My aquaponics system

Charlie

Looks great, very neat handy work.

p.s. I also now want a giant sandwich icecream..

Harley1997

Haha I got very hungry spreading sand laying down slabs this afternoon

Harley1997

Yesterday went well all slabs laid,,, grow beds in position and ready for plumbing off to bunnings soon to get some PVC pipe etc

Burnsy

Harley1997 wrote:

For my drain I'm going to have a 20 or a 25mm stand pipe with a 100mm gravel guard in the 20 or 25mm stand pipe I will have 2 small holes in the bottom of the stand pipe and then have the pump on a timer so every hour the pump comes on for 15 minutes then the top if the stand pipe will act as a over flow and when the timer stops the two holes in the bottom of the stand pipe will allow the grow bed to drain so the beds will have a 45 minute drain time

Ahhh, I see you did listen to something I taught you :shock:

Great to see you on here having a go at making your own system, you were always wanting to make one at home.

Go with 25mm stand pipes, 6mm holes for the drains. A timer like you are planning is heaps easier than bell siphons. Bell siphons are fun to play with but the novelty wears off. If you keep the level in your tank topped up you should be right with four - six half barrel GB's. We swapped all the grow bed media at WPPS over to hydroton just before I left as we found major compaction was an issue with the gravel and the blue metal over time. If you can afford Hydroton, go for it or at least use hydroton on the top half of each bed (this is what I did at home), go see Cheidy for a good deal.

Get a heap of small $2 Koi from somewhere like the fish and lily farm http://www.fishandlily.com.au/ into the system and get it cycled on that as you play and learn ready for 20 trout next May. Feed the koi up with decent food and you should be able to sell them at a decent profit. If you need cheap pumps try http://www.rockaroundtheblock.com.au/

We have an IBC setup at Hillside where I am now if you want to come and have a look, it is linked into a bigger 2000 litre system for increased stability.

Harley1997

Hey Mike (Burnsy),

What iv'e done is cut down to having just the two gravel grow beds (hydroton) then i have a nft system on the wall behind it. I'm thinking i will need a bigger pump currently the grow beds get water every hour an 15 minutes and the pump stays on for 45 minutes so they have a hour an 15 minute drain time. This seems to be working just fine that also gives fresh water to the nft i will post some photos on this thread as well, also don't know if you got my message on your other post but is there any way of contacting you besides the website if there is lettuce know

Backyard Aquaponics A place to discuss aquaponics

My aquaponics system

Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics