Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Pretty slick idea with the tees!

Thanks Ron. It was more of the case that I had to improvise. Ball valves are quite expensive and I don't think they do them in the pipe size (21.5mm - 'overflow' pipe) I'm using.

Cheers,

Mon

Hi,

This week I made another media guard and set up another growbed:



This weekend I will try to make another media guard and another grow bed.

I've actually got some fine filter material under the out-flow T's to try to clean up the green water. In the third tub on the right I've got some barley straw in a mesh pot on top of some filter material.

Cheers,

Mon

That's coming along great Mon, I love the tadpole bypass

Best of luck with the weather this weekend!

I've actually removed the tadpole bypass. I now have a net pot on the outlet of the filter - so the tadpole bypass is redundant and I removed it to give me more grow bed space.

Shame - as I liked the idea/concept of the tadpole bypass!

Yes, looks like the sun will be out this weekend after some rainy days this week here in the UK.

Cheers,

Mon

Hi,

I had some time today and made the third grow bed:



The fourth tub at the end I will leave as it is for extra filtering. Once the green water clears up I will turn it to a duck weed tub.

I don't think I have shown a picture from the other side of the grow beds. You can see how the siphon out-flow goes directly in to the pond:



Excuse the mess around the pond - that is something I will need to sort out over time.

Here is a close up of the first grow bed. Not much growth after two weeks, but I was not expecting anything until the system matures. At least they haven't died:



I will need to add more plants now that I have more grow bed space.

Cheers,

Mon

Looking great.

Hey Mon,
Coming along nicely! I had a bunch of rocket about the same size as yours a few weeks ago...you should see it now!
You have acres of room to expand into

Luckily for me, space is not that much of a problem at the moment. What is the real problem is time and money! This is really just a test/starter system to see how things go.

Cheers,

Mon

Hi,

Just a couple of (very) short video footage of my pond and system. Nothing of much interest - just me documenting the state of it.







Cheers,

Mon

Hi,

I added some Pak Choi:




I had some problems transplanting the smaller ones, with short and delicate roots. After a while it was obvious they were wilting because the roots did not go down far enough. So I raised the water level by increasing the height of the stand pipe. They soon perked up. Apart from the one right at the back which probably got damaged during transplant.

Cheers,

Mon

Looking good, nice system.

Thanks.

I've been having problems with slugs - mainly in the growbed with the Pak Choi in it. These aren't your regular sized slugs - but tiny little buggers! Here is on one of the pebbles - it must only be less than 1cm in length:



I've been running the grow bed in raised (above media) constant flood for an hour or two for a few evenings and that seems to have got rid of them...for now.

Over the weekend it is has been quite sunny (for the UK) and the Pak Choi had been wilting a bit, so I had to run the grow bed in constant flood for an hour or so to get them back to normal.

Overall, they seem to be growing well, albeit with a slight yellowing:



As you can see the solar lights seem to do quite well in Aquaponics too...

The orginal (middle) growbed seems to be doing good too:



Especially the strawberries:

(aargh! max of three attatchments!)

...especially the strawberries:



Although, I am noticing some ants are trying to harbour some aphids on it and I'm having to brush them off when I see them. I'm going to have to figure out a way of stopping the ants from crawling up the grow beds.

My pond water is still quite green - even though I've been using filter medium on the grow beds. This is just isn't enough since I cannot cover my pond. I've hooked up my bio-filter with the UV light on it - this should help with clumping up of the suspended algae, but I think I still need more fine media filtration. There are also string algae building up in the pond (the barley straw hasn't really kicked in yet) - so I suppose I should try to add more plants in the grow bed to try to compete and use up the nitrates.

Cheers,

Mon

Hi,

Did an update video to show the current water quality (visibility) of my pond.




It is getting a bit better after two weeks and an addition of a UV filter for the last week. Most of the suspended algae is clearing/filtering up now, but there are still a lot of waste and tannins in the water (which I can only get rid of with water changes).

Cheers,

Mon