Aquaponics - using Fish Waste

o.k. I need to be more elaborate...I don't make hash- therefore, the trim that goes in the teawater tank(tank #2) is top quality...you're feeding ganja to your ganja; there are massive differences in quality of trim- like olive oil...some are virgin, others are second rate. the whole teawater thing is meant as tea for an organic medium of the highest order. the tea feeds the micosphere, which feeds the plants. {this is part of my version of soil regeneration-(worldwide!), 'cause pesticides,herbicides and artificial fertilizers have poisoned the soil.}. ideally; I would be raising a cross section of mississippi watershhed 'rough fish', and bluegills, with mudpuppies and crawdads...ya'see, the more diverse strains of natural bacteria, the better. the closer we can get to super mimicry, the better. the teawater scheme works better with sunlight and warmth. the idea is to create a louzianna bayou of algae water, then empty that into tank # 2(minus the fish!).refill tank#1 with clean fresh water. let the teawater bubble for at least a few days, adding liberal amounts of trim. you can also throw some azomite, kelp meal,etc. to customize it.I'd avoid using guano if your pets or varmints are drinking out of it(usually they're more interested in the fishtank(#1) water.). the real magic of this trick is AEROBIC decomposition. if you hit your plants with anaerobic tea, you'll find out the hard way! I think aerobic teawater is the biggest thing that's about to hit the organic mainstream. I want to see every urban victory garden-to every village in the developing world running teawater on as large a scale as possible. that, coupled with carbonizing, and saturation fertilizing(innocuous redundancy), would turn once poisoned soil to 'terra preta'. that's my life's mission.

Another week and the first seedling is doing fine. It got over ran by the tomatoes and experienced some stretching try to find light.

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However, the second seedling does not seem to be doing anything at all. I figure the seed had issues after all it is only a few years old and probably not a very strong strain.

All other plants just going crazy as well to include tomatoes, lettuce (I have been eating it), onions and chives.

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Lights are burning tomatoes and I am going to redesign the way my grow room is so that I can have the lights drop from the ceiling avaoiding the burn.

I wonder what types of yields you can get out of this? Also, wouldn't a perilite medium be able to filter fishpoop better than hydroton?

Any medium will work that bacteria can live in. When i run out of hydroton I will start to use gravel it is cheap and lasts. My conceern will be the P phase.

So I just learned about the bell auto siphon and found ur post in google. So, just keep it flooded and do somewhat of an NFT instead of the flood n drain? Hmm....

It seems to me if you can have fast and complete enough ( as in, there are no "dead" spaces of water that are caught in a current trap and the water doesnt move, like in a corner ), you can get away without the auto siphon. But, maybe if you have really slow water input, or the container ur growing it doesnt allow full movement of all areas of water, u gotta use flood n drain. I like ur setup and look forward to updates!

I have moved the seedling to a fish tank by itself so the roots do not get tangled up.
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Other plants are doing fine I have moved them around and went with a 8 bulb bloom CFL it was more effecient than the three
lights easier to manage.

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Some lady bugs for color
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DTP water gets all around and even if there were a dead spot the roots will find the water. The hydroton also wicks between spaces so the entire table has plenty of water with only two trickles going. I did the bell siphon and found it to be easily screwed up and went with the ease of NFT. Not too much can go wrong with a trickle the only problem I have had is the lines fell out a couple of times when I move stuff around and they hit the floot.

Nice progress, Personified. By nft do you mean a constant trickle thru your hydroton to an open drain? My first AP grow was that way, but roots and gunk eventually plugged the drain, so I had to add a higher drain to prevent overflow. Then the higher one plugged, so I had to regularly yank roots out of the drains, and stab a screwdriver in to loosen up the media. Now I use gravel guards and bell siphons. The gravel guard allows me to completely remove the siphons and hose them out every month or so, much better. The trouble with nft is the lack of surface area of media that regularly gets both wet and oxygenated. If you top trickle, most of the media ends up getting wet, but then the surface tends to get covered in algae and attracts fungus gnats. If you use a bell siphon, all of the media gets wet except the top 2", keeping the algae and fungus gnats away, plus way better biofiltration, in my experience.

I need to snap some pictures and share them. Love your project

I do top trickle I consider it NFT since it starts at the top and drains at the bottom. I never have had an algae problem if I did I would throw straw on top the chloriphile will stop it. Never have had problem with roots either but if I did I would do as you tear roots out. I have two holes in case one drain fails. Nor have I ever had a problem with the roots getting nutrients my plants thrive.

I guess I am lucky