Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi Thjakakits,

No it doesn't go anywhere near the water, it's screwed up underneath the powerbox so the sun doesn't get to it. I ran the air in 25mm PVC Pressure pipe and it was exposed to the sun, I found that it was pumping hot air into the fish tank so I scrapped it.

I don't have any galvanized material anywhere near the water, I lost a batch of large fish to zinc poisoning from water in my sump splashing up onto a galvanized support bar under one of the grow beds.

Thjakakits, here's a couple of pics of the old manifold, the new one is a lager diameter pipe with only 2 x inlets, this manifold had 2 x air pumps and the 12v backup compressor running into it (3 x Inlets). I've now decided to only have the main air pump and the 12v backup compressor connected to the manifold and run the second air pump directly into the fish tank.

With the 12v backup compressor connected to the manifold, it uses the same membrane air diffuser and all the air outlets that run to the rest of the system should the power go off, everything runs as normal for as long as the battery holds up. That is better than the 12v compressor having it's own air stone just sitting the fish tank clogging up because it's not being used. The 12v compressor cover me for the power dropping out and the second air pump direct to the fish covers me if the main air pump breaks down or a diaphragm goes.

I've tested the 12v compressor running the whole system and although it's only 60L/min compared to the 120L/min main pump it does a very good job, it's a stronger pump than the diaphragm pump. Even though it's less air, it's still enough to keep everything running OK.

...I see!

So what is the part "DSCN1702 (Small).jpeg" - black round with the elbow and barb-fitting??

That's the back or underside of the membrane air diffuser, the barb at that point didn't works because the diffuser floated, I had to use rigid PVC pipe instead of the flexible hose to keep it on the bottom, then use the barb on top the PVC pipe and run the flexible hose back to the air manifold.

I've added a new Degassing Tank coupled up to my excisting twin water filters to help unchlorinated and remove any fluoride from the tap water.

There's a nice big air stone in the bottom of the barrel to bubbles the water up for 48 hours or longer before it goes into the sump, the hose connected to a ball valve at the bottom of the barrel running back to the sump makes it easy to top up the water whenever I need to.

I've been changing the filter cartridges each time I get a new batch of fish to keep the water quailty the best I can.

Is the fluoride no good for the fish Joblow? I thought it might be good for their teeth.

It is good for their teeth, but it buggers their toothbrushes.

I think Flouride is best kept below about 1ppm. The nearest town water to here, which, if we dont get any rain soon, might have to start carting, is 0.9ppm on average, so I don't want to add large amounts of that to my rainwater only (so far systems).

Guna the Flouride in our town water is down around 0.8 ppm so it's not that high, but still it's best to try and lower it further if you can.

I'm sorry to hear that you may need to cart water in, and I hope it doesn't get to that and you get some serious rain soon.

I've been using a 50mm PVC Cowl in the RFF to stop any solids entering the MBBF and that has been OK up until a few days ago when I just happened to go down to feed the fish, I noticed water on the concrete and realised something was wrong.

The water level in the sump was very low and the pump was just about to run dry, I switched it off and checked everything out, the PVC Cowl in the RFF had blocked up with fish solds and started overflowing. I was very lucky with my timing, another 5 minutes and I would have been buying a new pump.

I've now cut the top off the cowl, repositioned it and placed a old plastic flower pot with holes drilled in it to stop any large clumps of fish solids that might rise up and enter the cowl. Hopefully that will fix the problem, it's only happened once in quite a few years but that one time could have been a disaster.

If any large clumps do rise up and the flower pot doesn't stop them, they will just go into the cowl and then into the MBBF.

The new Mineralisation Tank is doing it's job. I just lay the hose from the RFF on the ground and turn the ball valve on to get a siphon happening and then put the hose into the top of the mineralisation tank.

I turn off the air stone and wait 20 minutes for all the solids to settle on the bottom of the tank, then the hose connected to the top ball valve allows me to run the top 2/3rds.of water back to the grow beds or onto the garden beds.

Then I can removed the solids from the bottom of the tank for the garden.

Very nice Joblow and lucky with your timing indeed.

I lost 300L of water 3 days running and couldn't find any leaks, so I turned the pump off overnight and then never lost a drop off water, so I thought it had to be a blockage somewhere.

I couldn't find any blockage and then I noticed the flow into one of the grow beds occasionally pulsating and realised that the elbows in the RFF outlet were causing the problem.

Having had the cowel in the RFF block up with fish solids and losing water previously, I needed to try something else, so I drilled what I hope too be enough holes to make sure fish solids will not block the complete outlet and hopefully there wont be anymore overnight water loses.

Wow man! I need to check in on your thread more often.
First off:

Stunning signage dude! Did you do the art?

Damn that's a lot of drilling and screwing. Did you retire JoeBlow? I so glad you came out of your medical issues and hit the ground running. I am super impressed with all you do for BYAP.
Do I sense a Moderator merit badge heading your way? You sure do deserve one!
I came this close to getting my new cone-bottom RFF online day before yesterday...

Damn Cement went bad while I was procrastinating
My latest boggle with my still off-line RFF is the stilling well versus Scotty432's combo static uplift dynamic MBBR system for collecting floating solids. I keep wondering if I couldn't change that stilling well out for a bucket with K2 which would collect the floating solids? Then I kick my own butt and tell myself to just put the RFF online and see how it works where it is!
Good work Joe, I'm always impressed.
Brian

Thanks Boss,

Yes I did that graphic using CorelDRAW, I have been playing around Corel and vinyl cutters for about 30 years, and ran a very small sign cutting business for several years.

CorelDraw has always had a few bugs in most of their versions, one of the main bugs is it crashing and you lose your design, but it also has a problem with joining the nodes when you cut or open your lines and it will shoot a stray line across your design that doesn't show up until you go to cut the design. That fish graphic has a vertical cut straight down through the centre of the design.

I spent many hours trying to correct that graphic and gave up, so the stray cut is blacked out with a black sharpie, so there's a cut right through the middle of it, that you don't see because of the sharpie. I spent weeks on a Casey Stoner design with the same problem, and when I couldn't fix it I sent to a professional in America to see what he could do and he couldn't get the line out either, so I scanned another Casey Stoner photo and designed another graphic and there was no stray cut in the second design.

It happens quite often, I have just upgraded to a later version of CorelDRAW X6 and it does the same thing, I'm currently designing a couple of T-Shirts for a 40th film Anniversery I'm going to next year and the main part of the design has a stray line through the centre that I just can't get out.

It was easier to take all my artwork to a professional guy who uses a camera and makes a positive cell for the silk screens and that is what I did, the stray lines don't show up in the artwork or any printing, it's only when it's converted to an EPS file that is needed to cut the graphic on the plotter that it appears. He worked from a PDF file and had no problems, it's only the EPS that causes the hassles.

The battery drill had to be re-charged 3 times to finish the holes, and I did it over 3 days, but I reckon I won't have any solids blocking all the holes at once and I shouldn't have any problems from now on.

Brian I'd just put your RFF online where it is and make any adjustments you need once you see how it performs

Well, it sure looks great from here! I did Ms Windows when it came out as I was a PC tech back in the day. That's really the only time I used Correll Draw. Linux, which I use since Windows 2000 was around doesn't have any good graphics software, so I haven't done any. Hearing about what you went through with that style of file, makes me happy I didn't, lol.

Yes, I'll plumb the RFF where it is and see what shakes lose. Unfortunately I forgot to buy PVCcement, doh!

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