Magna Daphnia

My first Magna Daphnia, I ordered online from Aqua pets at Kidapawan City. Bought it for 350 pesos including van shipping, same day pick up.

The first day these dudes arrived, they were like in hundreds by estimate. I was hesitant if I could help these dudes survive for the next 24 hours.

Luckily after 24 hours they are still alive and kicking by feeding them with used water from rice preparation.

If my culture is successful, I will sell some to local aquarist for their own live feeds for their aqua pets.

Currently I am reading and watching videos about these live feeds for pointers on how to successfully culture them for a sustainable food source of my tilapia.

MARK II

As results of trial and error progresses so as the level of tests. Mark II of vertical grow out for my plants are made of pvc Y and T fittings, this is a youtube inspired setup as endorsed by a friendly online forum admin sir James Howard in facebook group - Aquaponics Pinoy Enthusiasts. I prefer using the vertical method due to the space limitations that I have, I am only working on a 3 by 4 meters of flat land space excluding the re-purpose tank a 2m by 2m hollow and elevated concrete.

For the time being, I have used bulb onions as test subjects, and so far they all went well and healthy. Currently resources and work force are focused on building this setup surrounding this re-purposed tank. But at the moment the operation was on halt, due the the availability of cheap pvc fittings.

With respect to my current situation, I would like to recommend to fellow enthusiast the vertical setup for the plants' grow out. It saves space and manpower during cleaning, and ward off water dwelling pest and eliminates *dead zones that exists with horizontal setups. Moreover use same brand and quality of pvc fittings as much as possible to avoid conflict with dimensions and measurements during setups. For Starters who are involved with trial and error, Always buy the cheapest functional parts save and conserve your resources specially with pipes and fittings and buy your own tools or improvise your own.

Dead zones - an area where water stagnates and oxygenation is less or zero. For example are corners of a rectangular containers.

Although dead zones can be eliminated by putting drains or placing air diffusers or aerators. But it also depends on the shapes and sizes of containers. Weight in the pros and cons of your preferred grow beds. Good Speed to us all.

Red Tilapia Eggs

Curiosity is the mother of discovery, and for me it is also the mother of all teacher.

I was so curious how tilapia eggs would look like and would it be possible to have fish by incubating them outside the mothers mouth. The picture below shows how the eggs would look like when they are fertilized, they look yellowish, pale and white eggs are either unfertilized or dead. And other than curiosity, I wanted to learn to produce tilapia in a little bigger scale an indoor fish farm and vegetable garden.

During this time of my R&D, my skills and instruments are all lacking. I wasn't able to turn these eggs into fry. Googling showed me the way to, apparently one needs an egg tumbler that mimics the activity inside the mother tilapia's mouth during incubation period.

Another reason that caused the death of these eggs was the circulation of the water, it must be well oxygenated from an air pump or air compressor. Just like the mothers mouth, oxygenated water comes from her gills. Third reason is contamination, once there is no water circulation fungus can thrive, white fungus will develop around the eggs and infect them and eventually dies.

Using my imagination and creativity plus ingenuity, I created my own egg tumbler. After watching a few videos on youtube, I went to my stockpile of unused parts. A pvc adapter, a plastic screen and an acrylic tube that came with my siphon pump.

It was an amazing experience watching these dudes that look like little Nemos, taking care of them until they are ready on the real world. The picture below are fry with yolk sacks still on.

And finally swim up fry are cared and nurtured into advance fry. Feeding these dudes are laborious a 100% body weight ratio to their feeds and 10x a day feeding rate. I used the Tateh feeding guide that can be found by googling Tateh feeding guide.

The picture below are advance fry in close up. When they rich a length of 1 inch they are ready for transfer in the bigger fish tank for rearing or fattening.

Duckweed or Azolla

For a backyard aquaponics as a hobby or venture it is imperative to have a sustainable supply of inputs for the fish. Fish feeds are one of the essential component in having a successful and fruitful backyard aquaponics.

So this time I went to experimenting which is viable alternative fish feed for me to back locally available source and to save some cash for the development of my backyard aquaponics.

I ordered these duckweeds from Marikina. About 150 pesos excluding the shipping, though the plants arrived half dead, literally I manage to count what was lift was about a dozen of leaves, but luckily it manage to survive and thrive using waste water from my aquariums and light from the sun.

However these azollas where not as lucky as the duckweeds. These azollas came from Bulacan and same as the duckweed they arrived half dead.

But after a thorough reading and researching in the internet, azolla have a symbiotic relationship with the blue algae, that are probably sensitive to some chemicals that might be present with that rubber flotation device that I fabricated. I might try again next time with different approach. Because it is good to have variety of feeds for the fishes, especially live and fresh veges.

Urban Gardening Mark II

After few testings, I made more testings, experimenting with pots and recyclable resources from thrown away stuffs.

Air-lift water pump was my primary choice due to the price and power requirement issues.

Terra-cola was my best options during this phase of research and development, they are not only cheap but easy to find. I am also finding a way to split pvc pipes with less 'T' fittings, they are not cheap in a massive scale.

Some of the fruits from aquaponics grown tomatoes. Cute and shiny and delicious, these dudes taste like seedless guava like makopa.

Aquaponics Test Subjects

Part of practice in doing something for the first time is to test if things will do or work as imagined. Some of my test subjects during the early days of this R&D are ladyfingers, pechay, ginger and scallions.

Aquaponics Overdrive

When progressive results where coming in, I went from the styro to the DIY tubs. Using wood and ordinary liners, I made my first 4 feet by 2 feet fish tank.

 Clay pots and PVC tubes for fish nesting and resting.

I was surprise to see my fishes well and alive even though I use water directly from the faucet of our local water source.