Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

A couple more.

Another step closer to completion.

One more frame to come for the sump tank,

The Filter barrels arrived the other day, 220Ltr a piece.

And although the past two days have been a little frustrating, the first set of grow bed are almost finished, just a little more strapping and some trimming, and with the blacking out and cladding to come, it is almost job done.

So far I am pretty happy.

Great set up and photos Porter!

Hey all.

Hi Tang Mo, thanks very much mate,

Well, two days of work has seen us making good progress.
All the rafts have been cut and drilled, the beds have been fitted and trimmed and plumbed and fitted together.

The last supporting frame arrived today, so that will give me the opportunity to fit the beds to the sump and the pumps to the fish tanks probably on Friday.

Not happening as fast as i want it to, but i am pretty happy and very much looking forward to turning it over and seeing if it works!

Hi Porter,

new set up is looking good. What are you going to clad the frames with?

God bless, froggo

Hey Froggo,

I am going to use that cheap black weed matting first to cover the frames surrounding the beds to block out the light, then clad them with 100mm fence palings over the top. Pretty much the same way as i did on the old fish tanks, (there is a pic on page 9 here).

I just checked out your greenhouse, that is a great build mate, good job!

Regards

..
i am assuming that the joined tanks are for the fish... so how do you remove solids that will build up..

Lookin good..

PS - just a thought... I would be putting roof insulation bats between the timber and the plastic..
That will have two effects - first and obvious- Insulation PLU light exclusion, and the it will pad that area, helping to stop bowing of the sided and they WILL bow..
I had one Sump Tank like that and had to tie the sides in..
..
.

+1 to RATS..

I was having similar problems, with Parsley and others..

I actually purchased an ALDI "Wild Life Camera" on special at the time..

That quickly proved a devious rat (not a politician) was the culprit..

"It's a Trap" took car of him... We found him sizzling a few days later..
..
.

This was the blighter, but in another bed..
..
.

Hi Porter,

the cladding looks good. I like how your joined the IBC's together, looking forward to seeing the progress.

Thanks Porter, the greenhouse system worked a treat. Sold that place now and have started a new system also.
Been slow going though, the new place needed lots of work so AP had to take a backseat for a few years .

God bless, froggo.

Hi Froggo,
Yeah it comes up alright with the palings, also stops little climbers too! that's a shame about your system mate!



No mate, growbeds, this will be a deep water raft system, 4 x 400ltr beds, 1000ltr fish tank and 1000ltrs of filter/sumps.



So far so good, the beds only bow out around 15mm on the long side when we wet tested them.
I can live with that. The insulation is a sound idea, certainly planned for the second phase and tidy up of this system later on.

And as for the rat, its doing my head in!

Looks great, Porter.

We made it through the past 4 days of high water temps, No loses and temps are back down to 17Deg this morning.
Very happy!
But it makes an interesting point though, just how high can the temps go, how high can they actually tolerate before aeration and water flow begins to be of little consequence?
AP lore says its lights out anything above 24, but WA fisheries say 26-27DegC.
Ours topped at 24, but they were just fine, all bottom to mid water swimming, no surface breathers and this morning they feed well.
It is granted that the water at the bottom of the tanks would possibly be cooler, but our tanks are only 800ltrs each.
We maxed out aeration and water flow with 4800ltr/hr and 5500ltr/hr respectively.
To put that into perspective, Tank One has 10-12 fish in it, BUT Tank Two has 28-32 fish in it.
So that is 28-32 fish, almost all plateable, in 800ltrs that just made it through 4 days of higher temps with no ill effects.
Further to that, Tank Two is the first to cop the full sun.

What is the highest you have kept trout at for prolonged periods?

Hi Porter,

I've never had my brown trout in water much above 24 in the old greenhouse system. Air seemed to be the thing then. Once when the air was accidentally turned off they soon decided to jump out of the sump tank. Hard to know what they can handle in your situation as all systems are a bit different.

Good thing to do is keep tract of temps and see what you can tweak or change to keep it down.

Water temps here so far have maxed at 20 but I'm running the pump 5 min per hour 24/7 to cycle. To reduce temps for trout next season I'm thinking of putting some 200 liter media tanks in ground to isolate daytime filtering on those hot days.

God bless, froggo.

Hi Porter,
Your story is a great read.

My trout tank got to 25.5 last week without losing any but I am moving them inside now to a small setup.
Last year I lost my trout when the water temp got to 27.

I have made sure that there is an abundance of DO in their tank - I am running 4 airstones & another pump which is just splashing water back into their tank to help keep them going as long aspossible.

I also had a rat attack last year but it was partial to beetroots. It would eat the bulbous part leaving the leaves & root intact. I lost about 30 beetroot - I was none too impressed. When the solvol soap started to go missing in the shed, my husband baited & I found him a few days later having a big sleep.

Keep up the good work!