Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Very worthwhile posting your experiences guys.... redundancy can.. and has... saved your fish...

Thanks charlie as soon as I can I will get a good generator for the house as I do not think this will be our only outage this year, cheers

Certainly has Rupert, first lesson I learnt after reading a lot of members threads. Cost of a full back up system has certainly paid off. Now they are saying we will not have power till 11:30pm tomorrow. May need more petrol for the gen set by then.

Goodnight to everyone, tomorrow is another day.

Good to hear the backup has worked so well for you Bear..

Power came back on about 5pm yesterday, certainly a relief.

This has been only 4 days without for us but for many more it is properly still not on.

Lesson learnt, Ensure you have a good backup plan in place and do not only rely on a battery operated air or water 12 volt pump to last you through. The $50 generator set I bought from Masters has certainly saved my system. It has charged my backup battery and run the main pump through its cycle for 3 hours at a time during the day light hours.

One of the major problems I saw during this time was the complete draining of my grow beds during the period of operation of the air pump. This has washed a lot of fine particles out of the gravel and into my sump and fish tank. This will return to the grow beds with proper management but was a worry when first I noticed it and until I recognised what was happening.

Once again the valuable information and advise from members of BYAP helped me through this time. Thank you all.

I would never expected the power to be out for so long from what I did not class as a major storm.

Thank you to all who have helped and who have supported all of us during this time. Cheers.

Bit of a update after the last 36 hours of rain, we had 260 mm recorded in my rain gauge. Some of the down falls were very heavy forcing me to disconnect the 90 mm fill lines to my main tank and reconnecting a line to the bottom two tanks to refill what I have used in the system

Sump is a IBC with a waste pump with a float, had trouble last week in that the pump was not working. Chainsaw mentioned that they had a heat sensor cut off switch if they were not turning of for at lest 5 min to cool down. Spent a few hours getting the level right for the pump to run a manual on/off cycle. This gave me 8/25 off cycle which is just on my limits until I work out the next step.

Went down this morning to feed the chooks and fish and noticed the pump was not turning off, checked the sump which was next on my list and the rain had added an extra 300mm to water level. So the pump has been running all night, let the water out and made sure the pump was turning off to the required cycle. One good thing can of it, the bottom of the fish tank was nice and clean.

Added a Runsun 60 air pump with five two inch sweet water stones until my 3 inch ones arrive. Have four in the tank and one down the SLO to see if that helps to raise the waste on the tank floor. Have also had to bleed to atmosphere as the pressure is too much for the stones. At lest there is plenty of air in the tank and air for the expansion.

Turned the 50 new jade perch fingerlings loose out of the basket that they have been in for the last two weeks. So that now gives me about 75 JP's swimming around.

Next two GB's should be on line this week if it stops raining, WILL add photos later this afternoon time permitted. Trust every one who is experiencing this weather is safe and well. Cheers

Thanks for the update Bear
Was wondering how you were travelling up there with all the rain.. Much flooding this time ??


We had our system overflow as well over night.. Glad I didn't bother topping up the system on the weekend now

Great to hear your system is surviving bear!

It can be stressful when things are not running to plant. At least you will have recovered from the empty tank problem a few months ago!

@ BnBob no flooding in our area and no landslips at the moment mate. Ground is so wet it can not take any more water in. Creek is running flat out and we have received close to another 50 mm this morning. About to don the wet gear and check it all out again.

@ rsevs3 tank full alright my friend wish I could send the rain down to Victoria where it is needed. Would say you will be in for some as well if the cyclone moves further south.

I have my fingers crossed mate. We really could use a bit of rain. Just not as much as you!

How's the system travelling at the moment Bear ??

Good Rob fish were off feed for a couple of days but now with the good weather they are feeding well. Going to add some SP's soon and that will be the limit. Fish tank was up to 27.5 yesterday after being on 21 for a week with the rain.

Have had bad trouble with the internet so unable to upload photos, hope to have it sorted today. Have also been side tracked on building a quilting frame for the wife.

Installed the new digital timers with chainsaws help and also put a small in line digital electricity meter in the system so I now know how much power the system is using. Update photos this week I hope.

Trust you are well and your system is sorted out now, cheers

Would be great to see some pictures Bear

Still keeping an eye on the nitrite here.. Think the beds need a good clean out..

This sucks big time, just spent a lot of time writing a update and the internet drops out again and all is lost Waiting for the Telstra tech who is was suppose to be here between 8am and 12 noon not Bl++dy likely he said.

Will try to add a couple of photos as I do not feel like writing all of it again.


This was also the second day with out power, always a wet walk to check the system and start the gen set.

Will update some more when I find out what Telstra is doing, Mission Impossible.

Jeez I wish we could get some rain down here.
I would be putting a tee and tap in that downpipe to get the water away from the house, but I guess its wet up there most of the time so it probably doesn't matter