Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

How come I didn't see this earlier?

Charlie, tip for filtration... air driven sponge filters.
http://www.aquariumproducts.com.au/cata ... 0&catID=29

$20ea and air driven. You can stack 2 onto 1 to get twice the filtration off one air stone.
As an added bonus they aerate your tank.
To clean you drain some tank water into a bucket, drop the sponge in the bucket, give it a squeeze, then put back in your tank.

I like your poly base, should just be strong enough

Seen as it is in your shed, place 20mm poly around the back and sides, makes a huge difference with heating.
You can put it on the front as well if you like.
Barra like murky low lit areas anyway.

Every time your AP tank needs a top up, drain half the fish tank and top up the AP tank with that.
Then fill the Barra tank from the hose.
You remove half the nitrates from the fish tank, and give your AP plants a slight nitrate boost.

Charlie's custom built High-Tech, state of the art, propriety, patented bio-media filtration system with space age design incorporating K1 - 5 spoke.

How do those sponges work Andrew? Do you connect a air pump to them?

And in regards to the 20mm pipe, do you mean use them for insulation around the FT

I meant 20mm polystyrene

Yeah, you connect an air pump to them.
Here is a shot of my old 4ft rack with the smaller ones in use

Aaah nice. Cheap too. I shall order one of those today

Those foam filters come in lots of sizes too. So simple but they work. I forgot about them too

Pity you live so far away, I could probably give you a couple of new ones

Thats kind of you Andrew, appreciate the offer.

Hooked up the 300W heater yesterday and we had a cool night last night, dropped to around 12deg. Checked the water temp this morning and it was sitting at a crisp 28deg.

Looks like our summer is over here with only cold weather to come. Looks like I got this thing going just in time. Hooray.

Yep me too, its getting close to frosty mornings now. Overwintering in aquariums is a great way to go for us that have cold winters, and that's a big lot of OZ

i use a bunch of those foam filters.. (time to clean them this weekend)
and since the air line just attaches to the fitting and there is no air stone, you can divide a regular line into a couple lines and still deliver enough air

2 and a half weeks in and Im busy keeping the cycle in check. Salt at 2ppt, 30% water changes each day and adding my AP system water, aeration flat out.

Starting to see some ates so looking good.

30% per day?
You have too much time on your hands!

How big is the tank?
If you set up a dripping water outlet in the tank, dripping 120 times a minute (twice a second) with an s bend overflow, you will automatically change around 40L per day.

And sit back watching the fish, beer in hand, with the rhythmic sound of drip drip drip drip in the background

I just syphon it out into buckets, only takes 10 minutes.

Im basically exchanging 30% with water from my AP. Water from aquarium goes into AP and AP water goes into aquarium. No wastage

p.s. everything I do involves a beer in hand lol

Note for self... cycle complete.

Top stuff mate.

Why not make the sponge filter? Should be easy to source all the parts. It doesn't have to look pretty and you would get more sponge area.

Seeing as plants outright refuse to grown in my aquarium grow bed I put all my water into my AP too. Or onto any potted herbs I might have.

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