Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

You can easily reduce the pump flow by putting in a tee fitting and a tap back to the main tank.

Keep at it buddy :]

Hi abdul,
This is how it is already configured. I have the growbed valve 75% closed and the return to the tank 50% closed but the suction into the pump is still very strong. Today I was watching when the pump was on, one of the surviving koi got pulled in quite agressively and he only just managed to escape. I am willing to bet thats why several of the koi died, they were probably weak from the shock of moving/low water temps and they couldnt escape the pull of the pump.

Today I went and bought a new pump. The old one was rated 1200gal/hr (4500l/hr) at 1.5m head hight, I was using approx 1m head height. The new one is rated at 170gal/hr (650l/hr) at 1.5m head hight. Currently the tank is filled to about 400L so it should be plenty. I may fill it up to 1000l after changing the system but I will address that when I get there. The new pump does mean I need to redo the plumbing as it has a much smaller outlet though... Small price to pay I think for a pump that doesnt kill fish.

Small price indeed!

Did some fish research, only trout available at an ecconomic price in the area. Bluegill are not a local fish, yellow perch is to the east but no breeders are around and its not legal to capture wild fish with intent to keep alive in a tank.

Picked up some flexible hose for the new pump, total cost was $6 including fittings. May need to get a couple valves (I forgot to get any lol) but they are cheap.
Once I have it plumbed together and hang the grow lights things will get rolling.

Also for anyone in the facebook world feel free to look me up https://www.facebook.com/Ebsgarden/
Cheers all!

Disaster has struck
The new pipe to the grow bed fell off.
Tank had only a couple inches of water left in it.
2 koi are still alive.... I dumped about 100l of water into the growbed to trigger the siphon to get what little water remained into the tank. Treated the water with some pond water conditioner... Says its safe for fish and plants but not edible fish? Its all I had to get the water level up enough to keep the koi a bit happier and get the heater submersed again.
I smell a burnt rubber or plastic kinda smell in the tank but I dont know where its coming from. Pulled out the heater and pump to smell them and neither smelt at all.
Pump is staying out until I can test it, heater is in the tank and seems to kinda be working? I unplugged it after it had been in several minutes, it was warm but wasn't 300w warm... Maybe it takes a while I dont know.
If both are working it will be amazing... Both were run 100% dry for up to 24 hours (no idea when the pipe came off, looks like it was at least several hours)

The real mystery however... What happened to all that water? There isnt any floor drains, any water that got outside freezes, and the garage door plus the ice outside should trap most of it... But nothing! Just a couple small splash puddles under the grow bed, no change in water level at the garage door from before... Theres a little bit of ice outside the garage door but not 400litres worth. Its as if it all evaporated but there is no way that much water could evaporate in a cold garage.

Not a very nice thing to come home to in the evening

P&B,

That is harsh! While I've still got 500,000 more messages / 20,000 more topics to read before I fully get caught up on the Aquaponics Forum, I've already read of WAY too many systems that started off with an early disaster as well as plenty of well established systems that had been humming along smoothly until the disaster strikes. With each story I read like this I bump remote monitoring and an alarm system higher up on my list of important.

So sorry to hear about the fish. Nothing like a little bit of emergency mode to get the blood pumping!

--
Sam

That doesn't sound good P&B, sorry to hear about the problem. Would a pipe union help? See number 7 in this write up for a pic of what I'm talking about - https://www.reefs.com/blog/2013/02/18/aquarium-plumbing-guide-part-i-basics-of-pvctubing/

Something like this allows you to take apart the plumbing in the tank if you need to but lets you glue up most or all of it in the tank area.

Sam, although a remote monitoring and alarm system sounds good, the reaction has to be so fast to save the system. With the new pump I have it can drain the tank in under 40 minutes so unless I was home and awake I couldnt have done anything about it anyway.

Scotty, if I was keeping the system the way it is long term I would use pipe unions... I do plan on changing the system to have the pump in a sump tank, raise the fish tank above the grow bed, and install a slo. So in theory the only pipe that would get dirty is the slo but it would be easy to clean.

In hindsight I was an idiot for not attaching the pipe to the grow bed so it couldnt fall off... The new pipe wasnt straightening up very well so I just hooked it around the outside of the far growbed leg... It stayed there flawlessly without moving for 3 days... Then for whatever reason today it decided to go for a walk.......

Hard luck bro! Looks like you're getting all your tragedies down with in the beginning

Is very mysterious where all that water went, but the pond conditionaer may have been a bad idea. It may be ok for plants and fish but must be toxic for humans which is why it says not edible fish :[

Bummer, I hate worrying about stuff like this. At one time my SLO would only flow if the water level was at the overflow pipe on the FT, but then I added an airlift to the SLO, consequentially if the water pump quits and the air stays going it'll empty the FT Luckily my wife is retired and home most days to keep an eye on our system, so there's that.

Just wondering why only fillable to 600.. not that such is all that important, and water content and fish numbers are likely limited by the media.capacity, without solids removal..

Not surprised.the Koi died at a few degrees... I think I recall them having a.lower threshold of about ten C....

Interesting .. the cost of fish keeping. Licenses.... such a massive difference.. it suggests THEY are.saying we don't want certain.fish around... so why don't the just ban them..

When you see the images of floods around the world, you come to realise why invasive breeds need to me controlled..
EG. TILLAPIA have invaded warmer (northern) waterways, but are killed off in winter in southern areas..
..
.

Im not as concerned about small about amounts of possibly harmful chemicals as some are so I am ok with using the pond conditioner in an emergency situation. The amount added is so small (5ml per 25 gallons or 0.005% of the water). There is a much higher % of harmful materials in natural soil than what little I added.

The tank is only fillable to 600l because the person who built the system cut a 4" square hole in the side of the tank to put the grow bed drain pipe in... Not a super smart solution really but there we go. I do hope to patch it one day to use all 1000l. I do however have my eye on some cheap 180 gal tanks but they are at auction so no idea if Ill get them.
Koi are often overwintered in outdoor ponds that have ice on the surface. 2 koi have survived and the water temps have maintained 10 degrees with the heater going (at least they were before the disaster, havent checked since as koi have been super spooked every time I look in the tank, zipping about wildly... So ive limited my time out there to try and let them settle down)
The difference in licences im sure is to stop small breeders from getting into tillapia so large breeders get to rule the market. There is zero chance tillapia would survive in the wild here so its purely a industry protection rather than environmental protection. Local rivers (even large ones) get down to around the freezing mark even in a warmer winter like this one.

Havent checked the pump yet, taking my time filling up the system to prevent any chlorine damage or any sudden changes. Only up to about 150L in the system out of the 500L or so I had it at before.
2 remaining koi are still alive, didnt get spooked out when I looked at the today so hopefully they are calmed down a bit.
Still looking into hanging the grow lights and some sort of shelter to keep the heat in... May end up with just a simple plastic sheet draped over the system for now and improve it over time as the budget allows.

Bad news,
I didnt get the pump flowing for several months so both remaining koi died

Good news,
The pump is now flowing! The grow lights are hung! Ive stuck in a couple tomato cuttings in to see how they do. I burried a couple lbs of gone off strawberries in the bed to feed the worms and bacteria. Both of the last two koi have been left in to feed the bacteria also. I will be running the system for a couple months without fish just to make sure everything is working well again.
I have been having some issues with the bell siphon though... It wont stop flowing! I think its due to the upward slope from the grow bed to the fish tank. I think its creating a secondary vacuum which keeps the flow going after air is sucked in. I will need to cut down the vertical pipe legnth under the grow bed to level the horizontal pipe... Then I have a nasty suspicion I will need to redo the bell siphon... The person who originally built the system didnt fully know what he was doing I suspect... (The pump was originally on a timer even though there was a bell siphon? I suspect he had issues with the siphon so the timer was added as a work around)

Progress though!

P&B,

Hehehe... a continual learning process! But like you said early on, the cost of the entire system was less that the cost of the media. Hard to go wrong there... Good luck with the fine tuning!

--
Sam