Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Yeah, sure is..... much,much work gone on there.... well done....

Thanks Dave and Rupert.....

Now to work on a better water heater for the tilipia, and some insulation on the outside of the north and west walls where the fish tank shares the wall...... It's never finished

Once again, you outdid yourself!

Great stuff RS_!

Your not wrong Dave great work RS looks fantastic

Thanks kellenw and gnash...... Little by little it's coming together.......

Time for a update, now let's see if i can get it right the first time, without the edit time out killing most of the text fix's I've written again......

HSM report............
I have had 2 different water losses for a total of about 2200gal or more, from the inside system. in early Jan, one of the water hose i use with fish tank water from the pump, to water what is left of the dirt plants, fell off from where i hang it, and leaked behind the GB/ST all night, and lost about 14" of water out of the FT... 2nd one after the last cold spell, on the pipe coming back inside the GH from the outside ST, did not have one of the joints at the cut off valve glued, and during the freeze, it popped off, and when it thawed, the inside sump pump, pumped water out onto the ground outside, until the FT water level got below the over flow safety point to the GB's, at 5" below normal level, and then the ST pumped down till the float SW kicked it off............ need a check valve on that pipe, in the right spot inside the GH, to keep anything like that from happening again....... no fish deaths from ether one...................

2/23/11 went out to do morning check, and found the GFI plug in for the inside sump pump had kicked off during the night. The water in the FT was down to the Safe Stop point, and the Sump tank had over flowed about 200gal, because i had left the top up water on at the normal slow trickle and when FT level got low enough, the float valve kicked on. ST would not have over flowed if i had not left the top up tap on......... Lost 26 tilapia that were in the first white fry barrel, because when the FT water level gets low, the fry barrels air lift pump's slow down or stops. The fry barrels also have the Topsy Turvy trickle down biofilters that are fed from the FT pump as a 2nd source, but was not flowing quite as fast as normal, and not enough to keep these fish going. Dead Fish ranged from the largest at 8" at 7.7 oz down to 3,5". total weight was 6LB 2.4oz. chopped the biggest ones in 1/2, and stored most of them in ziplocks in the freezer to feed the catfish later. then fed the cat fish the smallest ones. still 18 tilapia in the barrel It's to bad i had not thinned the biggest ones out of that barrel, into the grow out hapa cage, a day or 2 before as i had planned, as they were needing it. But was busy with other things and did not get to it..... so my fault there, in letting the fish LB per Gal, for a 55 Gal barrel get too high...... learn a lesson there.......
Hope the GFI plug in does not become a problem, or i will have to replace it.
Need a video camera so i can see if the FT level is low, or what ever else may be happening from the house or internet. Also need to rig some alarms to go off, still lots of rigging to do on alarms and back up systems......

I have been adding Maxicrop, Iron, Potassium bicarbonate, and Epsom salts every week, as most of the leaf's on everything were very yellow for a long while, and some are still not as dark green as i would like to see them. Have had to add extra, because of the water losses. The Ph started at 7.6 right after getting the inside GB's going, and is now reading 7.2 over the last few days and trending lower, as with the warmer water (78-80F) the tilapia are really eating good.... and maybe the plants will start to take up nutrients better

The tomato clones that i transplanted into the the GB's at Thanksgiving, finely took off, and are flowering and setting fruit like crazy, we should be over run with tomato's soon.....
The transplanted peppers have done good, except for the aphids attacking them and taking over, because the latest order of lady beetles taking for ever to get here, and the few that remained from the last batch, can't keep up..... Been blasting the aphids off the leafs with a city water sprayer, and try to avoid the few lady beetles and larva that are still around.................. I harvested most of the Serrano's and Anaheim's and trimmed them up real good, to slow down the aphids, and get some new spring growth.

some cuke's did not come up, and some died right after sprouting, so only 1 small plant going now, and a few seedlings from a later planting.
The transplanted Cilantro is growing wild, the transplanted Basil and Sage are blooming.
The Bright Lights Swiss Chard transplants have gone crazy, and we have eaten it at least once a week, and a couple of times twice, with many extra leafs given to the tilapia......
The directly sown Parsley came up good, and 3 kinds of lettuce came up, and doing good.
Have several different kinds of Squash come up, and some beginning to bloom,
Have some sweet peas that are needing trellising up with strings.
All the Onion sets are doing good

Friday the 18th, we Planted out flats of tomato's, peppers, etc... for the dirt garden. Some of it is coming up already...........

@Deja, I ended up losing 1 8" catfish in the outside sump tank during that last Record Breaking cold spell..... as cold as it got, 1 out of 16 is not bad for a IBC 1/2 in the ground, and no pump running during the coldest part of the spell, as everything was frozen....... fished the dead one out, got the pump back running, then the next day, the rest of them were hungry when, i through in about 40 1" - 2" dead baby tilapa, from culling out the smallest of the last batch of fry from last summer. Did not take them long to clean them all up.......

more pic's

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In hopes of providing the catfish with a place to breed in the FT, my Neighbor and I built what he calls a Catfish Bordello

I need to figure out the inside sump tank interior layout design and implement it soon.

The idea is to add as much more biofilter media down there as practical, to support more fish, and create a ecosystem, to help keep the whole system's ecosystem functioning better, and perhaps have it's own outputs to help feed the fish in the FT.....

The Inside Sump tank is aprox. 6' 3" W x 23' L x 16" D. at aprox. 92Gal per Inch, and 1472Gal Max. The 3 Bell siphons are at the east end of of the ST and the Pump is at the west end.
The water level has been constant at about 10" to 14" deep, depending on the 3 GB F&D cycles, and the total amount of water in the system.......
The Sump Pump has a Bypass, that has a 4.5' spray bar close to the pump, prob should run it back to the other end, for more circulation.
What to do with the GB outputs, i have thought to make them like a spray bar, maybe spraying over a basket or 2 of Biofilter media, or, over open water for aeration.......?
The sump tank may need a Air pump and stones for it's self...? Or another small water pump and spray bars for aeration and circulation.....?

How would you arrange it down there is the question, like what do you put where, for the best overall effect.......?

My idea is to put the extra biofilter media in sq. pond baskets aligned as 3 N/S walls, to create 4 different zones, with different things in the zones.
Perhaps with black Lava Rock for the first wall, maybe some 3/4" gravel for 2nd wall, and then some pea sized expanded shale for the 3rd wall
i could put plastic Pot Scrubbie's in between 2 or more of the walls or ends.....

I would like to add some fresh water mussels, but need to find some local ones that don't clog the pipes, or parasite on the fish for part of their life cycle, etc.......

I want to develop some kind of way to easily harvest Lots of the Gammurs Scuds for feeding baby Tilapia.

Currently I have added a laundry basket down there, that I throw small amounts of dry or wilted down leafs (no tomato leafs), dry Hibiscus flowers, etc... into, and the scuds, snail's, etc... break it down and mineralize it pretty fast... I have scooped out some scuds from there, but not many so far... any better ideas....?

maybe some feeder guppy's or minnows, or ghost shrimp.....?

I think I am gonna start calling it the Swamp....

what do you all think...? any ideas beyond mine......?

Bump...
any IDEA'S out there....? or, am i way ahead of everyone else in my thinking on building up a sump tank ecosystem........?

I've been thinking about this but your at least a couple of months ahead since I have to get a greenhouse built first . Could split the outflow from the pump and run part of it through some vertical columns or some other container packed with media. Just have them hang over the sump opening in your photo and drain or overflow right back in opposite the pump. This way you could get lots more media in a small area and the water falling back in would add more aeration.

I haven't gone back through your thread, what kind of growbed/tank ratio are you running? Any ammonia or nitrite readings? Just wondering if you really need the extra filtration?

Hi Scotty,

the hole in the pic, is where the walk way is, with the cover removed for access, so i cant have anything hanging or draining there...

GB / FT Ratio = not enough......
the new GB's = 4.9 yards media to 5000gal FT

the stocking density i have is low enough at this time for the GB's to handle it, and have only seen trace ammonia readings when the water warmed up, fish were hungry, and i really started to pour on the Feed, and it took the GB's a few days to catch up.....

i plan to add several 1/2 blue barrel GB's, setting on boards on the rafters, on each end of the GH, and they will drain back into the ST through pipes

but still need to figure out what needs to be done inside the sump tank to create a ecosystem.........

RS from the earlier post it sounds more like you're looking to add another biofilter rather than an ecosystem. You could just hang mesh bags with biofilter media in them down into the sump for additional filtration. Just hang them from a dowel or dowels run between the floor joists. Kind of like oversize tea bags. Ghost shrimp could live below these along the bottom or on the bags.