section where the pump impeller vane and the front spindle support, with the back part house the motor coil and the permanent magnet rotor.


On the body it is rated at 10watt, oh well.. and the height max is 1.5 m, not bad for a small pump.


The other side of the pump.


Mid section after the grille removed.


The front part where the grille and flow adjuster.


To remove the mid section, quarter turn it anti-clockwise and it it detach from the body.


Exposing the impeller and rotor.


The impeller is different from Alpha series where this design reminds me of turtle climbing from a hole.


Shaft is stainless steel, to small for a ceramic but it is significantly larger that anything in its class. With larger spindle shaft pump will last longer.


Rotor removed exposing the housing which has a hols ad the beck for the shaft pivot point.


The back with hold for the shock mount rubber. This design should makes it easier to clean the mousing since we can have a water path right through.


All the attachment came with the pump, not in picture is a filler sponge.


Pump assembled, ready for installation.


What's left not required for operation.


In the water and will be tested for few months under actual aquaponics setup.


First flush.


Water in rate as at slightly above the minus sign and only after prolong use I will know how good is this pump for this set.


There you go,