Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

More bad news. I was careless and dropped the thermometer into the tank and it broke releasing all the little weight balls to the bottom of the tank. I wasn't sure if they were lead or steel as I cant find either of my two extendable magnets... So in the end I had to tie a magnet onto an old snow brush I had laying around to reach the bottom of the tank. Fortunately as it turns out they are steel as the magnet pulled them out. Hurray!

In plant related news, one of the tomato cuttings seems to be doing ok, its reacting to the light and its not wilting. The other? Not so much, its wilting but it was a much weaker cutting so Im not overly surprised.

Howdy Folks,
Long overdue update from Eb's Garden....

Here's how I solved the steel balls in the tank from thermometer issue lol


After my last postings I have corrected the issue with the slope on the pipe from the growbed to the tank by cutting a couple inches off the bottom of the stand pipe (under the growbed).... Of course cutting the standpipe using a hacksaw created a leak, the silicon sealing the pipe came free so I had to completely drain the growbed out and seal it back up again.





Here's how she looks with the grow lights up:


One of the cuttings I stuck in to see how it would do...


A couple weeks later I had a surprise... A volunteer lettuce plant!


I had the grow light set for 300w even though they were 600w bulbs at first just to save some power/heat while the cuttings were getting established. I have only the one currently running as nothing much was planted. Unfortunately I paid the price a bit, the lettuce and tomatoes got a bit straggly



I turned the grow light up to 600w now and the new growth seems much happier



Still no fish at this point though, to feed the system up I was throwing in a bit of fish feed every few days and I found a 1/4 chunk of watermelon that had gone off in the back of the fridge so I threw that in the fish tank to add some food to the system Had to keep cleaning out the pump every couple of days because of the skin and seeds got caught in the filter screen. The system seemed to cycle up good though except for the siphon kept failing to trigger. I thought it was to do with the screen getting plugged but even after cleaning it out it still wouldn't trigger.... Its at this point I discovered the true meaning of head height I had thought it was pump height to max hose height but low and behold it is actually water level height to max hose height! So it was my fault for not topping off the water enough to trigger the siphon. Now that it was topped off enough I was able to get the siphon triggering reliably. The pump flow went from an estimated 100gal/hr to 200gal/hr

Here's a water test after things got flowing properly.

PH: 7.5-8ish (source water is about 8-8.5)
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 5-10ppm

If your wondering why there is no ammonia test that's because the store was out when I went kit shopping... Haven't been back to see if its in stock yet

Something I learnt not related to aquaponics was that it is possible to propagate aspen trees from cuttings so I thought I would give it a go with some cuttings my dad got... Of course he got more than I had pots for so I stuck some in the aquaponics to root them



After a few days the majority of them were showing signs of wilting or had dried out but a couple in the aquaponics were still looking good.



A week later much to my surprise.... A new shoot! on the cutting I thought least likely to survive due to its lack of leaves



Back on the main topic of aquaponics, things had gone well with the siphon triggering, the pump doing its thing, and the nutrients cycling so I thought it time to do the deed.... Add fish! I went and bought 5 koi (still haven't gotten around to getting a fish licence to have edible fish ) they have all survived the first 3 days but they are constantly running for cover the moment I get close. No picture of them yet seeing as they want to stay hidden.

The tomato plants are doing well though, 29 flowers either open or about to open within the next week or so. So if my pollination techniques work well I should be getting a decent harvest in the next couple of weeks


That's all for now!
P.S. for more frequent updates feel free to check my facebook page Eb's Garden!
Cheers!

Been a while since I posted, so time for a bit of a catch up.
None of the Aspen cuttings made it. Wasn't the best time of year to take the cuttings to be honest. Oh well it was good fun!
I bought a new pump for my system because of the screen getting plugged up all the time. The new pump was rated the same output but it wasnt enough to trigger the siphon so I had to run both pumps... Then after a couple weeks my original pump failed. Thank goodness I had the new one to keep the system alive. However it is stuck as a constand flood media bed currently which isnt great for the plants.
This has led me to the decision to do a complete rebuild of the system. Plans are being drawn up, and hopefully will be put into motion soon. A new fish tank, solids filtration, mineralization tank, and 3 new growbeds! Well technically only 1 new, the current grow bed will be split into two to allow for quicker cycles and smaller bell siphons. Also will be enclosing the aquaponics in a reflective material room and will be having direct ventilation to outside.
Will add some picture updates later.
Cheers all!

Just read and glad you are staying with it.

Suggestion, find a way to hang/secure some plastic around your fishtank/grow bed area to create a smaller footprint. I currently have a 1000w heater running about 20SF of growbeds FT/Sump inside of a high tunnel greenhouse. Running about 180 gallons and my water temperature is staying in the mid sixties to topping out around 73 late in the day. Test will be this morning for it is 17F this morning.

I am still getting tomoto production when previous years (dirt) ended the past couple of years back in September with drop in temperature for my area.

Overall footprint for the secodary greenhouse is about 50Sf inside of an 1100SF GH.

I am sure there will be a redesign in my system latter today when I start fiddling with it.

Keep at it!

Adam

Cheers Adam!
The plan is to put some reflective material around the aquaponics such as this:
https://www.incredigrow.ca/collections/ ... 00-39-roll
It has the added bonus of reflecting the currently lost grow light output back towards the system.
Im hoping it will help the system stay warm enough to keep tillapia but I wont get my hopes up too high just yet. Trout will be just fine too (if I can keep it cool enough during summer lol)

Well here we go. Plans are drawn. Would love to hear any feedback!


Cheers All!

Added another 500w heater to setup yesterday (1500w total). - 2F this am and the temperature inside the secondaey enclosure is 67F. Any blockage of air gaps will be a vast improvement.

Links dont want to work, so I'll have a look this evening when I get back home .

Well hello from what feels like the arctic circle! A week with windchill highs in the -30's!
So far the aquaponics has survived with the coldest temperature reading of 1.2 however the toughest temperature test is yet to come! The forecast is predicting a windchill of -40 tomorrow night! Yikes! I am hoping that the system can pull through without freezing but that will be a tall order at -40!
Here's hoping that they built my garage well!
http://weather.gc.ca/city/pages/ab-12_metric_e.html

Brrrr! Thanks for that post, the 32F (0 C) weather outside feels balmy now

So I'm looking at this layout and wondering if this is a de-coupled AP system? It looks like you will pump from the sump to the GBs and they return directly to the sump.

The FT flows through solids filters, to the ST and then back to the FT?

That should work as long as your sumps are large enough to capture all the water plus some extra for evaporation. What will be your bio-filter for the FT if not the GBs?

Sorry if I am being repetitive as I didn't read the whole thread.

Hi dstjohn,
It is a split flow system, sorry I didnt make that clear. The water flow goes from the pump (or pumps if I use 2 for redundancy) to a tee then half goes to the growbed, half to the fish tank... growbeds drain to the sump while the fish tank drains through the slo, solids filter (may or may not include depending on how the next bit works out), then through an aerated inline mineralization tank, which flows to a settling tank which overflows into the sump. Well thats the theory anyway!

todays temp here is 24 Celcius aaahh perfect.

Well a kink in the plans has come forward... its known as the local government. They have officially banned all livestock in the city. That includes all swimming versions also. Now to decide what to do. Bow downto big brother or ignore the ban.... Not sure what Ill do yet.

I looked around for some article about this but without any luck. Might check the source of your information and see where they got it - hopefully they're mistaken.

Straight from the hourses mouth so to speak.
https://www.airdrie.ca/getDocument.cfm?ID=4384

All animals kept for agricultural purposes (except cats,dogs,and other typical pets) are banned unless part of the Urban Agriculture trial or approved by city manager. Areas zoned as farmland are exempt from that ban but I am fully in the city.

In other news: Another extreme cold warning for tonight. Forcasted windchill of -42c.