Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Jen - think they might have become sinkers - that could explain why your ammonia was up.

I'm sorry, what are sinkers?

Fish on the bottom of the tank, that are not quite alive anymore.

+1 OBO !

Usually results in a 'sinking' feeling too

How about an update Jen ?

ahh ok since you asked so nicely...

The Corrugated AP System
The trout started having trouble breathing around mid-November due to the heat of the tank so I had to bring all the trout in. As soon as I did that, I saw no point in keeping the system going. I just left it as it was because back then I was thinking about dismantling the tank and make the "constant height overflow" hole a quite a bit bigger so that I would have a better overflow from the tank. Over the summer I made my decision that this was what I would do. So that I could move it to my cubby house. I'm going to get rid of the roof of the cubbyhouse and use PVC pipes to construct a loop plastic greenhouse over it to keep leaves/rain/debri out and still let sunlight in. The cubbyhouse was too shaded in summer and too cold in winter for a good AP system to run in there, so I'm turning this place into a sort of tropical - seeding house, it might still have AP though. I have a ladder installed and will be able to climb up into it and attend to the plants. This was kind of long time in the back of my mind because I wanted somewhere in my garden where I could keep tropical plants alive through winter without having to take them inside so they wouldn't get bitten by frost! Also the corrugated tank only holds 600L of water - not nearly enough to run the growbeds that I had set up. And the Trout - well when they get to to 25cms long, it's a tight squeeze for 20 of them. I want to be able to keep 30 to 40 big ones easy; 1000L/1500L would do that.

Soooooo, am fixing the cubbyhouse and moving the corrugated tank from the system make the hole bigger and put it under the cubbyhouse this weekend. And then rearrange my big growbeds the way I want them and pipes ready for the big tank to come straight in. This is so that once I have the big tank delivered in, I'll install it and cycling straight away and in less than 2 weeks have Gavin put in the Trout.
The following weekend I'll make another trip to BYAP to decide between the 1000L and 1500L tanks and buy it as well as another 500L tank for another system.

Once I have a 1000L tank at my house, I plan to raise the FT so that the dirty water overflows into the Growbeds (on their own stands) and have a sump under the growbeds to pump all the clean water back to the fishtank. In this instance I wouldn't have to bury the sump. I'm so sick of buried sumps! They get so dirty so easy, and if you have gunk in there, it's a backsore cleaning it out. This system will be a "constant height overflow" from FT into the GB's on stands siphoned out by my own external siphons into the sump where there is a pump that takes all the clean stuff back into the FT. This way if the growbeds are too far apart from each other they can have their own sumps with their own pumps or whatever. Its the piping from the FT to the GB's that is going to be a bit of a headache. At least I can either put in a timer if I want to control the electrical input or let it run continuously.
The GB siphons will be shortened so that the GBs don't flood quite as high as they used to and also means less media to control (last year I had quite an hassle keeping the gravel in the beds because I was trying to keep them above the water level but the GB's ended up being quite full. I came up with the hypothesis that if I shorten the siphons the gravel will be lower inside the beds and therefore be easier to control. I think I had them pretty long because I was worried that the brackish water at the bottom of the GBs would make the plants rotten but I've discovered that with continuous flow systems all the water are mixed as they come in and flow out. The Growbeds will also be raised; I think I'll go to the Tip and buy a few old lounge tables to use. I'll take some pictures on Saturday to show what I mean and the systems that I've had running and is now running.

The Tommy AP system
My other system that I set up behind my cubbyhouse still ran through summer because it was under the apricot tree which gave it lots of dappled shade. The goldies were doing fine in there until peak summer around early February when THEY were starting to have trouble swimming in it. Each day, one died! it was horrible. 4th day I had enough of it so I set up another good ole TommyAP system near the shed with open sun... I know I have lots of different areas of my garden to put a system into!!

This Shed system is now running and I have transported all the leftover goldfish into there about 3 weeks ago. I put in some aquarium rock salt and they all came back to health - they had dusty black spots on their sides and their fins and tail were in tatters. I suspect it was finrot. or something like that. Anyhow the days after I put in the salt they slowly came back to health and their fins are getting better.. not looking all bashed up anymore. I've got Nelly Kelly passionfruit and a strawberry plant growing in there... a few weeks ago I started some rosemary and thyme seeds as well as some tomatoes from Burkes Backyard magazine and some lebanese cukes. OMG the cuke seeds have been growing like a rocket! I just transplanted them today... bad idea I know but I didn't want them to grow roots into the seed punnets and get estabilished into the GB's. Next week would have been too late to move them! Test Kit showed high pH, no ammonia or nitrites but lots of nitrates. I still need to put in more plants but I feel like I dont have enough room!

Well that's the goss in my own little world and as you can see, I haven't forgotten about aquaponics, I am still working hard on it!! Its hard enough having a job to go to, being rather tight with cash and trying to make do with what I can buy to make into some feasible systems.

this is the window AP system, it's all set up and can run, I just need to cycle it and put in some fish and seeds. this system is meant to be small and for single plant in each container. My idea was that these plants cannot be trusted to stay put with their roots and have a tendency to take up room from other plants. Examples are cukes, toms and celeries.


This "ShedAP" system is currently running and growing cukes, toms, strawbs and passionfruit. The cukes and toms are in seedling stage at the moment.. I wasn't very careful with my seedlings so ended up with only a few. In the future I'm gonna be more careful. When they get big enough they'll go to the windowAP system. I'm going to replace the green sump tank (the one on the ground) with the same but smaller black tank and a stronger pump soon so that I can add that 3rd GB to the system. I had to cut it out as the sump went dry too often.


This is the backAP that hides behind the cubbyhouse, it was an emergency setup when the trout was attacking my goldfish last year! still haven't got over it. I set up the ShedAP system because I had been planning to do it for a while and was pleased to get it going... it was only a coincidence that the shedAP was finished when the goldfish started dying in this one. I've taken out the pump and its just sitting there, frogs living in the little water in there and the tomato just growing and growing without any help at all... celery sort of.

Today i tidied up almost everything so now I just have to knock the roof off the cubbyhouse and put in the pipes. clean out the corrugated fishtank and then move it to the cubbyhouse. there's a lot of tadpoles in the tank....

Your right about tomotoes not being trustworthy

heh, i knew someone was gonna be picky about that... in my case I have to admit it was the celery. I didn't really eat as much as I thought I would. bleh.

Sounds like you are doing a great job, Jens.

thanks..

Sounds like you've been pretty busy and productive.

Thanks Jen

Regarding trout:

I have found success raising trout in the past by treating them as a RIVER fish. TONS of turbulent water movement resulting in highly oxygenated water. Also create fairly strong currents allowing them to swim vigorously. Obviously that costs money in pumps and electricity but it worked for me years ago when largely still water consistently failed.

Hi Jen:
If you can lower the sump so more you could have beds after the FT before the sump, to keep solids out of the sump. I had a setup just like your diagram in my basement (see 2007 and 2008 links in my signature) and solids built up a lot in the sump. I had hoped the solids would get into the pump and up to the beds but I had to encourage them to get sucked up. If you want the pump to stay totally clean then beds may help with that.

An additional option would be to fill the sump almost all the way with gravel except for an area around the pump. Since the pump is always running the gravel should stay fresh, if you can make sure the pump is drawing water so that there are no stagnant areas.