FISH NAMES

It’s half term. the grandchildren have come to visit.

The boys 11/12 want to name the fish.

RULES: No family names No easy names.

BOYS                                                        GIRLS

                                                                    

tyreece                                                      willamina   

tiger                                                           yolanda

bobeth                                                       rizzeta

budwazio                                                   smaugetta

swagzonzo                                                orketta                                                          

yoloswaginson                                          lepricorna                                          

platapuso                                                  tanyazia

dumbizio                                                   tonzanza

tus                                                             teneyzia

fecious                                                      banteta

jimbo                                                         scalatuna

tinchy                                                        tankaria

marquisi                                                    perchida

kowiegawa                                                grapetta

Forty five minutes of fun for all the family

Filters Part Two and NFT

Last year I had many problems with the NFT system.

I was using standard UK square line downpipes. These have many advantages over round tubes and I will continue using them this year.

Leaks,  water level, flow rate and quality are the main obstacles to overcome.

I was using the standard 90*  bends joined  together to give a staircase look to the tubes. However no amount of glue silicone or tape seemed to work. Constant drips.

I bought some square end caps which although they fitted well were still not 100% water tight. I had also planned on using standard 21.5mm tank connectors but this would have meant a constant depth of about 2cm in the tubes.

At one point I considered getting the end caps 3D printed but the cost was prohibitive.

It is important in a NFT system that the water is of good quality. That means very few small suspended solids. These will clog the roots. I built a pre-filter and a bio-filter out of storage boxes and until recently had planned on using them.

My friend ‘Serendipity’ came to visit and it all changed.

I found a cheap 22mm plastic manifold. A standard 22mm input and four equal 10mm outputs. Now instead of the water flowing down a staircase I get an equal flow into each tube. The tubes are on an incline. The high end no longer has to be 100% water tight so my existing end caps work.

At the other end I placed a vertical 110mm soil pipe with slots cut into it to receive the NFT tubes.

The water trickles down this tube and returns to the sump.

It is called a, ‘Trickle Tower’ I filled the inside with plastic bottle tops and eventually bacteria will establish and I have an additional filter.

I am also hoping that this will  additionally function as a cooling tower. Time will tell.

The main pump runs on a 15/45 minute timed cycle. This will not work for NFT tubes.. So I will add an additional pump just for the NFT on constant flow. In the line for this a ‘T’ and a tap with a return to sump will allow me to precisely control the flow to the NFT tubes.

I have continued with the 110 mm pipe. The bend has an access point built in. Slightly below this I have placed another media guard. The remaining  1.4 mtrs are filled with K1 bio media. A final media guard holds this in place. This then flows onto the , ‘sump with the pumps’

In front of this I have laid the 225 ltr olive barrel on its side. Water flows from FT1 through the RFF and into this tank. It then joins the line to the,’ sump with the pumps.’ 

Once it has settled down I intend to ‘box it’ Make it look a bit prettier.

All that remains then is to install the second pump and the lines to the NFT system.

Oh! and then the new airlines. That is another story.

Trickle tower

Access Point

BURNS NIGHT

I am not Scottish but for many years I have had, a fondness for Burn’s Night.

Haggis, Neeps and Tatas on the table. Flower of Scotland in the background and ‘The ode’. Fun for all the family and lifts the spirits in January. Yes, and a good excuse to drink a drop of whiskey.

This connection with Burns night started for me in Southern Spain.

January is a quiet time on The Costa Del Sol. Many of our local bars were closed.

In the few Ex-pat bars that were open there was more time to chat.

This particular bar was run by a chap from Liverpool.  It was very close to our apartment and a warm escape from the cold wind.

This was before satellite TV and the internet. Newspapers were at least a day old and told stories of a UK, somehow remote. Life was local and layered. Spanish friends and work colleagues but also the relaxed repartee in the ex-pat bars at night. Drink was cheap.

My wife and I were the only customers and we sat chatting to the owner.

Talk turned to attracting more customers. We had owned restaurants and although not a chef I am a fair cook. Offer food was an obvious solution. But what?

Another mutual friend had called me on Christmas Eve morning for help.

He had forgotten to defrost the turkeys for his restaurant . With loads of booking for that night. He was panicking. One oven and four frozen turkeys in the freezer. We put the turkeys in the bath to defrost. One after another in his oven. One in ours and I drove fifteen miles to my mothers house where she cooked the final one. Chaotic but everyone had a great night.

With this little accomplishment in mind maybe I was a bit arrogant.

Why not do Burn’s Night? You provide the whiskey I will do the Haggis.

Mashed potatoes and swede was easy. How do you make Haggis?

No internet to look up the recipe. No cook book.

 Oh dear phone my Mum. 

She had a friend who was a butcher. A Welsh butcher! 

Oh well. Oats? Would Ready Brek do? Sheeps; liver, kidneys, hearts and lungs.

No butcher in Spain would sell me lungs.

The rest we minced and mashed tied up in a new muslin cloth and steamed for hours.

It was a great night. Half the customers were Spanish. I never really found out what they thought about this strange Scottish fare.Cooked prepared and served by two lads from Brighton and  Liverpool.

We never made Haggis again.

He moved away

My friend! I raise a glass to you every twenty fifth of January and remember the happy times.

FILTERS - Part One

One of the first things you can do to the water in an AP system to improve it is fit a solids separator. 

You can use centrifugal force in a ‘Swirl’ or Vortex filter  or just gravity in a Radial Flow Filter. In a RFF filter the water flows UP the pipe and is then directed DOWN by the flow separator. Gravity assists and the solids collect at the bottom. The cleaner water exits higher up. The solids can then be removed through the discharge pipe as required.

To build this I first cut an approximately 10 cm hole in the top using a drill and a jig saw. 

To secure the water cooler bottle to the work bench I used bungee cords.

The next job, using a 40mm hole saw was to cut the inlet and outlet holes.

Fit the bulkhead fittings using washers and ‘fish safe’ silicone.

 I used a pop bottle with the top cut off for the flow separator. The main problem was fixing and supporting the weight. In the end I used heavy duty cable ties  through the handle of the water cooler bottle to secure to the frame of the IBC. A 110mm pipe cut to length also supports the weight. I cut a hole in this to accommodate the discharge pipe. Temporary piping. Prior to the next modification hence the ‘spaghetti’

I am more than happy with it! You can literately watch the solids falling to the bottom.

Samphire

I said that Dangerous Dave had talked about Samphire.

By chance that night on the TV was a program about Samphire. It is harvested wild here in salt marsh estuaries. However the season is very short. No more than six weeks in the summer. I got excited.

So I ordered some seeds. One thing leads to another, as God said to Moses when he handed him the four commandments!

I didn’t want to compromise my main system with added salt.It might interfere with the fruit pot. This is a major part of this years plan.

So I am in the process of adding an additional indoor system. An IBC cut 1/3; 2/3 rds. However because it is indoors it will require grow lights. This is a new facet of aquaponics for me. Lots, of reading.

This also required an improvement to the main system. A new RFF filter, sump and probably new Bio filter. This will also change the layout of the watercress NFT tubes. So the Pot bellied stove on the patio had to be moved.

“One of those corner outdoor sofa’s would look good there” she said. Now that you have moved the heater.

Hmm. Could have just gone to the supermarket and bought some Samphire!

As the song says, “Hopelessly addicted to aquaponics.”

Aquaponics UK Trout autopsy Part 2

The first cut was from tail to head. Then to expose the internal organs. Two transverse cuts.

Thats the way I would normally clean a fish and it seemed sensible.

The remaining cuts were to remove first an area of normal scales(skin) and then an  area of infected scales  and lastly an area which covered the change between normal/infected.

The guts and the flesh appeared normal.

Now I had wanted to do this in the kitchen but Mrs Fishcake said NO.

Normal Scales

Infected Area

Boundary area

The extra light outside helped with the photo. However the sub zero temperatures may have contributed to camera shake.

I had constructed the microscope to be used with the smart phone out of its case.

In the event I forgot. This may account for some loss of detail.

The three photos from the microscope show those three areas.

In reality in a home situation there is little you can do.

Isolate, salt and hope.

Aquaponics UK - Trout Autopsy Part !

It has been cold and wet here. I have been feeding the Trout in the morning and again in the evening after work. Probably not waiting long enough to observe them.

So my fault I may not have picked up this problem as early as I should have.

However when I did I immediately moved him to a hospital tank.

The white tail was distinctive.

None of the other fish are displaying any symptoms.

 My hospital tank is a 70 litre  glass aquarium. It has its own filter/heating  system and is completely separated from the main system.

The trout was swimming and appeared to be feeding normally. The ‘nude’ tail was the only symptom. 

With hindsight he was netted very easily, swimming on the surface and transferred to the hospital tank. Transfer stress can also be a problem.

The water in this tank was drawn from the main system, so equal PH, temp etc.

However I had salted this water to 6PPT.

In commercial fisheries and when dealing with ornamental fish many different chemicals are used. However when dealing at home with fish for human consumption  salt is you main ally.

Salt has an OSMOTIC action on fish. It can best be remembered by the acronym’ SALT SUCKS” That means water, and the bad things, bacteria etc, move from the LESS saline area to the more saline area.

I am learning with fish health so Google is my main source of information.

White tail disease was my initial guess but further reading leaves me unsure. This seems to mainly affect Prawns. http://www.thefishsite.com/diseaseinfo/22/white-tail-disease

My best guess now is Bacterial Cold Water Disease; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacterial_cold_water_disease With an additional fungal infection.http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Uploads/Documents/05_1989.pdf   If you know better please comment.

So sadly he died.

I decided to dissect him. This would also give me a chance to use my new smart phone microscope. I built this from instruction on the internet. An additional lens is added to the existing smart phone camera to give a magnification up to 150 times.