Aquaponics - Algae all clear

It looks like my algae farming days are complete.

The new system's fish tank looks like this now.

It took around a week to clear once I covered it to keep the sunlight out.

I'm told it's harmless to the fish, but that there might be a bit of a short term spike in nutrient as the dead algae breaks down.

I haven't been feeding in anticipation of this spike, so hopefully everything will be good from now on.



The photo doesn't really do it justice, but the water is very clear now. My camera tries to focus on the surface of the water so I have to focus on my feet, and then take the pic.

I miss my old film SLR camera, but I just looked at the automatic numbering of my photos, and this pic is number 4665.jpg. And this is my second camera since I started 120 things in 20 years, so If it wasn't for my little digital camera, I would need to mortgage a lung or something to pay for film.



For being able to take photos of my aquaponics algae being all clear, if you're reading, thanks from 120 Things in 20 years to those who had anything to do with making my camera. Even though I now have to force open the lens cover by hand each time I turn it on, and it makes a sound like you might expect if you poured a truck load of kitchen blenders into a giant industrial blender when I turn it off and the lens cover grinds to a close. But for nearly 5000 photos and a stack of videos for a hundred bucks or so, thanks.

Aquaponics - Fish relocation

My algal grofest has come to an end.

Now for the clean up. It's actually clearing up very fast once the stuff stopped reproducing.

It now looks like this.

My two silver perch seem to like the system expansion, and they appear to be getting along a bit better as well.

This angle is the same as the last two photos in the previous post.

It's amazing what a difference a day makes.

I suspect by tonight it will be crystal clear.



Now all I need is some fish.

It's coming into winter, so I'm thinking I might do a quick trout run. before restocking with silver perch.



120 Things in 20 years is a blog entirely dedicated to documenting fish relocation in aquaponics.

Aquaponics - Algal bloom improvement

Well its 5 days later, and my algae is still living out it's algal life as if I'm not doing everything I can to kill it.

Human -  Nought / 3 trillion microscopic flora - One

But I'm not keeping score.

Actually it looks like this now, and the bottom is becoming visible, so it should clear up soon.

The black line from left to centre is the drain in the bottom of the IBC fish tank, and the larger black smudge is some gutter guard plastic mesh that I knotted up and jammed into the drain so fish wouldn't get stuck in the SLO (solids lifting overflow).

The same scene looked like this  5 days ago, so it's definitely getting better.

To me it looks like another week will see it clear unless it all dies off as suddenly as it arrived.











Aquaponics algal bloom improvements might not be you cup of tea, but there are a stack of other things here at 120 Things in 20 years.

Aquaponics - My algae farm

My algae farm is working better than I expected.

Unfortunately I expected no algae at all, and got plenty.

But it seems there is a cure.

It turns out algae, like pretty much everything else, needs light and nutrient.

The nutrient I cant do much about, but I can definitely cut off it's light supply. It turns out the fish prefer to feel safer in semi darkness as well, so all I need to do is cover my fish tank.

I chose blue.

All that junk on the ground is the inevitable result of  letting me near PVC with a saw.

I think if I cover the top half of the blue bit where it's visible, and just leave a blue skirt, it might even look ok.

It's a very necessary thing to do as my water now looks like this.

That faint dark smudge on the bottom left is the bottom. It's only 1 metre away and you cant really see it.

That's not so good.

My big concern now is that when all that algae dies, there is going to be a huge spike in ammonia and nitrite as it breaks down, so I've stopped feeding.

On the up side, I have my new grow bed available to take up some of the workload in processing the waste, so I might be ok. I also bought some more media so I can get the second new grow bed online hopefully before the ammonia starts being produced.


My 120 things is 20 years sometimes turns an aquaponics system into an algae farm.