A little over a year ago, I was having conversations with a local landscaping/nursery manager about hyrdoponics and aquaponics. He and I are working on similar projects and he asked to start buying consolidated fertilizer from me. Mark says they get "AMAZING" growth on slow growing plants/tree's, per him better than any off the shelf fertilizer or soil. Spreading this down under soil apparently triggers growth on slow growing plants and he is able to sell them sooner (tree's and shrubs being the bulk of his revenue from landscaping) I have no data to back up his claims but meh whatever, I thought I would share since it's a different slice of the hobby.
I don't just hand him a bucket of crap, I refine into pure water/solids and sell by the gallon. When I clean out an FX5 and sponges, I do it in a bucket. The next day I syphon out the tank water from the bucket and replace with 3 gallons of pure RO/DI. Then I start refining.
I use a large syringe hooked up to a piece of 1/4" hardline.
If left alone, it take about 24 hours for the solids to seperate from the water and rest on the bottom. I do this in three stages so it takes 3 days to make a "batch"..
I use a 1/4" airline to syphon off the top of the water in each container into a bucket removing as little solids as possible.
I use the syringe and hardline to pull from the bottom of each container. (the thickest material)
Orange lids are completed fertilizer and purple lids are pure RO/DI water for the next batch. Cleaning one or two (depending on frequency of cleaning) of my FX5's yields about 1 gallon of solids after being condensed. Usually I do one FX5 and one Hydor V sponge filter from another tank.
Oh, if you want to really piss off the wife, when spraying the solids from one container into the next, make sure the hardline doesn't pop off....
Anyone else doing anything creative to recycle or put things from the hobby into good use?
I don't just hand him a bucket of crap, I refine into pure water/solids and sell by the gallon. When I clean out an FX5 and sponges, I do it in a bucket. The next day I syphon out the tank water from the bucket and replace with 3 gallons of pure RO/DI. Then I start refining.
I use a large syringe hooked up to a piece of 1/4" hardline.
If left alone, it take about 24 hours for the solids to seperate from the water and rest on the bottom. I do this in three stages so it takes 3 days to make a "batch"..
I use a 1/4" airline to syphon off the top of the water in each container into a bucket removing as little solids as possible.
I use the syringe and hardline to pull from the bottom of each container. (the thickest material)
Orange lids are completed fertilizer and purple lids are pure RO/DI water for the next batch. Cleaning one or two (depending on frequency of cleaning) of my FX5's yields about 1 gallon of solids after being condensed. Usually I do one FX5 and one Hydor V sponge filter from another tank.
Oh, if you want to really piss off the wife, when spraying the solids from one container into the next, make sure the hardline doesn't pop off....
Anyone else doing anything creative to recycle or put things from the hobby into good use?
lol..