RO or RODI/ trace minerals/ drip top off and other questions

[oliverk]

Well the deal with the wife to do anything was as automated as possible, easy and that we get veggies from the system. (Happy wife happy life and I've thrown her enough curves with my disability and etc not expected when we married so...) This said the system design will allow me to a) open a valve and run aquarium water to the plants normally fed by RO or RODI waste and then the new water will come in through the RO/RODI system. This pattern would fall under the normal wholesale water change advantages and disadvantages and be subject to sudden changes in PH and other issues, which can be minimized. Also of course because the new water is highly filtered the desireable trace elements would need to be replaced. Heck I could even set that on a timer probably and drain 5 -10 gallons a day, or most days it would not be problematic to do that manually.

This water will be lost to the system and anything good and bad in the water will be as well. The highly filtered incoming water will lack the trace elements and will certainly need those added back at a much greater rate than the more closed system where it is only consumption by the plants and fish that loses trace elements.

The difficulties of growth, spawning and etc you mention sound strikingly like the problems described when using RO or RODI water without adding something back like KENT RO Right, and that was the original question of the thread. Do you know if the vet had been adjusting for the trace elements?

How much trace elements do I need to add if I am not losing them at near the same rate as you would as if you did wholesale water changes and replaced Ro or RODI water where the desirable trace elements have been filtered out along with the bad stuff.

It is my intention to get everything up and operational and working and at that time do a wholesale 100% change and then add back trace elements with something like RO Right giving me a baseline system that has a good established filter, and very clean water fortified with just desirable trace elements. Houston water is horrible and unpredictable, in fact have about decided to put something like this on my whole house http://www.ebay.com/itm/Triple-Stage...item58b0994481 and am examining to see if I would need to do any additional filtration for the fish?

If adding water back slowly enough and at the beginning of a very large aquaponics type filtration system probably not, or perhaps just a small inline filter would be enough to remove the ammonia from the choramine breakdown.

From that base line, assuming water loss in the system is plant respiration and evaporation and that water replenishment is very clean water devoid of the desireable trace elements, how much trace elements do I need to be adding back in such a system, or at least how do I test for them???

I would rather be in the very automated system where I am adding slowly and losing primarily by evaporation and respiration.

[tiggert]

Are you planning on growing out discus in this system?
Maintaining Adults?
Size of tank?
Size of bioculture?
Crop size?
Rotation of Crops?
Plant root temp requirements? Ph? Optimal TDS?
Indoor or Outdoor plant system?
Artificial or natural light for plants?
etc...etc..

Just my opinion here:

I have done both, Aquaponics (and Hydro) as well as raising discus, and have done all with success by following proven formulas. Types of fish for Aquaponics are recommended for a reason. Discus water change regimes are recommended for a reason. The reasons are scientific, based on the biological requirements of the critters and plants we are dealing with.

The space (both tank and bioload) required for ongoing sustained year around working Aquaponics is more than most can fit in a house. Think Small Pond in size. Plus you either need to live in a tropic area (for year around growth) or need an indoor heated grow room with lights. Or you need to winter cycle an Aquaponics system, but Discus won't like that too much. And most veggie plants that love the Aquaponics system won't love the Discus temperatures, oops...

Starting out an Aquaponic system requires a small bioload, small plant load, to build up a nice steady culture for the system (just like doing a tank cycle). This is why most you see start with fingerlings and seedlings. This way the plants, fish, and bioculture can mature together. You have a bunch of variables to work on before being worried about water replacement.

Three discus fry (1 inch each) in a 30 gallon aren't going to produce enough bioload for more than several heads of lettuce over a period of 6-8 weeks. In that time period your discus will now be about 3 inches in size (if they survived and grew at optimal rates, which I do not think they will without normal massive WC) and your seedlings should be nice edible size (only if you chill the water going to the lettuce roots as actually lettuce will will bolt with 80+ temp root). Once you harvest the lettuce (if the fish are still alive at that point) guess what will happen? Better have equal sized replacement plants to handle the bioload or your fish will be sleeping with the fishes....

Small Aquaponics systems doesn't lend itself to keeping fish that can live for many years, unless MAYBE you are doing ornamental plants and keeping the fish/plant/bioculture at a constant size.

If you are going to do Aquaponics, fit fish and plants that work with the system (fish&plant temp/TDS requirements similar).

My decision was to use the waste water from my discus water change as my hydro makeup water and general garden/lawn watering source (fed the waste water into an IBC that then drip fed the garden/lawn). If you are doing discus water changes like they require it doesn't have enough nitrates in it to really matter, but why waste water? A good sized Hyrdo setup sucks down serious water in full growth, pumping 50 gallons a day into it was no problem in the top of summer heat.

Just my opinion! But if you decide to try it take lots of photos and document it, if it works happy to learn more!

[oliverk]

Well thank you for this post.

OK LET ME REPEAT THIS MORE CLEARLY - I AM NOT PROPOSING AN AQUAPONICS SYSTEM WITHOUT BACKUP! LET ME SAY THIS AGAIN DIFFERENTLY I WILL HAVE A FULL SIZED OPERATIONAL SUMP/FILTER THAT I CAN DO WHOLESALE PERIODIC WATER CHANGES FROM OR TO SUPPLEMENT THE AQUAPONICS SYSTEM - HOWEVER THIS IS A VIEWED AS A BACKUP AND NOT THE PRIMARY.

THIS SAID - THIS POST HIGHLIGHTS MANY OF THE REASONS THAT I WANT A FULL BACKUP SYSTEM IN PLACE.

The original question, no one seems to address, is the management of trace elements in the relatively closed system and or testing for them.

------------------------
Now for me:

I did my first hydroponics with red kidney beans in junior high school in 1970. I am an accomplished gardener or a very accomplished gardener - I also grow bonsai trees.

I had aquariums like most as a kid. As an adult I kept salt water fish for about 6 years, and koi in a pond for 12-14, I moved to a new house about three-four years ago, and have been debating on having a koi pond installed to enjoy but have decided to do an aquarium instead. Thought first about koi in the aquarium or salt, but decided to do freshwater and grow plants with the filtered or water change water - combining the interests.

This works well, my wife wants me to stop repotting in the den, so she is pushing me to enclose the cooking deck into a green house, which is in progress. The green house will not be constant temp, but will be above freezing and air temperature with the ability to heat it up or cool it off when I need to be in it. The full size wet/dry sump will be in the greenhouse and there will be inline heating on the return line to the tank, in addition to heating in the tank itself. I am not planning but thinking of a backup an additional in line heater or a heater in the refugium of the wet dry/sump. Am also thinking about a UV sterilizer in the return line as well.

Since the wet dry/sump is full sized without any plant type filtration, I have minimized any concerns about the size of the plants and not being sufficient to provide enough additional filtration. (I will have to make sure that the filter in the wet dry/sump is properly maintained and fed - yes part of the learning curve.) This said my primary plants in the system run are going to be strawberries which do will in a hydroponic setting, grow year round, have a huge variation in temperatures that they thrive in, like shade and heat and and and. Anotherr great plant that is a little less heat and cold extreme tolerant is watercress, which my wife loves. However as long as above freezing it will do well, heat is the issue for this, but it does well in the shade, so shade and a little ac and lots of water am hopeful that I can keep this plant growing year round as well. Will supplement other plants in the actual filtration portion of the system as I appropriate.

Am still figuring out the filtration for the tap water and how much if any waste water I will have from the filtration. Waste water from filtration and any water I need to dump from wholesale periodic changes of water from the aquarium will be used to water additional plants in the greenhouse.

The double walled polycarbonate walls should keep the greenhouse above freezing on all but the coldest of days, and there will be heat for the coldest of days to keep above freezing. REMEMBER THERE WILL BE A HEATER IN THE REFUGIUM AND AT LEAST ONE MAYBE TWO INLINE HEATERS IN LINE ON THE RETURN AND HEATERS IN THE TANK ITSELF! THE DISPLAY TANK ITSELF IS INSIDE THE HOUSE AND THE AMBIENT TEMP IN THE HOUSE IS NEVER LESS THAN 65. THE TANK WILL BE SET AT 82 AND MAINTIANING A CONSTANT WARM TEMP IS AMONG MY CHIEF CONCERNS!

So I have a hybrid system - the display tank is indoors and the plants are in a somewhat temperature controlled greenhouse outdoors as is the full size wet/dry filter sump. (Yes I have hoses running through the exterior walls of my house (great stuff to seal around the hoses)

Will have a backbone of strawberries and watercress as plants in the hydroponic filtration run - they both are long lived, have great tolerances to heat and cold, and like growing in hydroponic situations and shade (many of the mints like peppermint etc - still thinking about looking into chamomile - but my wife and I both love strawberries and watercress so there may not be any reason to go any farther for the core plants - Note strawberries like PH 5.5 - 6.5 and watercress likes 6.5 - 7.5 so gee those seem like a great discus range.....) Hmmm if the hydroponic filter has a substrate of a mix of peat and vermiculite or perlite or both that would get the PH down nicely for the fish and the plants. GRIN .....

Am planning as much as 1 sq ft surface area for each gallon of fish/water inch. So if I have 100 gallons of water with 100 inches of fish am talking about 100sq ft of planting area.... which may be anywhere from 6 -18 inches deep and have a variety of things in the hydropnic, gravel, river rock, perlite, vermiculite, peat moss etc, or just liquid - will aerate the plant roots with air stones and air pump all aquarium people are familiar with.

Am planning on natural light through the double wall polycarbonate, but am, choosing low light plants. Will need to figure out how to fertilize the strawberries for fruit production if I don't open it up to bees, which most of the year I can do.

Yes as several point out I will need to adjust and experiment a little. One of the things I like to do is pick the brains of those who have gone before me, and was hoping someone had been down the road enough or knew enough generally on how to test for the proper trace elements to get RO or RODI water back to right......

[klannin]

How about allowing for rain and dew collection, with an overflow. At least that is some source of fresh water.

[kris2341]

Now, I do not know too much about different aquaponics systems other than some extremely basic setups used to farm lettuce and raise bluegill, but without a detailed diagram, all this sounds like it is not going to work without the systems being normally separate with water from the aquarium pumping into this plant system every time you want to change tank water.

with about 100 square feet of growing space, depending on how much water is circulating from the aquarium/sump system at a time, you wont be able to keep the aquarium temperature stable enough without some kind of boiler and heat exchanger setup.

It will not matter how many inline or sump heaters you have if you cannot bring the incoming water back up to 82F on contact, I have not heard of a heating system precise and powerful enough to accomplish this, but if you have one then the problem is solved; otherwise you will need something that can heat the WHOLE system properly if you actually plan to use the 100 square feet of grow beds as the primary source of filtration with any flow greater than a small trickle.

Until we can see just how the system is going to be put together, it is very hard to give clear answers.

What i know though is that those growing beds would act as massive evaporative coolers and the water temperature in them will drop very fast as water flows.

The other extremely huge problem is your request of how to adequately test for trace elements in water. Aside from TDS meters, there are no real off the shelf monitors that would be of use to you and basic chemical tests that people can only detect the presence of something with questionable accuracy.

The government spends a lot of money monitoring municipal water quality for a reason, it simply isnt easy! They need labs with quite a few testing methods and steady handed chemists to get the information you want to have on hand for your little project.


Now, i mainly do not want to sound like a naysayer type of person but certainly you realize what you are attempting to do is very complex and no man has truly succeeded completely in this endeavor before. It is simply a MONUMENTAL challenge where the costs and potential loss may not be worth it in the end.

Now I want you to know that, as long as you are fully committed to giving this a try, I am sure everyone here will be happy to give you as much advice as they can once we see things coming together, just try to avoid any half baked ideas and remember that you cannot really cut corners with stability, you either get it right or things will decline steadily and most of the time, things would be headed to failure.

Everyone here is pretty much no stranger to failure but we keep trying!

As far as actually getting the detailed trace elements in the water, I recommend talking to a nearby water analysis center and asking because I cannot find much on google. (too much testing for lead asbestos, and other bad stuff, panic inducing media, etc.)

[tiggert]

Love the setup design! Yeah some nice peat substrate helps both parties for sure!

I actually started building a similar design, but hit this same wall of the trace element and replacement, so I gave up on it. I have a 90 gallon show tank next to an exterior window/wall, backup sump same as you. But I don't know of anything short of a good lab that could analyze the trace elements, well actually any of the elements. Plus I really don't have a full year growing season, winter can get COLD and building another greenhouse for this yadyadyada bottom line is I'm too lazy.

I used to work for a Vet School, they had a lab (most of them should) that can do serious water analysis. My thinking would be get it running, planted cycled, add fish/plants slowly, get it settled doing traditional water changes, then take a water sample in on start date X, top off with whatever you plan to do (RO, tap, etc) then one month later take another water sample in. That should give you an idea based on your methods/bioload/evaporation as to what you'll need to add/subtract from your regime down to every detail. Then periodic checks based on the growing season/bioload every couple of months should be good to go. TDS & pH metering in the meantime will make sure something goofy isn't going on...

If you don't have a Vet School nearby, try your County Extension Office, all states have a lab where they constantly measure lake water qualities in minute detail, and will do an analysis for fairly cheap for you. They do it for fish farmers all the time for these exact same reasons, and they are all interested in aquaponic stuff these days may can sweet talk them to do a free analysis for you home system.

I went with the Kratky system for hydro recently I had a dickens of a time maintaining a hydro system short of every x days flush and fill with a known setup...all points back to me being too lazy to implement this :-)

Good luck would love to hear how it goes, post a thread once it gets started I'll be sure to follow it!

[rg3lee]

I am trying to do something similar for my discus please update