Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

no they don't let me near the aquarium stuff my fish knowledge is very poor, AP is just so simple een I can not mess it up apparently. I work with the cats and dogs and sometimes when they need help I work with the birds and reptiles.

Todays photo.
Gaps in left hand front where my young lady has stolen lettuce now planted with bok choi seedlings.
Top pix, lettuce now missing from mid right hand side now planted with bok choi seedlings. My lettuce seedlings are not yet big enough to plant into the grow bed. I need to get better organised in order to have a continuous supply of lettuce seedlings ready. A new batch of 4 or 5 seedlings each week.

Gee, this is fun !!!!!

A running page of photos can be seen here

Muzza

Muzz - I am now running a larger version of my flood and drain seed raising tray. It is about 30cm square. I reckon this would be sufficient for several beds. One of the many benefits this system is that I can take some seedlings out of this tray each week and they will not take off until they are transplanted so I could probably use the same batch for several weeks plantings. Seeds come up within 4 or 5 days, but have to stay in this system longer to develop a reasonable root system. Once transplanted the seedlings should be coverred with a pot or something for the first couple of days to let them re-establish.

At the moment I have 2 types of lettuce as well as silverbeet seeds in the tray. The pic is after 5 days and if you look closely you can see the plants starting to stick their heads up.

VB, Did you have some info about this on your thread some time ago ?
That is a really good idea , what is that in the mini tray, perlite ?

Yeh - spoke about it on my thread a few weeks ago. It is perlite, though in this tray I have some gravel in the bottom first to stop the perlite from falling through the holes in the tray. The tray is the type that is normally used to hold a number of seedling punnets.

Here we are again, great stuff...

That's looking fantastic Muzza, very neat with the crain pipes all burried in the ground..

Is that your return pipe coming up the side of your fish tank? does it go through a hole in the tank?

EB,
The return pipes from the grow beds are buried and joined together into a common return which can be seen at the LHS of the sump. The sump pump pipe runs up out of the sump, then down underground across to the fish tank, then up the side of the Fish tank and through the side of the fish tank and into a return venturi pipe.
Muzza

For the stupid ones here (me) what is a venturi?

By the way the new system looks awesome . You have done such a lot of in a little amount of time.

One would think you are creating a system to advertise all that wonderful mechanise you peddle

Hi Asitis,

Actually I have been into Aquaponics since January this year and have gone through 3 separate projects, first a 200 litre tank, then a 600 litre fish tank and now a 2300 litre fish tank.
I have sent approx 250 fish to the happy land learning what not to do, and I have been honest enough to own up to it as well !!!
I found it impossible to purchase decent grow beds anywhere, and believe me I really looked. So I decided to make my own, as I am a boatbuilder this was not too hard to knock up a mould for the purpose. I have showed the product via my website and people just keep ordering them. Actually they are becoming a nuisance to me as I have boat orders that take me through to the end of April next year and believe it or not, I make very little out of the Grow beds especially at the price I sell them to forum members.

This may also surprise you, but more than 70% of the grow beds I have sold are not to Forum members but people who contact me via my website, so this forum is not exactly a gold mine for me to “peddle” my goods via.

I do not participate on this forum “to make my fortune” I can assure you, I am just a mad keen Aquaponist (if there is such a word)

There is a very good thread on venturi making by Les, a Qld guy who has put a lot of thought into it. If you do a search you will find loads of stuff on venturies on this Forum
Good luck with building your system, it is loads of fun and frustration at times, but worth it I can assure you.

Murray

Sorry, you wrote venturi and I thought syphon. I will put a post up in a little while with some pix of the venturi. Basically the water is pumped through a pipe which has a narrowing in diameter and at that point there is a hole in the pipe which has the action of sucking air into the water stream through that hole, this induced air is carried in the water to the outlet and assists in aerating the water in the fish tank.
The air bubbles so created are nice and fine and therefore are very efficent at adding dissolved oxygen to the fish tank water.

Muzza

Sorry Murry!

I was saying the comment sarcastically! I wouldn't think you would be peddling, I was just saying it in jest.

I was trying to say that your system is evolving to become a beautiful model of what can be achieved in aquaponics. It is a credit to you!

Also the products you sell are of excellent quality and well priced (if I didn't have twins under 11 months old, my system would look like yours) so I wouldn't think for a minute that you would try and make a quick buck... I see the enthusiasm you have for aquaponics in every post you make and I look forward to all you great photographs.

After Joel, you are one of the people I have learnt from the most and I appreciate your honesty. I often say stupid sarcastic things and in person you would know I am just playing around. Hope this explains things

Thanks for the explanation, can't wait for the pix. I'm currently considering whether I need additional aeration in my new system or if solutions like these will be enough.

Asitis,
Murray's aeration method is very good (we all had a good look last w'end), what most of us try to do is add O2 where possible throughout the natural course of the water cycle and try to stay away from an exclusive aeration device if possible:
1) water is pumped from fish tank to GB -O2 is added when water exits the grid pipes

2) it is aerated on the drain cycle as the water flows through the gravel.

3) O2 can be added (via venturi) when water flows back through pipe to fish tank

4) O2 added as water cascades from outlet pipe into fish tank

If fish densities are not excessively high then extra O2 is probably not needed unless of power loss or F&D cycle takes a long period to complete.

These are the normal positions to add O2 and there are probably others I have missed - hope this helps

Asitis,

I can't stress enough how important aeration is to fish health and survival. More than half of the fish I have sent to the happy land have got their ticket because of poor areation or aeration that failed altogether.
EKB,comments above are spot on, I believe.
The most effective methods are #3 and #4

Muzza.