Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Tested the water late afternoon again:

PH: 8 (added 0,3dl of 20% HCl)
Am: 2-3
NO2: 0-0,5 (May be my eyes cheating me?)
NO3: 0

Good morning!

Bad news: PH back to 9, HCl in pool again.
Good news: My eyes are not cheating me, check out the Nitrate test!



NO2: 0,5 mg/l

Tonights readings:


PH: 9
Am: 3 mg/l
Nitrit: 1 mg/l
Nitrat: 10 mg/l





Now that is a WTF!

Where is the nitrit boom? Still have ammonia? Tomorrow morning I'll measure again.

Good morning.

Something is happening, not on the regular way but its clearly happening...



PH: 8
Ammonia: 0,11-0,3 mg/l (it seems 1mg/l but need calculate with the lowered ph)
Nitrit: 1 mg/l
Nitrat: 25 mg/l
Tank temp settled: 18-22 C

- This time acid added

Seeds are germinating everywhere, seedlings are crazy. I have fiyed two more leaks and two more to go.

Yesterday I have realized that the water is flowing kid of slow, looked on the fishtank and realized that that the water level is higher than normal. Pulled out the SLO and water quickly lovered to normal. Turned out that I have made too narrow cuts on the suction pipe and they got cloged. I have recut it with a thicker saw.

Here is the pic:





While cutting the new cuts on the SLO I was thinking about your question. There is a very simple answer on your question. It doesnt metter if the pump is inside the tank or out, as the amount of water that goes through the tank is the same. (If you suck out 100l or add 100l that will owerflow cause it has to thats the same.) So if the amount of water is the same that goes through, and the diameter of the pipe where it leaves is the same too, than the suction has to be the same as well.

If the current SLO is plugged in it highers the water level by ~45mm-s in the fistank compared to operation without SLO - thats because the water resistance of the SLO which shout equal to the suction of the SLO on the bottom.

To make bigger suction on the SLO, using the same pump you have to use smaller diameter pipe for the SLO, but than you have to calculate with the resistance of the pipe. It makes sense to reduce the pipe size on the vertical part of the SLO, as faster water on the vertical pipe can lift heavier weight.

Im currently using a 50mm pipe for SLO, but I will make a SLO from 32mm pipe to see if there is any difference.

I was reading BYAP trials topic, where the flood and drain system isnt performing well while most of the people swear that its the best.

I was surprized on one thing, that could be the reason of weaker performance:


http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8621&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=75

Test are running on a Courtyard systems http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/shop.html?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=14&category_id=8 thats a 1000l FT + 800l GB -> roughly 1300l of water with a 3000l pump. Affnans siphon had to be modified to be able to handle the waterflow as it was too big.

So 10 minutes of fill and drain cycles. I dont have experience. But the numbers bothering me. The rule of thumb says pump performance should be enough to turn over the whole system by the hour. On the trial system it turns 2,5 times, water is running fast. I measured mine F&D its 28 minutes fill and 14 minutes drain.

What is your F&D time?

Tonights readings:

PH: 8 (denfinitely lowered)
Ammonia: 0,11 mg/l (still not null)
Nitrit: 1 mg/l
Nitrat: 25-50 mg/l

- I added 0,5 dl HCl again, got to finish this war against wood glue before the fish arrive.
- I only added ammonia once, at the start, since than nothing, please confirm that its right that not to add any till all is used up by bacterias.
- Also topped up the system with ~50 liters of rain water.

Good morning!

PH: 7,5 (Seems like the glue is giving up the fight)
Ammonia: 0,03 mg/l (evaluated from ph)
Nitrit: 1 mg/l
Nitrat: 50 mg/l






I made some test over the SLO design.


Here is the current design:
Inflow: right side, 32mm pipe joined with a piece of 40mm pipe, I just hanged the piece of 40mm there to stop splashing, but it turned out its working as a venturi aerator as well.

Gravity overflow, and SLO: 50mm pipe down vertical, and across on the bottom horizontal.
The end of the pipe is closed, the water has to go through the cuts I made on the bottom. (see earlier pics)
At the overflow I drilled a hole on the elbow to avoid siphon behaviour of the SLO. You can see the water level is reaching the hole, that is aprox 45mm higher than the water level without the SLO. If the sumps has high water level, the pump gives more water and the the water level in the fishtank raises higher than the hole. -> This case the SLO starts acting as a siphon, the water starts flowing faster and in a few seconds it lowers the water level so the hole sucks air, and break the siphon.

I have changed the vertival pipe to 32mm, and in a few minutes it raised the water with ~50 mm over the drilled hole, eventualy made the fishtank overflow.

Looks like even the 50mm pipe has some resistance.

Other ways the tank is clean, if there will be fish movement inside, the bottom will may get even cleaner. Got to wait the fish.

I called Mark (the fish supplier) he confirmed, that the fish day would be arround 15th of june, and said he measured out the fishfood, thats ready to ship.

So you wanted a nitrit boom? Here it is!

Readings from yesterday afternoon:


and today morning:


Here is a pic i took today morning:


Growth is crazy: (I have planted the beds 6 days ago.)
- Radish overtakes the ones that we planted outside 1 week earlyer than inside.
- Tomato seedligs doubled their size.
- Paprika is flowering.
- bean seedlings are 10cm tall, bringing the second set of leafes.
- Cabages doubled, salad whic I had no success with outsides is rocketing.

Can't believe it...

Nice looking setup zsazsa

Great looking system zsazsa

one thing that might help a little more....

If you paint all the wood walls white, it would help to increase and disperse the
light more....

jT

Thx Bushy!

jT you just hit the weak point, here is story:

I got home this afternoon, walked in the GH, and found two things. First I realized that the shade cloth I use is too much, leafs are turning towards the sun that means they lack light. I have put the shade cloth on last saturday, cause I found that the sun is too hard. The gravel was over 40C, and the fresh seedling didnt like that.

So I removed the shad cloth, to see what happens. I might have to add a lighter one, may be a white cloth. Dont know...

There was a more pleasant news as well. Outside was 31C in shade when I arrived home. I checked the GH thermometer it was 28C inside!!! FT temperature is 22C!!!

Have you ever seen a greenhouse that has lower temperature inside than outside in summer time? The passive solar greenhouse is a mistery, but i take this as the first promissing sign.

ph: 8 (havent added accid in the last 2 days)
Am: 0,03 (falling but still not nill, I might have some dad bugs floating arround)
Nitrit: 5+ mg/l (had actually hit the maximum of my measure)
Nitrat: 50-100 mg/l (risen)

Oh, I almost forgot. I found traces of algee in the FT and GBs, I need to cover tank sides...

The trial systems are a mystery because there's 2 flood and drain, the timer system and then the siphon, the timer system is booming where as the siphon isn't? Dunno why.. we'll see how things pan out over the next 6-8 months with them..

Im following the topic from the beginning, and yes thats a true mystery. I made a quick video and uploading it right now.

Have you ever seen a green house of any type, which is cooler inside than outside in the middle of the summer heat? No? Check this out!




outside temp: 33C (in shade)
inside temp: 31C (in shade)
FT water temp:

Notice, I have removed the shade cloth this morning, so the sun is full on!

Readings from yesterday afternoon:

PH:8
Am: 0,03
NO2: 5+ mg/l (hit the roof)
NO3: 100+ mg/l (hit the roof)

We had a cold front passing through during the night. Temperature dropped around 10C and slow raing is keeping in the last 10 hours. Today morning I checked the thermometers again.
Outside: 15C
Inside: 20C
FT water: 22C

Take these knowing that the window of the greenhouse was open all night...

Today morning water tests:
PH:8
Am: 0,01 (still not 0)
NO2: 5+ mg/l (hit the roof)
NO3: 100+ mg/l (hit the roof)

Its time to find out the limits of the system, and the water usage. I was watching the water levels for a few day now, trying to figure out how much water do I have in the growbeds.Where are my limits, of maximum, and minimum? When to top up and how much?

The minimum water level where the pump starts creating a vortext is ~540 liters (3x 180l), the maximum level that the sumps can handle is 1200l (3x400l). I have ~660l puffer, that sounds good until you calculate how much the GB-s hold. GB water capacity is arrond 1180 liters (9x120l).

Worst case scenario test
Yesterday I topped up the water with 300l-s of well water bringing the system close to the maximum capacity. In the afternoon we created a worst case scenarion with my brother. I pulled all siphons to fill all GB-s to maximum. When all GB-s were full, the sump level was ~570l-s. So the pump was still working fine. Than we put back the siphons at once, so all GB-s started siphoning at the same time (this is unikely normaly). We calculated that the moment of truth would be in the 6th minutes (Siphon operation times vary from 6-14 minutes, depending on pipe lenth.)

In 6 minutes:
- the pump takes away ~300 liters
- the siphons release most of the water in the GB-s ~1000 liters
Bottom line we will have +700 liters and with the starting level of ~570 we will have an overflow on the sumps!

That 6 minutes felt so long... we held on until the last seconds, the water reaised like hell, even so the pump did its best it closed quickly to the overflow level. After 6 minutes, still all siphons where running, 6 of them where close to breaking, but 3 gb-s where still around half capacity we reached the point of no return. 1340 liters in the sump, only 3mm-s to the point of overflow I decided to pull the siphons and break waterflow.

Results:
- My sump capacity is enough to handle the GB-s but it leaves a very little evaporation buffer of 300l-s between min and max level. That means small water top ups of 100liters probaly every 1-2 weeks, depending on weather.
- In case I separate the quarantine (I separeta 1GB and 1 sump) the missing sump capacity can create a huge sump overflow problem, but by runing 2-3 GB-s constant flow that time, I can bridge the period safely.