Coffs Harbour
A school in Coffs Harbour contacted us to install both a fresh water and a salt water system for them to use for experiments and teaching purposes.They have built a dedicated aquaponics area. It includes an insulated shed for the fish part of the system and a protected outdoor section for the plants. There is a three bed salt water system. The third bed is designed to ebb and flow and will have Mangrove in it. The other two beds are continuous flow. These will be used to grow macro algae and sea grass.
We use a venturi to ensure the water is well oxygenated for the continuous flow system. Inside we have a fantastic fresh water sump, parabolic fish tank and header tank which supports five grow beds. The photo was taken as we did the installation. The wires hanging out the side of the parabolic tank will be connected to our pump control system. On the salt water side we are using two tanks with venturi inlets for the water. The venturi's will inject a large amount of oxygen into the water and save the need for an additional air pump. We used two tanks to allow for separation of different fish species or sizes.
Salt water is completely experimental at this time. We are using a large sump and the black box is a new particulate filter we are using. These filters have been great to date. If you run well oxygenated water through them relatively slowly you will get great particulate removal and nitrification of Ammonia and Nitrite. If you run water through them quickly (as we do in the salt water systems) you just get really good particulate removal. They have various grades of screens which enable the particles to be removed. To clean them you just pull our the sheets and give them a good shake. This method of removing unwanted particulates uses up the least amount of water of any we have tried. We also installed an isolation system.
When you get new fish you should always isolate them for a period of time to make sure they have no issues. Remember we can not treat them once they are in our systems without usually killing the plants.
