CRAFTS Gutterbed set - Video Update

Completed making the guttergrowbed on my CRAFTS set and here's a short video on it.

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CRAFTS Video Updates October 2014

CRAFTS set update October 2014

Back lane CRAFTS set updates 11th Oct 2014

Not doing much these last few months on the back lane set, finally after festive season temporarily over I am tiding it up for more planting.

The Garlic Chives that I redo from front to make way for the Strawberry doing great and I got twelve pots in this growbed with few more in another growbed. This is more that I need, two pots is all that is required and I may reduce to only six pots for my own use.

 Three Basil pots I redo into two using the slotted orchid pot, one I transfer another start new from cutting.

More Basil than I can handle, Tilapia will eat this.

Turmeric are very slow to shot, I'll change to slotted pots once they have sufficient root growth holding the LECA.

Above potted flood & drain will be redo to have more plants in it.

I must get more plants going to use up all the nitrate, tilapia are getting bigger and they produce more waste now as compare few months back.

Few seedlings growing and I must sow more, heavy rain causes damage to seedling and some seeds just don't germinate. Need to change the way I sow those seeds.

Three pots of Sambung Nyawa plants taken out from the growbed and giving it away.

Brief Overview of My Setup 1st Sept 2014

A quick overview of what I have around the house, I try to utilize as much space as I have and hopefully others may learn and start the same to help green our urban landscape.

Video shot using Samsung Galaxy S5, audio with Sony ICD-AX412F IC Audio recorder and editing done on Dell PC with Corel Video Studio Ultimate X6 editing software.

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5 to 4 - A CRAFTS Redo

Centre growbed cracked after 6 years of usage, this bed was filled with pebbles and under stress. I decided to remove it and redo my CRAFTS set to only has four growbed. Below photo is showing the 5 growbed CRAFTS setup.

It is a back breaking job, but a man got to do what a man got to do.. This redo not only require removing one growbed but has to unload and re-spaced all of them to ensure better light distribution, giving space to plants and provide 30% light to fish tank below. 

I will also need to raise the growbed by couple of inches to have better access to fish tank and gives optimum height for siphon return.

As a start, all growbed has to be unload and this older set was not filled with LECA it is pebbles.. few hundred kilos of hard solid pebbles.... :(

A real back breaker, I use this opportunity to replace all siphon to newer 25 mm Vent Cowl Strainer Bell Siphon design.

Once emptied, growbed tubs are washed and shown with the newer siphon parts in place, which only requires slight modification. You can compare to my older design at previous posting.

This design do away with the bell bottom crown for water inlet due to the taper or conical shape of the Vent Cowl Strainer it has gap for water flow into the bell.

Above the Cowl Strainer, and there the bell shown, not that clear but I am testing this design for the 25 mm Siphon which is very much easier to do. I don't want to use the 20 mm Strainer Bell because the growbed holes was made for 25 mm siphon and I just need to replace one component to redo the siphon. Below is the completed 25 mm Vent Cowl Strainer Siphon.

Took almost 2 days to redo these, water inlet redo to make it better and simpler. Aeration pump tube route shifted to the back not front of fish tank, and gap in between those growbed has increase to allow more sunlight.

Left return tank due to the disturbed water has been very murky and I stop feeding those Tilapia fingerling until all settled, they probably under stress and it's best to not feed at this time.

Feeder tank with bigger Tilapia waiting for harvest and some stray juvenile to go back into the return tank. Same water pump and making the distribution pipes simpler and eliminate the need of ball valve for water trimming.

Right Return Tank same as the Left, shown here with the siphon in operation. I will need to put netting to ensure no Tilapia jump out and preventing these fall prey to King Fisher or other predator like KIDS.

The Left most growbed (#1) I try this Potted Media base Flood & Drain to try reduce the amount of LECA required. I need to keep a close eye on mosquito larvae monitoring the water daily. I hope any larvae will be flushed down into Return Tank so that it will be fish food.

Replant the Asparagus that was neglected and Turmeric on #3 Growbed, Growbed # 2 and 4 are still empty. I need to stop experimenting with installation setup on this back lanes CRAFTS set. I will concentrate more on planting and trying to get the most from this system.

Aquaponics as I practice, takes a long time to developed since I am doing a lot of experimenting to make better system. This I share and make it easier for first timer to do, most trial and error has been done and I could advise on a better and quick setup for others.

I now will concentrate on planting, and will use supplement and natural base fertilizer to improve yield. Onwards will be a new phase on my Aquaponics Quest.

Three Barrel CRAFTS Aquaponics Set

These barrel is cheap and we could make do without any metal frame to hold the growbed. So I got myself another three barrel to make the CRAFTS set for smaller fish.

Growbeds made from 90 cm tub, a size smaller than I normally use and at much cheaper price by almost 1/2. But it is thinner and looks less robust. Water pump is at 2000 Liter/hr all I need is about 1500 Liter/hour but it is not available at the place.

As usual for this set, I need to remove the top cover and make it into an open barrel. It an easy task making use of a jigsaw.

Making holes and access for overflow and pump access.

Those access hole I just cut a half moon to ensure I got maximum water from these barrel to use. The overflow from Return Tank into Feeder Tank is using 32 mm pvc piping and fittings.

A single 15 mm PVC pipe and fitting uses as the Feeder Tank overflow since this set is in the open, rain will fill her up to overflow.

All set, and initially I thinking of making it this way with three growbed on top of the barrels. But decide to use only 2 growbed to make it less clustered.

Support beam 1x2 wood, since these will be underneath the growbed it will be protected from rain and shine. Hope it will last longer without any weather proof.

20 mm StrainerBell made for 10 inches growbed, water level will be at 8 inches adjusted using the extender tube. Residual water level is at 1" for this StrainerBell Siphon.

Water inlet is a simple "T" this works well and very easy to maintain the pump. I made a saddle valve on the up tube since the pump is more that it is needed for this two growbed.

Completed set, and letting it cycle for few days before I introduce fish and simple "buffer" plants. Those LECA is from a growbed at the back which been running for about a year. So it will make this CRAFTS set cycle faster.

The 32mm PVC over flow from the Return Tank, murky water due to seasoned LECA.

20 mm StrainerBell Siphon in operation, may need to be tweak to ensure trouble free operation. But so far never missed a beat.

That's it, I will let the set cycle and this unit is for smaller fish to grow before I could mix them with the larger fishes.

Barrel CRAFTS set

Thinking of getting more drum to make this three barrel setup. It doesn't take much space since each barrel is about 23 inches across. This below is the one I made earlier for testing.

What I have in mind is like the diagram below. Using my 20 mm StrainerBell Siphon, water pump rating should be very low.

Looks like this weekends I will be busy with this project.

CRAFTS - A Short Presentation

CRAFTS - Final Extension - The Day After

Yesterdays's Post : Here

Completing CRAFTS, made a rack and done the growbed as planned today. What left are Hydroton and water feed.

Angled Iron cut to length, I use 4 pieces of that 10 ft long iron. 4 pieces of 24" and 27" and 6 pieces of 36" cut to make this rack below additionally I required 8 angle piece and 40 set of screws.

On growbed I'm testing out this Bell Less Siphon. The Strainer Bell has a row of holes instead of usual 4 or 5 row that I use on normal strainer.

Close up of valve below and that smaller hole above row of bigger holes is for indexing. So its an index hole for my Strainer Bell.

That an overview below, water inlet and hydroton next. I'll do it later before my Borneo trip.

Why not play around with water outlet since I have plenty of elbow and other fittings. I do it this way because I'm putting netting to cover the fish tank. New fish may jump out and I'm trying out other fish in this tank. This outlet need to be above the net and still functional, giving maximum aeration.

Siphon draining into new Return Tank.

All tidied up and that Tomatoes will need support. 

This setup up cost about USD 1500.00 the most on DIY, not bad for a Back Lane set. It will give Fish and Vegetable,  therapeutic values is great and controlling mosquito is priceless.

CRAFTS - Final Extension

Earlier this morning got myself additional fish tank and putting it in as extension to my CRAFTS installation. This time the left growbed need to be cleared and temporarily emptied, vegetables harvested and few plants transplanted to other growbed.

This Kangkong harvested and few other plants like that Brinjal in front transplanted.

Installation is mirror image of what I did last weekend. I decide to maintain 40 mm over flow, if 50 mm were use I will need a bigger hole cutter that I am not keen of purchasing. So far the 40 mm don't shows any problem.

Above is almost complete, its very easy to add and everything fall in place perfectly. Took me about an hour to complete to this stage and I did it in between doing this Roast Chicken. BTW that Twitter post on right pane is current as it happened.

Stop for today and will continue tomorrow with the racking, will get 4 angle iron and a bag of screws for it.

I did not have hydroton yet for this additional growbed. I will temporarily make it into fingerling tank. As fingerling tank nothing special to do just uncapped the siphon lets water over spill and plug the 4mm drip hole.

I'll be buzy this next few weeks - 1. Borneo 2. Singapore 3. Canada those are the places that I need to go this next few weeks. I hate to fly to Canada and USA .. its too long of a flight.

CRAFTS and CHOPS the difference.

So what are the differences ?

CRAFTS - Constant Return Aquaponics Feeder Tank System make use of Growbed over the fish tank method that some may say an obsolete system. "Growbed over Tank" is a proven simple system and there are still life left in this system in the form of modular CRAFTS.

This system make use of Return Tank which is under each Growbed and over flowing into a common Feeder Tank which then feeds water to Growbed using pumps.

One or more pumps can be use depending on water feed requirement. Pump don't need to be anything special, a simple pump will do. No requirement for float switch activated pump.

CRAFTS multiply in modular Node, each Node comprise of Growbeds over a Return Tank which in turn over flowing into a common centralize Feeder. Water volume will increase as more Nodes is added.

In CRAFTS each Nodes can house different fish species or it can be use as Nursery or Breeder Tank.

CHOPS - Constant Height One Pump System it also was called CHFT PIST which make use of growbed over a sump tank and a higher Fish Tank that gravity feed water onto Growbeds.

The taller fish tank in CHOPS will ensure enough water head available for growbed and an over-flow will ensure Constant height of water in this tank. It make use of one pump located in the sump tank and for safety reason it must be of the float activated type, just in case the sump is low in water.

All water is within this taller fish tank and it will need to take into account of number of growbed needed to be feed. Expansion of system is possible by adding more growbed and increasing the fish tank size if its not able to accommodate water requirement.

Growbed which are further away from sump tank may need its own sump but that will no longer be a One pump operation.

Above are some of the difference between CRAFTS and CHOPS both this system will have constant level of fish tank water making it better for fish in reducing water fluctuation stress.

Usage of either system will be dependent on individual preference and space availability. Installation that is not subjected to space constrain and planned ahead CHOPS can be use, if a modular approach is important give CRAFTS a go.

In all, both these system add to more ways we can practice Aquaponics and its suitability will depend on individual installation requirements.