| Online: | |
| Visits: | |
| Stories: |
| Story Views | |
| Now: | |
| Last Hour: | |
| Last 24 Hours: | |
| Total: | |
Getting Started With Aquaponics- Part 2, by F.B.
Plant Rafts with Sprouting Blocks
I utilize six plant rafts, each 4’X6’, for a total of 144 square feet of growing area. Each tank has room for three 2’x4’ polystyrene 1” thick rafts. Each raft has 27 one-inch holes made to accept rock wool sprouting blocks. These are commercially available on Amazon or most hydroponic source stores online. Each block will hold several sprouted plants (if you want to grow multiples on the block) or a single sprout if you prefer. Larger plants, like cabbage, take more room between plants than vertical growers, like tomatoes. Fully planted with (for a new set up) lettuce plants, you can have 487 plants in the system at one per wool cube. This system will produce as much food as one acre planted in northern climates, and it produces all year long and grows plants significantly faster.)
Light and Minerals
I do keep 1000 watts of LED grow lamps high above each pair of plant raft tanks. This helps during the short winter days and extends the length of day from 5am to 9pm every day of the year when the sun angle is low to the rafters. I do keep all fish tanks covered with polystyrene to reduce algae growth and prevent tilapia from jumping out of the tanks. They only need enough light (small hole in each poly cover) to see their food. The food of course is the only input into the system, unless you add mineral supplements, which I highly suggest you do with new systems. Iron, particularly, as well as zinc are rapidly utilized. There are several products– Flourish, Flourish Trace, and others– that are useful. I suggest you purchase a laboratory grade pH meter and calibrate it often. Purchase mineral test kits, ammonia, nitrate, and nitrite test kits, as well as test kits for iron, calcium hardness, total dissolved solids, and potassium. The better handle you have on your water quality, the faster you will be able to react to deficiencies in your system before they appear as yellow spots on your growing plants.
Air
Air is delivered by two very large redundant commercial air pumps. They pump air around the system in 1-inch PVC that is adapted down at the point of the airstone. All air delivery systems are located above the water to prevent siphoning. Only the stones are in the water. There are eight, large, silica airstones in each plant raft tank under the polystyrene to provide oxygen to the roots, four large stones in the gasification/degassification tanks, four stones in each of the fish tanks, and six stones each in each of the four glass tanks for a total of 92 BIG airstones in the system. Air is mission critical, so 24/7 power is a big thing.
Heat
The main heater for the system is an industrial 12 AMP 220 volt inline heater that senses water flow through it for safety. It has a digital thermostat and has never missed a beat.
Source: http://survivalblog.com/getting-started-with-aquaponics-part-2-by-f-b/
