Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Here is one of the two beds that was filled with the leftovers from some other beds being moved.

it was planted a while back with Kohlrabi, Fennel, and Broccoli or Veronica. Hopefully the hot weather doesn't set in too much too early this spring because I'd like these to get to harvest before the heat does them in.

Here is the pile of stalite to fill the rest of the beds


And the cooks washing station


I've got a bunch of seeds started to plant out in the new beds as they get filled and the seedlings get to planting size. I'm thinking the Plantit bed might be good for trying some root crops in (like radish) until it gets too hot.

I had to steel river rock out of one of my 4' by 8' beds that was only 1/2 full being used to start seed trays and potted plants. I'm thinking I have a grow bag 4' by 4' fabric planter that I'll stick in that bed and fill with coir to do a recirculating wicking bed sort of thing to help make up for the fact that there isn't as much gravel in that bed anymore. I do more root crops in that I think.

Looks great TCL. Those troughs would sure be quick to setup (relatively speaking of course).

They are pretty darn quick to set up, and if you are doing it on a firm level surface, you wouldn't even need to worry about leveling them.

And it looks as thought most of the dripping/seeping where I cheated by using the 1 1/2" coupler through the 2" uniseal has stopped as well without my having to resort to testing the flexiseal stuff.

By the way, the fact that they hold aprox 100 gallons makes figuring convenient for ratios of grow bed to fish tank. And if you are trying to estimate the square footage of growing area, each bed being roughly 20 square feet of growing area is pretty convenient too.


So if I add up the new grow beds and subtract about half the volume from the 4' by 8' beds and figure on the beds being added and those long narrow beds, once this expansion is finished on the media bed system I'll have just over 2800 gallons of gravel and only about 900 gallons of fish tank on this set up.
better than a 3:1 grow bed to fish tank ratio. AND it will be about 576 square feet of plant growing bed.
And running on all of about 350 watts of power (which I could probably reduce a little if I change out one of the pumps) about 300 watts of water pumping and 50 watts of backup aeration for the fish tank.

I don't remember but I may have washed one wheel barrow of gravel for my system. If not then it was none.

Sounds good. Will you be running all these gravel beds constant flood?

The amount of sand that would come off of the brown river rock (which was my first media) was enough to convince me that giving media a good rinse (swish the basket in a couple bins of water before placing in the grow bed) was a good idea with most media or every grow bed would have the bottom couple inches full of fine sand/sediment.

With the Expanded Slate (and probably most expanded shale products) I would highly recommend some sifting or washing to at least check the amount of fines in a particular grade of product from a particular supplier before assuming you could get away without washing it. The amount of fines in this would definitely leave a very slow to drain layer in the bottom of a grow bed.

I know of people who have wound up with several inches of clay in the bottom of a sump tank by skipping the gravel washing step. Definitely do some tests of washing some of your media before you decide that you don't need to. Just because some one else has gotten away without washing their gravel, doesn't mean everyone can (just like in some locations pea gravel might be fine to use, while in others the pea gravel will actually be limestone and not appropriate to use.)

NO, I do timed flood and drain using sequencing on this system. I have 5 indexing valves on this system and two automated diversion valves. It is set up so that one diversion valve and two gravity modified indexing valves are running from overflow of the fish tank to feed 12 of the beds. Another 4 way gravity modified indexing valve is being fed by overflow from the fish tank that is being started and stopped by a 3" FLOUT and then the New banks of bunk beds actually get a pump from the sump tank going through a diversion valve alternating between two other low flow Aquaponic indexing valves. The diversion valves are controlled by home made picaxe timers that alternate sides of the diversion valve every ten minutes so the beds on those banks get water for 10 minutes every two hours. The FLOUT is installed in a 100 gallon rubbermaid stock tank and feeds the 4 zone indexing valve and I would guess those 4 beds get flooded about once an hour.
The Sump tank on this system is around 300 gallons.

crikey.. that's a lot of gear.

Why not just run them CF?

Some plants actually do fine in constant flood while others would prefer flood and drain. I actually like to do quite a bit of flood and drain in my systems.

I'm also in a rather WET climate so the plants that don't like constant flood become very hard to grow here if one is not doing flood and drain since what arid regions of the globe consider to be HUMID would actually be thought of as bone dry here and cause the locals to get cracked lips and nose bleeds. So, allowing a bit of air down to the roots of the plants in flood and drain beds does seem to help keep the surface of the media dryer here since to run constant flood here seems to require keeping the water level way below the surface of the gravel and can make it difficult to start seeds or plant seedlings.

I have done some constant flood beds and they can work but I also sell the indexing valves so it is helpful for me to use them to be able to demonstrate them.

Makes sense.. thanks for explaining

My personal experience with CF, is like you say can work ok with some crops only, and with plenty of aeration provided in the fish tank/sump

Well had a false start yesterday. Something made the baby carriage irritable and I was having contractions rather close together (about every 3-5 minutes) most of the day, Called the OB in the morning and they of course sent me to the hospital to get checked. Not dilated at all. All vitals good, baby heart rate good. Went home and went back into the OB's office to get checked again in the afternoon. Despite still having contractions, Still not dilated but perhaps starting to soften up. I think the Dr expected me to be back in the hospital overnight but I was finally able to get the contractions calmed down and got a good night sleep last night and seem to be back to normal today.

Due Date is Next weekend. My best guess is the baby will actually come sometime during this next week.

Argh.

Thursday we had some rain and I found the CGFI tripped on the NB900 system. I re-set and didn't feed the fish in that system Thursday (along with all else that was going on.)

I figured it was just due to the rain so didn't worry too much.

However, yesterday (Friday) before dinner when I went out to check on things and feed, the CGFI was tripped again. Now on the big tank inside the barn, I have the air pump on a separate circuit so those fish were not up gasping. Unfortunately, the remote tank's air pump is plugged into the main system circuit. They were not gasping the day before when I turned things back on but Yesterday right before dinner, looks like they had been without air or pumping for a much longer time. Many were tumbling in the bubbles when I turned the power back on and many were floating mouth up gasping. Wound up pulling 79 fish out of the tank and freezing them whole (barbs removed but otherwise un-processed) as big dog treats, our Great Pyrenees think a fishcycle is a wonderful treat.

Sigh. While netting out nearly dead fish I heard water. Looks as though the little greenhouse had a clog and one of the shelves getting water flow from the pump was overflowing and splashing down in the middle of the greenhouse (splashing water on the timer and power inside the greenhouse) which is likely what actually tripped the CGFI and had nothing to do with the rain yesterday. Argh

Oh well.
The fish pulled out of the remote tank are of the same batch that I still have around 50 in the quarantine so I'll move the rest of the quarantined fish out into the remote tank with any survivors (originally I had moved 100 fish to the remote tank, will see if the remaining 21 survived or if I have a few more dog treats to pull out today.) This will likely give me around 70 fish to finish growing out in the remote tank which is probably fine as we head into warm weather. I have since run a cable out to plug the air pump into a separate circuit temporarily.

Really need to get some circuit alarms or battery backups going but at the moment we have to pick and choose what to spend money on.

The fish pulled from the remote tank seem to be mostly about 10-12 inches long and probably between 8 and 12 oz. The ones that are still lively seem to be mostly smaller.

Time to get a new batch of fish into quarantine soon.

sorry to hear TC

These things happen. It is the danger/risk of not putting in backups right from the beginning.

It isn't a total loss though since the dogs actually seem to like this size fish treats better than the full grow out, Dog treats and dog food for large breed dogs are expensive.

Best of luck with the delivery TC!