New Air Pump

My old air pump finally gave up. Have been using it since the start in Siam Lake View so must be 4-5 years old. The rubber in the pumping mechanism has perished. At 130 Baht for the pump its done well. But today as a replacement I bough a better one. Has 4 outlets and can do up to 30 litres per minute. So two outlets into top tank and two below. Doubt it does 30 litres per minute under the pressure of being in the bottom of my tank but it does give far better air then previously.  WIll monitor progress.

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New system Part 2

We cleared the site yesterday. Going to do it all properly.  My earlier idea of using the old water tank is not really the way to go. Especially if we are going to be showing people around.  Behind the tractor on the right is our store. Ill be using it as our office and keeping fish food etc. Off to but the tanks later today.

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General Update 1000 litre system

Been a hectic last two weeks. Busy on house, driving new motorbike etc so Aquaponics has not been taking the No 1 spot.  This last two weeks weve lots about 5 fish. The system is not overloaded but I think they were being slowly killed by love. i.e. to much food. So a couple of days off should do the trick.  Ive done some water tests nothing major to report. Reading up the general consensus is the system needs 4-6 months to stabilise. So 6 weeks in is not to bad.

Weve added in our NFT table which started yesterday. To early to say if it will work. For salads I expect it to be fine but for tomatoes doubt there is a high enough concentration of nutrients to really get it all moving in the right direction.

The first two photos show our new tables NFT and the third the inside of the tunnel with the deep water and polystyrene floats.

Pictures tell a thousand words...

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Badminton as a CCA

Date:  Dec 6, 2015

Beside swimming (learn not to be drown), Taekwondo (learn self-defence), one of the major extra sport activity I sent the kids to is Badminton.

They learned their badminton from Singapore Badminton School.

It seems that they have some arrangement with the Sport Centre, as they always get the court #1-#2-#3 on Saturday 10am-12noon.

There are of course many other coaches and badminton school teaching at the same venues.  But I always see them changing different courts and sometimes never appear on Saturday (I am guessing those private coaches had some hard time booking the courts)

I think badminton is one of the easier sport activities that both the boys can learn, and they can play with each other in future.  

Of course, they can also play with their classmates, friends and even future girl friends.  hahaha

The kids will have to learn the basics.  One step at the time.  Kay has been taking the lesson since March I think.  And so far, he loves the game, and has been eagerly learning from the coaches.  He is only 6 years old, so I have no rush for him.  But the time when he reach P3, he should be able to have enough skills to join the Badminton squad.

It is a very sweating 2-hours training each Saturday.  And I think the kids really have fun!  They even have fun playing with the coaches.

I can see Jay Jay started to love and appreciate the games. 

I don’t want them to be champion, but to train their body in this sport will help them to get fit.  

Especially for Jay, he needs to get fitter and reduce his weight.  :) 

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December Update

Well for me this has been a very exciting month.

Got my own home system working much better. Today I tested the water. Fantastic results. Ph of 7.5 and NO2 and NO3 almost negligible.We had been having a lot of heavy loads from the tank clogging the filters and the pump. So much so that is was beginning to go terribly wrong. Even the large flood and drain bed was accumulating algae. First off was to redo the syphons. We made them a little shorter to ensure the water never came up above top of gravel.  I know easy enough but when we did the beds we ran out of energy to put in more gravel.. So being lazy finally came home to roost as it were but thats now sorted. Second big job was to remove some of the small fish we had. I thought we have added a lot but when you buy a kilo of cat fish they take up a lot of space. I reckon I removed about 150 small fish. We sorted them out. Kept 7 big Tilapia and the rest went into our main farm pond. Hopefully to grow and finally arrive on on plates in due course...

Next up for December was meeting with James Racoky of UVI fame who is the world renowned expert on Aquaponics.  He has retired and lives in Pattaya.  Owen and I met him for a quick coffee. 2 and a half hours later we left. Very interesting and exciting stuff. Go me more pumped up about the whole thing.

 

The four pictures above are of the 1000 litre system.  We are going to have a very similar construction to this one.

Above is Wanna reviewing the large UVI system construction. I think she is hooked as well.

Following on from such a meeting was then catching up with Robert Bob" White at Chat Takarn. Bob has been instrumental in establishing the Association of  to see a small system he had installed in a local Wat, and see his other new UVI type system in its construction stage. Really got me all fired up to get started. The small system is a 1000 liter fish tank feeding about 10 meters of flow beds. The big system is 4 fish tanks of 7000 litres each. Big and very interesting. Ive added a few random photos of the systems and as youve guessed Ive got a load more to help me understand what is going on. Ready for me to start on mine...

To keep me going through January I have bought a small system off Bob.  He is due to deliver in first week of January. Thats the 1000 litre system.  It should produce all the greens to fed the whole family and more... We should have it up and running with in days of Bob making his deliveries. Getting excited about this. Bit like waiting on a Christmas present.

Then our big project. We are going to build one similar to the UVI system on our land. I mentioned before we met with James Racoky of UVI.  He was really helpful to support us in this idea. Already got the spot in mind. We have flat raised land, power and water. Also already have a lot of ancillary stuff. Office, store room, pumps, plastic pipes and lights etc. Just need the fish tanks which well make out of concrete and the various filter beds and grow beds.So now need to finalise costing and make sure it pays of itself. Then February/March we start the big system.

The last photo is form our tank. Modest but a success.

Happy New year for 2013.

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Replanting and general progress

Been busy just doing nothing... Watching fish grow is not so exciting. However this weekend I decided it was time to clean up the reservoir tank. I try and make a habit of doing this every weekend. This time there was no internal filter tank have removed a few weeks back. The reservoir was full of green algae and suspended fish waste. So rather than remove it I stirred it all up.

Then I opened the flush unit and let it flow into the gravel beds. Works really well. We had also the same day removed several Thai herbs and chili plants from the garden and placed them in the system. They seemed to thrive almost immediately. I had expected some wilting but actually very little. Checking this morning (Monday) all looks good and the fish water is clear.

I also planted a a small tray several chili, tomato and Chinese cabbage seeds. Well see how they do later in the week.

As a small note my air blower/stone finally gave up on Friday last week. I opened it to see the rubber plunger had perished. Its lasted 5 months at a cost of Baht 300 so approx 150 day. Thats 2 Baht per day. At 34 Bath to the dollar I am not complaining!!!

Earlier we had eaten the Cat Fish but I did not post any photos. Dead fish do not make for good Photos but here goes... From-tank-to-grill

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Learn Chinese Compositions

Date:  May 4, 2015

“May the 4th be with you!"

Last week, I posted a very interesting method of learning Chinese.

Last week article.  http://miniliew.blogspot.sg/2015/04/date-apr-26-2015-i-would-love-that-my.html

This week, I wanted to tell you why it is useful.  It was meant for Oral test and reading.  

But today I find that it is useful for doing Chinese Composition Writings too.

Students are allowed to bring electronic dictionary into the class to take the Chinese paper 1.  Which is Chinese Composition writing.

If you don’t know how to write the words or phrases, don’t worry, simply type the Han Yu Pin Yin will do.

For example “Zhi Dao” is ”??“.

Even they are not sure about the correct Han Yu Pin Yin, they can simply type “zd”, which is the first alphabet for Zhi and the first alphabet of Dao.  And then, you just scroll to the words you want. 

But how does the kid know how to read the words they wanted to write?  So that they can key in the Han Yu Pin Yin?

Unfortunately, there is no easy way.  You have to READ MORE and LEARN MORE.

The more you read, the more that you will learn and use the Chinese words.  If you seldom read, then, you will definitely don’t know how to search and write.

I started to use this Oral test assessment book.

Inside has 15 passages.  This is one of them.

Next, I start to read the story books.  

I would say these story books has about 75% of the vacabs that Jay knows how to read.  There are 25% still he does not know how to pronounce.

So, what I did is to record down my voice reading the story.

Then, every morning or day, I will ask him to listen to the recording and eyes look at the passage.  Read it inside his mind, not reading out loud.  

The more he read the books, the more he will hear my voice.  It is also a very familiar voice.  So, it felt natural for him to read the story book this way.

It is kind of like an audiobook.  :)  Here is the sample of my voice.  hahahaha

So, the more he read, the more he understand the usage of the the Chinese words and sentences.

The more he read, the more he will remember.

Usually, takes about 5-7 days to read one passage or a story.

There will be a lot of words he had not seen before.

But because he is reading it, he remember it subconsciously.

Because he remember how it was pronounce, he is able to tell what is the Han Yu Pin Yin.

Because he has seen the words before, when he key the Han Yu Pin Yin, he is able to select the correct words and learn how to write them.

So far the result has been good.

Lastly, I want to share with you this passage.  Telling why we need to teach our kids to read.

Don’t worry, it not only apply to Mommy, also apply to Daddy.

Confident look, confident writing.  May the force be with you.

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New System Part 3

Things are progressing at a slow pace, mainly due to so many other things going on. Weve basically set up the system components Id say were 50% done. Still need the grow beds which are due for delivery on or around the 17th of this month. Then run trials and were away.

Were using a concrete (ferro cement) water tank as the fish tank. It has about 1500 litres capacity. More than adequate, large plastic bins or the settlement and bio filter system. And another plastic bin for the sump. Need to connect them all up and make sure it all works. Seeds have already been planted in the adjacent grow bed, shown in bottom left corner of the last photo.  Update to follow.

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New doors on the greenhouse

"Thats all I can stands, I cant stands no more!"
After wrestling with the terrible sliding doors for the last year, Ive and enough! The other day there was enough ice buildup in the track where it just forced the entire door off...Trying to put it back on in the freezing temps, I managed to pop off the little WHITE wheels into the WHITE snow. Needless to say, that was the end of the door.

I built a frame around the opening with treated 2x3s and built a nice new set or doors....on hinges!!! I was able to salvage the existing glazing and cut each panel down just a little (since my new doors are slightly smaller than the old ones because of the door jamb. The existing door opening was slightly skewed so I loosened all the bolts on that wall and gave the structure a little push with my tractor bucket. Squared it right up! ;-) round the entire perimeter of the doors, I installed foam weather stripping and it sealed it up quite nicely.

This is what harbor freight should have done with their original design!

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New System Part 1

Well finally got myself motivated to start the new larger improved system. It is going to start out as a 1000 litre tank with 30 or so fish. Then have a deep raft hydroponics section. but you ask the photos show a larger tank. Quite so Watson... We are going to later increase the tank volume accordingly to 2000 litres and add in some normal NFT to see how it fares.  I am keen to do this for several reasons. Firstly to see if it will work and then also to use up my existing stock of the 2 inch pipe I have had stored for so long. Then Ill be able to get it all working and see what I can and cannot grow. Only after we have this working will I move to a bigger system.... The photos are of the area behind my in Laws You can see my collection of spate 2" drain pipe on the right hand side.  Ill be using the store as an office and of course a store... Also the area for fish tank and grow beds is more that adequate and south facing. In fact the heat might be a big problem.  Will see how we get along. Watch this space. Clearing and so on starts tomorrow. Then on Monday or Tuesday off to Chat  Takarn again to buy the grown beds. All exciting stuff.

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Small upgrade to tidy the place up

Decided to concrete some of the surrounding area to the tanks and seedling area. Definetely required before the rainy season.  The dusty soil just turns to mud.  Horrible to walk on.  Ill also be doing a pathway between the runs in due course. Thats definately for another day.

Concreting scheduled for later today but maybe delayed till tomorrow.  Depends on having suffucient aggregate. Easy to buy but been busy fixing a water leak... Another story altogether.

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