Ornamental Set Update

Brief update on my Ornamental Set that previously placed all over the front yard.


Cheers

Anthurium Replanting

It is in really bad shape, no sign of significant growth after three months in my aquaponics set. Replanting it into soil and let it grow.

Trimmed those dead leaves and cut back on the roots to let new ones grow and stand in basin of water for few minutes before potting it to soil.

  After that let the pot stand in the basin to soak up, leaving it overnight this way to get it fully watered.

Did not add any fertilizer yet, let plant recover and then I give it some chicken manure base organic fertilizer.

Will transfer to bigger pots as and when required.

Anthurium Demise

Planted Anthurium plants about 3 months back in this single barrel set, this plant was chosen due to location of this set is at a shady area.

It is a small plant and ideal for small set up, somehow it doesn't do well in aquaponics. Three months has passed and it doesn't show any positive growth. Plant dying slowly and one by one the leaves started to dried out.

This plant make a nice ornamental plants due to its colourful flowers and small in size. The leaves is hard and almost like plastic. I had no choice but to pull it all out and temporarily planted buffer plant to just get the set under control.

No significant root growth after three months planted in this set and more and more leaves dying or just dried up. I will try to salvage what is left and use pots to get it back to health.

Its not completely died off, there are some life left in these plant, so will do the needful and transfer it to pots tomorrow. let it dry out for few hours outside the aquaponics environment and then will trim down for potting.

This plant suppose to be able to survive under shady condition and they like moist organic soil. Need to find out and try again later on aquaponics planting of this plant, something is not done right. Just need to find out what.. :)

Ornamental Aquaponics Set - The Video Presentation

It been sometime that I wanted to make this video, finally I manage to do it. This Ornamental set has been running for a few months and I recently replaced its siphon with the newer type.

Thanks for watching.

How to make the siphon : Here

Ornamental Aquaponics - Final Saga

Manage to make a simple bracket for the Ornamental Set, the stand legs was cut and the pieces bend into a "U" for the bracket that sit on top of the pot.

No extra iron needed, just need some welding to be done. Not the best of my welding but it will do.

So it is from this below;

To this;

Then to this;

Next changes is the pot below need a bigger capacity.

Ornamental Aquaponics - Saga Continues

Make changes to the set, making it more compact and presentable at the same time practical. It's obvious the first alteration needed is the way the growbed is mounted. So I cut the stand and have it on top of the flower pot.

It is still a prototype, I need to make improvement to the stand so that it is secure. In the condition above it will be prone to tumble due to the very narrow pot area to have the stand placed on.

Hydroton added and some guppies as the starter fish to get things booted up on this set. Plants will be added later, still figuring out what type to use. I am getting another pot which is bigger to pair with this growbed and make improvement on the stand by making some bracket to help secure it to the pot.

Guppies as above getting use to the siphon cycle, aeration and water cycling is good with the slightly redesign 20 mm "Bell Less" siphon. Water feed using clear PVC tubes from a small 500 liter/hr pump. Later on I will change the clear tube to a more opaque colour to ensure no algae growth within. This is a test unit so I need to see what happening to it as much as I can.

The siphon down wash, plenty of bubbles and those holes on the down pipe help to aerate and reduce noise. I need to timed the cycle and probably make a walk through video showing the small set.

I use the pump on the left above for this set, no particular brand recommended just that I have this in hand and might as well use it. It is a very low cost pump something like seven dollar with low power requirements.

The other pump is the one that I use on my daughter's requested Micro Aquaponics set, for school "Show and Tell"

That's about it on this Ornamental Aquaponics, I will continue testing it and make improvement along the way. The most important is to address the safety issue, the reliability part of the set I can say it's good to go.

Ornamental Aquaponics

It all started with my daughter request to make a small aquaponics unit for demonstration purpose, then it strike me that people are more interested in Ornamental than Practical Aquaponics. Made a small kit, it is undergoing testing to see whether the siphon will work without hiccups.

Ornamental Aquaponics something new to thinker about, I specialise in flood and drain so it will be no brainier to figure out that I must do it with a siphon. The problem is to get a reliable siphon at such a small inflow, I did made a tiny siphon with 15 mm pvc but at that size it is unreliable. I had also made a 20 mm siphon, but it is too big for this tiny unit, so I decide to try a hybrid of 20 and 15.

It works !!! video below as I post yesterday.

Okay, now let do it seriously, to be ornamental it must be pretty... right.. that one factor that cost money. Anything pretty must cost money... so.. since I manage to get the siphon works really well.. now to get the pretty factor.

 First try below... , still ugly.. well.. it doesn't cost a bomb.. what do you expect... once I know it work.. then I will do a make over.

I use mini "strainer bell" or "bell less" siphon for this set at the moment, will revise to a different design. It is difficult to get parts at this size. The siphon below is the shorter version from above.

Growbed is a water plants flower pot, they do not have holes on the bottom. I make a hole for the 20 mm stand pipe and an outlet as usual.

Bricks were use as a ballast, so that not much water needed to fill the grow bowl since it is not filled with LECA yet. Water pump is at 500 liter per hour rating, from the flow it looks much less that that. Ideally the grow bowl should be directly above the fish tank, I must modified the stand to make it stand on top of the fish tank.

Will test this for next few months and on the mean time I hope it will get prettier by itself.