Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I was wondering about the stands, you will have about 200kg of water for starters, you may have problems when the timber gets wet
But great looking setup

Couldn't tell what type of timber you have used in the first pic, but I would be more concerned about it weather rotting then suddenly collapsing.

Yeah, I would probably try to beef up the stand a little.. Scoria isn;t lighter than hydroton is it? With the expanded clay I reckon your looking at around 200kg for 500L, then 200L of water, so about 400kg. I thought Scoria would be a lot heavier...

The timber is treated pine and painted so should take a long time to rot.
Hey, if I could weld to save my life they would have been metal, but I cant.

Will bolt 4 more legs on them. Also had an idea that I could drape black builders plastic over them, keeping the stands dry and giving me a dark area for mushroom boxes. Did this with shade cloth under the growbeds in the greenhouse and the mushies are doing great.

What size outlet pipe do people gernerally use for the autosyphons in these beds. I was thinking 32mm standpipe and outlet or would a 25mm do the job ok??

I'm a qualified light fabricator (a sheety) I'll come over and weld ya up a frame if I can find the time. Us be supprised if you find a small shop like ours over there you'd get one knocked up cheaply. I built my ibc tank stand from 40x40x2.5 gal rhs with 120mm 3mm plate gussets it's holdin 750l of water 800mm off the ground and is solid as!! But I'm sure if ya timber frames are built strong and are gusseted right (strength comes in triangles) they will stand up to the job as long as they don't rock.

I used a 25mil standpipes (standard BYAP issue ), with a 50mil bell and 40mil drain pipes.

My beds drain in about 2 minutes so 25mil standpipe is probably big enough.

Cool thanks, that will save me buying a new hole bit

Tried two times to reply here and got logged out when adding a third pic

Heres the sump tank
Its 1000L oval tub 500mm deep

Decided not to use wooden growbed stands and go for concrete blocks and redgum planks instead
Pics maybe tommorw weather permiting

nice work manto!

Looking like a serious system good to see

Weather has turned crappy so cant get out there.

But I have got a homebrew going in the shed

seen the rain on the radar coming over here from ur way... could have kept it urself!!!!

hahaha least my water tank is full again tho

time to look into the home brew i'd recon u could play with that whilst holding a handfull of stitches