Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Pristine, truly. Welcome HH!

Inspirational! Nice Hodgeshome.

What kind of fish?

Are the bottoms of the growbeds sloped? And the stand is level?

Or are the stands sloped and the growbeds level?

I suppose it could all be level.

just curious

Very neat system. I am planning something similar for my 3rd home system (can't stop) and you've given me quite a few good ideas.

That looks very nice. I wish I could just dig a hole and line it, but without a lot of slope the clay here would just slide in when it rains heavy.

I give your system two thumbs up

Love that pond, your going to have a hard time getting between the growbeds when the jungle hits.

Did I mention I love IT!

Well design and very neat and tidy system Hodgeshome. The growbeds bend perfectly with the the surrounds.

Thanks for the welcoming comments.

Yes RupofOZ it helps to have the gear available and all the info on this site helps but most importantly gives you the confidence to have a go.

jdphish GBs slope to stand pipes at the back. Levels adjusted with nuts on base of stand legs. Drilled wholes and planned to weld bolt on top but realised just had to have nut for height adjustment underneath leg - no welding required.



Week 1 report

Pond
No deaths yet! (have 106 siver perch - currently more like overgrown tadpoles & 20 goldies slightly bigger).
Water still reasonably clear.
Grow beds were filling too quickly so drilled a hole just above pump to return some of the pumped water to surface of pond immediately (improve DO levels too) while pump on 15 minute cycle. Seems to work okay. Side benefit centrifugal (I think that's the word) force created moves detritus to centre of pond. Just scoop out daily and wash scoop into bucket to return matter direct to GB's for plants.
pH tends to 8+ so keeping it down to about 7.5 with daily applicastions of pH Down but hope I will do less of this as system cycles.
Fish very lethargic (even to feed) and I am still awaiting test kit so took water sample to fish shop Thursday and noted ammonia slightly up so 10% water change. Also grabbed some Lysofoss to speed up micro-organism colony. Adding it daily alternating direct to pond / direct to grow beds. Hope this is okay. Initially also had some of Monya's sludge but this sat in bottle for 4 days so may have died? Hope to get test kit Monday.

Grow beds
Seem okay. The clay balls rise with water and settle as water returns to pond. Smaller seedings tend to rise with clay balls and then remain on surface leaving root exposed so some re-planting while trying not to knock them around too much.
Planted broccolis, peppers, peas, carrots (round ones), celery, leek, spinachs, kale, pack choi, thyme, marjoram, parsley, coriander, oregano, dill, basil, chives, shallots/spring onion - I think that is it.

First impressions
Very happy with system. It really is a living thing the GBs are like three huge lungs (kidneys are probably a better analogy) but they groan as they breath in and out with the water sounding like a giant whales slowly bereathing. And because it never rains in Adelaide any more we have these balmy clear nights where we sit around the pond looking up at the southern cross, drinking beer and howling at the full moon. Fantastic.

Very nice system - looking forward to watching it mature.

Impressed with your work hodges, looks like a stirfry coming up. I wonder if you could reduce the height of your standpipe marginally. It is not right for your expanded clay to float that much. IMHO

hodges, dont worry about the fill rate of the GB's, food and fish's fill in three minutes then overflow down the stand pipe untill the pump turns off

yeah I would knock a smidgen off the standpipes the water will creep up to the top layers without actually having to flood right up. I think from memory I was very surprised at how short the centre standpipes were cut when we put a system together with Joel using the hydroclay.

Great work mate. I agree that you should reduce the height of the inner standpipe a bit. It is not a good thing to have the balls moving around like that. As well as the root exposure issue - they will rub and start erroding also.

Very cool setup Hodges.

I'm also curious about the use of LYSOFOSS to help out new systems.
I have heard people rave about it, for aquarium use, but never seen any discussion with AP.
Can't see it would do any harm.

Keep up the good work

Week 2 report.
We have a nitrite reading - approaching 0.5.
Pond. No deaths yet but am a bit concerned about ammonia now above 1.
pH seems to have settled at about 7.6 so have not had to apply pH down this week.
Fish small but seem quite active and are feeding okay. I'll buy a thermomitor this week and moniter water temperature. Greenhouse to come and hopefully this will assist to keep water temperature up.

Grow beds. Have reduced inner stand pipes and seems to have settled GBs down. Also not so worried about getting water to small seedling as root systems are developing. Plants show some new leaf growth. No nitrate reading yet so applying Seasol weekly.

Lysofoss. We applied Lysofoss daily for four days and have now stopped as have a nitrite reading and hope that a nitrate reading will come by the end of this week and ammonia will start to subside.

As long as your ph stays around the 7's and doesn't go too high, the ammonia is not heaps toxic, so I would leave it be at this stage, and it will begin to drop over the next week or so, remembering the colder it gets, the longer it takes to cycle. Glad to hear no morts