Aquaponics - Capsicum leaf problem

I still keep losing leaves on one of my capsicum plants. It's the one I got my first fruit on, but since then all other flowers have failed to set fruit.

This has to be the least of all possible problems to have as I have four or five other capsicum plants that are all doing well, but I still find it interesting.

Some time ago I posted about the leaves all falling off the other plants as well, but all the others have recovered. This plant is going to end up being a stick with a nice healthy capsicum hanging of the top of it.

You can see at the bottom, a leaf about to drop. The string is because it never really gained a strong footing before this fruit came on, so the poor plant keeps having to lie down for a bit of a rest.

The leaf starts to fade at the tip, and the fade moves down to the stem until, after about a month, the leaf falls off. I have no idea what's causing it, or if it's still an afetr shock from the damage done to them earlier, but I cant wait to pick my first capsicum.

My next fruiting plant has a dozen or so small capsicums, and a few flowers yet to develop. The other plants that look a little slower, but even they have nice healthy leaves and the beginnings of some flowers.




120 Things in 20 years, more questions than answers, with aquaponics and capsicum leaf problems.

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Aquaponics - Ultra low power system idea

In a normal aquaponics system, you pump water up to a grow bed, and gravity brings it back to the fish tank, Sometimes you have a sump or some other stuff in the path, but generally that's how it works.


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Pumps use a lot of power to overcome gravity.

Aquaponics can work well with the grow bed constantly flooded.

Saving electricity is environmentally always a good thing.

A power head or wave pump uses a little energy to move a lot of water, but cant lift water very well.

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Those are four important points.

A few days ago I ran the question of an ultra low energy aquaponics system through what I like to call the invention engine, and the idea seemed to be to not lift the water as high. Each time I ran it through, the water level got lower until it was zero. Some recent experiments show that for many species at least, a constant flood grow bed is a viable way of growing things aquaponically. After all, people have been growing things in deep water raft culture, where you basically fill a swimming pool with fish and float rafts that hold things like lettuce, where they happily grow until harvest time.

Just as worms have no trouble living in flood as long as the water's oxygen levels are high, a stack of plants feel the same way.

so...

If I place a fish tank next to a grow bed, fill them so they are at exactly the same level, connect them so that water enters and leaves each container from different places, and then stick a power head in the connecting pipes, we should see an effective system running on less than a half the power use of a more conventional system.

The only issue might be the restricted flow through all the media. Power heads don't create much pressure, which is why they cant move water uphill very well. But I see my water flowing very freely through my media when the siphon triggers, so I think I'm going to try it. If it works it should also be economically viable to run it from solar.

I'd really like to see more solar designs in shops.

If it doesn't work I still have a 3600LPH hour pump I can run the system with, so there is no down side for me.

The constant flood aspect isn't on trial here. We know that works. At least we know it works for many plant species. It's the power head which is the novel aspect, and the thing I will be interested in testing. It's even possible I may be able to run the system with something called an airlift using nothing but bubbles, but that's something for another post, and is only really viable if the air pump can do the job for less than the 4-6 watts I'm hoping a power head can do it for.



120 Things in 20 years, Aquaponics - Ultra low power system idea.

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Entomology - Maggot harvest

My maggot self harvester works.

Which is nice.

I found a stack of lines radiating out from the collector on the table.

I'm guessing that means its been working pretty well for the last 12 hours or so.

Working well, except for the "not letting them get away" bit. So I can enjoy a few extra flies over the coming days.

I think it's safe to assume we all knew that was going to happen.

The ramp even worked, although it has to be said that this particular maggot is actually using it to go back down.

It must have changed it's mind.









But eventually it seems, the little beasties find their way to the exit, and drop down into the container of   horrible tasting breakfast cereal that I gave them.

I dusted the wall of the orange collection container with flour, and that seems to have stopped them escaping, but who knows.

What this does mean is that I can make a better device that's sealed where it should be, and make some  fish food out of stuff that would otherwise go to landfill.

The stink factor was essentially zero, so no problems what-so-ever about doing it in a suburban back yard. From more than six inches away, there was no detectable smell at all. Basically you had to put your nose to it, and we had some very hot, dry days, some hot humid days, and half way through I added a stack of water, so it wasn't stink free because it was dry. (I added water because the dead fish was starting to turn into a dried fish, and wanted to keep it fly friendly)

And they were big and healthy looking.

This one, just big.

It's one of the escaped ones that was foolish enough to escape my cereal feed lot. I watched it being kissed by a black house spider, as it stumbled into it's web.

The upshot of this was a very obedient maggot who was happy to stand still on a ruler for as log as it took to get a nice photo of it's length.

Thanks nature.


The perfect house warming present for a fishing buddy, has got to be a lifetime supply of fresh maggots, via a lovingly hand crafted, self harvesting, suburban suitable, stink free, maggot growing, fish head recycling, bait farm. And I have just such a fishing buddy, who recently relocated to a place where you cant buy maggots for bait, and he just bought a boat.




120 Things in 20 years - Turning fish heads back into fish, with entomology and a maggot harvester.

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Entomology - I made maggots

I'm now the proud owner of some maggots.

I hope the people who own this house that are dropping tomorrow to do some repairs, appreciate maggots.

I'm guessing they will.

Who wouldn't?

I even moved them up close to the house so they can best enjoy them.

Actually the fish doesn't stink at all. You can smell it if you get up close to the opening, but that's to be expected.

We've had a few very hot days here, so if ever there was a time it was going to stink, I'm guessing the last few days would have been it.

They look like this.

They seem huge. Much bigger than other maggots I've seen. I'm still holding out hope that they might be black soldier fly, rather than the common house fly.

The maggot farm acts as a trap, so I can tell what's visited, and don't see a black soldier fly, but there's a chance it could have dropped eggs and escaped. Or that it is in there somewhere dead among the fish bits.

Either way, I guess I'll know soon, because if my harvester works I'll be able to get a better look, and take some measurements.

Delicious!

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Entomology - Flies and maggots

Can anyone think of a better way to spend a day than breeding maggots.

It's really hot, so I thought I'd stick some dead fish out in the sun.

I've always wanted to breed black soldier fly to feed to my silver perch. Black soldier fly are great, because they turn masses of meat and vegetable scraps into fish food in the form of maggots. The adult fly doesn't actually eat for the fly part of it's life, so unlike the common housefly, there's none of the paddling around in sewage, then strutting they fly style all over your food. Not to mention all the regurgitating they do.

So Black soldier fly, good. House fly bad.

I haven't had any luck with black soldier fly, so I'm going to try house flies.

Oh well. It wont be the first time I've taken a wrong path.

The common housefly is only called common by it's friends. It's real name is Musca domestica.

Everything will be fine. I'll keep a close eye on it, and as long as I collect the larvae I shouldn't see any more flies around than I would normally.

So I thought I'd make a collector. It might even act as a trap, and reduce the number of flies I see around the place. That's how optimistic one man can be.

One of the cool things about maggots, is they try to walk away from their gooey feeding area to somewhere dry to wait out their metamorphosis. What this means is, you can build a ramp out of their feed, and they will walk up it. Then if you design it so they walk out of the feeding area and into a container they become self harvesting*.

It's even possible to have them fall directly into your fish tank, but the problem with that, is that you cant tell how much feed your system is getting.

So I thought I'd make a quick test device to see how it works.

I started with a soft drink bottle.

I drank the soft drink first. It's hot.

Then cut the top off.

For some reason I used green so you wouldn't be able to see.

I cut the top off a second bottle to use as the exit point. This one was cut at an angle so I could mount it pointing down, so the beasties drop out into my collector.

Then I added a tube in such a way as to create a spiral ramp. The maggots will walk up this ramp to the top where they will find an exit hole.

They walk on the tube, not in the tube.

The reason they'll find the ramp, is because they just wonder off in a straight line from where they are when they decide to move on to their next life as a fly.

When they hit a wall, they pick a direction, and follow it around. If they go the wrong way they wont get out, but if the go the right way, they just start heading up the ramp.

I presume they get bored and change direction if they get it wrong.

I taped it all up with office tape, using the green top as a funnel.

The flies will enter at the top, maggots will grow on the bait, then climb the ramp and fall into a pot of disgusting breakfast cereal I found in the pantry, that must belong to Mrs 120 things in 20 years.

That's one of my dead silver perch I've added as bait.

I meant to do an autopsy on it to see if I could figure out why it died, but never got around to it.

It's been sitting in the bottom of my freezer in a body (sandwich) bag, but should make the perfect fly attractor.

Hmmm stinky.



*this isn't my design by the way, it's all over the net. I don't know who invented it, but if I ever find out I'll come back and edit this to credit them.

120 Things in 20 years, exploring the potentially smelly with Entomology - Flies and maggots

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Aquaponics - Bean density test

This test is about as unscientific as it gets, but its starting to show some unscientific results.

I started with plastic cups with holes drilled in them, filled them with scoria, and planted between 1 and 32 bean seeds in each.

Originally the plan was to transfer then to my NFT grow tubes, but because I lost the last ft of beans to overheating, I thought I might just leave them in a tray of nutrient rich water, and see what happened. Rather than being in the grow house, they are in the shade in a cool corner next to my house.

The beans with less seeds seem to be growing bigger healthy leaves, up to 16 seeds in the same cup, but the cup with 32 seeds seems to be struggling.

I say it inst very scientific, or at least not as it applies to aquaponics, because there might be a huge difference if the water was flowing, and oxygen rich.

But here is a top view anyway.








As soon as I have enough cooler grow space, I'll redo the test in a proper aquaponics environment rather than a nutrient rich stagnant puddle.




120 Things in 20 years, more than just stagnant puddle pseudo-science, and aquaponics bean density tests.

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Aquaponics - Heat

I think I'm going to change my system a bit.

I still have two IBCs (international bulk carriers) and think it's time to make a bigger system. The small amount of water is heating up so quickly that I think I might be in trouble if I get too many days like this in a row.

Today was 40c + and the water reached around 35c. As far as I know that's around the upper limit for my fish. I'll lose a lot of heat over night, but if I get a few days like that in a row I could making my fish miserable or even dead.

The best way to fix this would be a lot more water, and some shade to cover it.

I think I'll start work on a system upgrade.

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