Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Dan your system looks so great, I'm seriously envious at the quickness with which you've accomplished this.

I don't think it's a ST to FT ratio. it would be ST to GB. Since he is running constant flood right now it's not that big of a deal but if there are siphons involved then it will be important. The sump must be able to provide enough water to fill all the GBs at the same time so it doesn't run dry and be able to handle the total GB volume of water if they all dump at the same time (like collum said). I usually do a 1:1 GB to ST or larger ST because the media in your GB displaces water so your ST has room to play with (a 500l ST holds more water than a 500l GB with media in it). the benefit of a larger ST is that you don't have to top it as often

Thanks. I think mine would be described as 'functional' whereas yours would be classed as 'artistic'.

Basically I haven't gone for looks

That's where some better planning would have been good. I don't have room for another ibc and barrels are too small. I need something in between that's cheapish. I will stick to constant flood for a while and see how I get on. Postman has been knocking on my door with parcels for aquaponics most days, it's getting embarrassing. I am going to slow down now because I am skint.

Dan

Dan, can you dig down underneath the growbeds?

I can but an ibc is too wide so it would stick out into the middle of the greenhouse and block the way.

I have seen some people on here dig a hole and put pond liner inside and use it as a sump. That way you can control the dimensions and all you really have to buy is the liner and a shovel if you dont have one. I would just make sure the edges are slightly higher than ground level just in case you get any flooding so it doesnt wash sediment into the sump.

Fish beat me to it.

I was about to suggest the same thing. Pond liner isn't too expensive. Just dig a hole (but depending on your soil type, you might need to line the sides of the hole with something so it can't cave in, but depends on your soil type), and the beds can drain below into the sump tank.

There are a few on here that have done it successfully.

very neat setup, Looking forward

Yep you are both right i think this is what I will end up doing. thanks. Dan

You guys seen this - still confusing me, is this a duff test?

Dan

If your water has chloramines in it, when it breaks down it releases ammonia, or if you have a rain water tank, the leaves could break down and produce ammonia.

Your test should be fine.

this makes sense. thanks

Hi Dan
I have an ‘end stop’ in the collection pipe in the SLO. I think it encourages more flow from the slits.
Check the Ph of the water as it comes out of the tap.Also rainwater (i f using)
I have hard tap water and it keeps the PH high. Calcium carbonate. I have switched over to rain water. Similar PH but less hard.
Ammonia???? Colum’s guess sounds logical
Could you put say a water butt outside the greenhouse and connect with low level pipe to smaller tub inside to increase sump capacity?

Weekend update:

So I have decided that any more digging will have to wait until it's warmer, as will adding more growbeds. Feel like I have spent enough winter days labouring in the cold!

The good news is that I am cycling with the two growbeds I have. I bought a couple of goldfish yesterday to kick it all off, I had a great chat with the chap in the fish shop about what I was doing with aquaponics. He strongly suggested/mandated that I buy some active bacteria for ponds to get it going. They are very strange things, they look like little black beads that dissolve in the water over the course of 24hrs. Appears to be no use by date on the tub which surprised me given they are meant to be live. We will see if it works.

What has been an issue is temperature. Fish were used to high teens, I have 4 degrees c. I floated the bag for as long as I could but the main tank chilled the bag fast and the fish did not look happy. So I switched on a aquarium heater in the the small sump tank and put them in there. They were still alive this morning albeit they didn't look happy. At lunchtime today I turned the pump back on to make sure there was plenty of oxygen, the heater has taken the temperature up to 9 degrees but fish still don't look happy.

It's pointless using such a small heater but I wanted to bring the temperature up a bit for the bacteria.

Edit:

Sorry meant to add that I am cracking on with my raspberry pi monitoring as well. Got it set up to capture a video feed and have received 5 temperature sensors from eBay. Just waiting for my wifi usb module to set it all up.

Dan