Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Not willing to show pics just yet of my system but I thought Id bypass the washing of gravel when adding new gravel.... BAHHH.

so with fish appearing happy (in bottom of tank) plenty of oxygen in water but dirty as politicians what are my options?

Until the weekend tank rain water was running low....thats all we have but 19mm over weekend, so several water changes

will a bag of charcoal work? (Active charcoal carbon filters are most effective at removing chlorine, sediment, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), taste and odor from water. They are not effective at removing minerals, salts, and dissolved inorganic compounds.
Carbon filtering - Wikipedia

other ideas?

If it's sediment from the gravel you are trying to remove, then I definitely wouldn't be using charcoal. I don't know what it's called, but aquarium shops sell a white cloth material that they place on top of the jap mat in their bio-filters, it's very effective at removing sediment. Place some of that under the water inlet into each GB and clean it daily. As an alternative I've used multiple layers of chux cloth to do the same job.

I've used poly insulation, as found in walls, roof cavities etc, placed under the outlets in my GBs and it has cleared murky water up pretty quickly- both dirt and algae.

thanks guys this sounds less stressful than I was thinking.

Take it all out and wash it, as you should have in the first place... lol

Thank you for your highly intellegent, desirable answer, That is just what I was after....now just to confirm.....
you arrive when?
on what flight?

so grateful for your willingness to do this for me.

just one word of warning... if you flush insitu you run the risk that clay/dust etc will accumulate and solidify in some parts of the bed. So you should at least turn the bed material over a couple of times and dig down to check.

An effective way (depending on bed and water available) is to overfill the media bed and then run it out.
A drum full of shade cloth for example might help - jury rig up with some pipe and a pump.
You can then turn the media over a few times.

Cheers. thanks for that hint.

I was worried about having the same issue so I put a 10 micron filter on my return to the sump. I don't know if you have access to amazon but I think it cost me around $10 usd.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk