Growing Plants in Coal

Pauliewog wrote: ↑

Fri. Jun. 22, 2018 5:56 pm

I wonder how catfish would do?

Paulie

Maybe try stone cats. Little catfish.
Don't think they get very big. Found at some bait shops but expensive.

Co2 injection is next or fire up the Home Stove Works.

You might need to do some hand pollinating to get the fruits of your labor.

it seems to me you can and are going to want to have 2 seperate systems.

one for the pretty little fish that are there to enjoy looking at and that is controlled by whatever means ( personally i'd go with water hyacinths as far as you can, this could even negate the need to pump that water thru filtration making that system simpler ) to be kept clear and nice and a second for some "work horse" fish that are slow growing and / or small bodied, can tolerate lower water "quality" and produce plenty of effluent that you will control just enough not to be toxic to the plants and circulate that thru the growing tubes.

i,d also put the "juice" fish high enough to gravity feed thru the grow tubes and just be pumped back up.

just food for thought,
steve

mntbugy wrote: ↑

Fri. Jun. 22, 2018 7:12 pm

Maybe try stone cats. Little catfish.
Don't think they get very big. Found at some bait shops but expensive.

Co2 injection is next or fire up the Home Stove Works.

You might need to do some hand pollinating to get the fruits of your labor.

Hopefully I won't have to adress the co2, or polination problem until it's closed up for the winter.

From what I'm reading online, the carp or catfish will work in my situation.

When I worked at the Mt Carmel cogen, the 45 acre hydroponic greenhouses used tanks of co2, and for the first year or so would bring in a swarm of bees periodically to polinate the plants. Later on they used hand held whip type stingers to manually polinate them.

I dont know Artie......Maybe I'll have to get one of these drones.
https://www.roboticsbusinessreview.com/agricultur ... ling-bees/

Paulie

KingCoal wrote: ↑

Sat. Jun. 23, 2018 9:29 am

it seems to me you can and are going to want to have 2 seperate systems.

one for the pretty little fish that are there to enjoy looking at and that is controlled by whatever means ( personally i'd go with water hyacinths as far as you can, this could even negate the need to pump that water thru filtration making that system simpler ) to be kept clear and nice and a second for some "work horse" fish that are slow growing and / or small bodied, can tolerate lower water "quality" and produce plenty of effluent that you will control just enough not to be toxic to the plants and circulate that thru the growing tubes.

i,d also put the "juice" fish high enough to gravity feed thru the grow tubes and just be pumped back up.

just food for thought,
steve

My biggest problem right now Steve is the lack of space.

Elevating the tanks was my first thought, but in order to keep the fish tank water temperature below 80*f in the summer, I decided to dig it down into the ground. So far that has been working pretty well. On the hot Sunny days the return water from the grow tubes gets pretty warm. As the plants grow and shade the tubes, hopefully I can maintain a workable temperature.

Thinking about down the line putting a large make up water tank under the deck or burying one outside of the greenhouse.

In the winter an option might be switching one of the tanks to trout.

A few years ago my koi pond was overrun with water hyacinths. Although they helped with cleaning up the water and provided shade, I still had to run the biological filter. They also suck up nutrients reducing what the vegetables need.

Right now the way I have everything plumbed in, my options on placing that second "juice" tank are limited. Looks like It's going to have to be hand dug down on the opposite side of my stairwell.

I have to drain and clean out my little garden koi pond on the side of the house this week. Once the greenhouse gets going and the koi grow a little, they will end up outside in the koi pond to replace the ones I lost over last years crazy winter.


Paulie

sound like you've got a good handle on it

Here's a project near me that marries whiskey and fish .....

http://www.fiveand20.com/2017/09/08/five-20-spiri ... 12980279cd

https://timberfishtech.com/

BigBarney

Pauliewog wrote: ↑

Sat. Jun. 23, 2018 1:34 pm

My biggest problem right now Steve is the lack of space.

Amazing setup!
With all those enclosed plants, have you had problems with bugs that like to eat them, or spread disease?

I'm glued to this thread! Did you find the basic plans in a book, or magazine? Online? Since I have zero experience here, but I'm intrigued, I'd like to see all that is required to make a project like this a success.

rberq wrote: ↑

Sun. Jun. 24, 2018 8:32 pm

Amazing setup!
With all those enclosed plants, have you had problems with bugs that like to eat them, or spread disease?

It's not completely closed in yet. I still have to clean up and install the curved glass panels on the front. Plan to put them in before it gets cold, but right now its well ventilated and probably helps with polination.

So far there are no problems with bugs, but you brought up a really good point and I appreciate your input

I'll have to do some research to see what's treatment is eco friendly for the fish.

Paulie

I see the colored cards hanging in the greenhouses here smeared

with petroleum jelly to catch bugs and they just wipe them off and

reapply the jelly when they get full , won't hurt the fish no chemicals.

http://horticulture.oregonstate.edu/system/files/ ... 120315.pdf

There are all different colors for specific insects.

BigBarney

lsayre wrote: ↑

Mon. Jun. 25, 2018 10:32 am

I'm glued to this thread! Did you find the basic plans in a book, or magazine? Online? Since I have zero experience here, but I'm intrigued, I'd like to see all that is required to make a project like this a success.

Thanks for the kind words Larry ! I'm sure with your background, designing and building an aquaponic system such as this is well within your scope.

This whole project snowballed from working on and building my long awaited man cave. When I decided to dig out and install an outside entrance door, I really needed to put up something like a small porch roof to cover the stairs.

We always loved the curved glass sunrooms and looked into installing one large enough to cover a hot tub.

The temperature in the furnace room I built to enclose the stoker is normally close to 90* f in the winter so this was a perfect solution to bleed off the excess heat.

We got a quote of $38,000 for a new sunroom so after recovering from the sticker shock........ It was back to the drawing board.

I started searching Craigslist and found a used one in New Jersey for $2,500. Still in the middle of finishing the man cave project I contacted the seller but was hesitant on purchasing it at that time and continued my search for one a little closer.

About a month later the seller contacted me and said if I would remove it that weekend I could have it for free.
Rather than duplicate that on this thread, here is a link to that portion of the project:

www.coalpail.com/coal-forum/viewtopic.php?f=57&t= ... e&start=30

Scotscoaled stopped over the house one day and he was telling me about his plan to build a much larger aquaponic greenhouse to raise fish and organic vegetables and that got me thinking. I was familiar with hydroponics but not aquaponics so I started gathering information off the internet. My daughter got me started on Pinterest where I spent months collecting links on parlor stoves, antique kitchen stoves, base burners, greenhouses, and my aquaponic greenhouse project.
There are literally thousands of ideas, links, and forums available there and I learned a lot.

Greenhouse Ideas Board on Pinterest... https://pin.it/kbjuqv776jyj3i

My Aquaponic Greenhouse Board on Pinterest... https://pin.it/kbjuqv776jyj3i

My system is just a combination of ideas I found there combined with tanks and materials I already had.
Rather than go with really expensive pumps with a high head pressure, I decided to go with cheap, reliable, pond pumps from Harbor freight that had very good reviews.

While at Harbor Freight picking up some pumps I noticed they were removing all of their display shelving and replacing it with new.
I asked the contractor for some open wire shelving and he told me to take what I wanted.

I haven't totaled up the material costs yet, but I'm pretty sure it's under $400.

If you would like to chat about it sometime feel free to send me a pm......... I can talk much faster than I can type.

Paulie

BigBarney wrote: ↑

Sun. Jun. 24, 2018 12:43 pm

Here's a project near me that marries whiskey and fish .....

http://www.fiveand20.com/2017/09/08/five-20-spiri ... 12980279cd

https://timberfishtech.com/

BigBarney

Thanks for the link BB. I wonder if ATF would give me any flack if I put in a small still ?

Paulie

BigBarney wrote: ↑

Mon. Jun. 25, 2018 1:00 pm

I see the colored cards hanging in the greenhouses here smeared

with petroleum jelly to catch bugs and they just wipe them off and

reapply the jelly when they get full , won't hurt the fish no chemicals.

http://horticulture.oregonstate.edu/system/files/ ... 120315.pdf

There are all different colors for specific insects.

BigBarney

Thanks for the link BB. I just ordered some from Amazon.

Paulie

I installed the second fish tank during the week and think I'll dig in another 55 gallon plastic drum adjacent to it. The corner Is going to be wasted space under the rain barrel, so I may as well get another 50 gallon tank under it.

I may be able to get a few dozen koi from a friend's pond when he gets back home in two weeks.

The biological filter is working well, so once I get the additional fish, the garden should really take off.

The Romaine Lettuce is doing really well as are the peppers. Was able to actually pick enough leaf and romaine lettuce to make a salad today.

Roots look nice and healthy too.


Paulie

Garden looks real good. Are you only using coal as the media in the pots ?

Maybe if you have a dirt floor you could sink 1/2 plastic barrels in under the

plants for more fish.

BigBarney