Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

They definitely don't do well on rain water, especially from above...

I filled the reservoir with fish water and mixed in Coco a and b, went alright until the rains messed them up. Our bore water is above a pH of 8, not so good for nutrient transfer.

At the moment they are under the carport and only get an hour of sunlight in the late afternoon and I have great chilli Anaheim and purple Cayenne growing in it, so I am looking forward to build the greenhouse with 50% light and 50% heat reduction poly carbonate sheeting.

The new pump is installed and working great, the ft level is up to the top of the emergency overflow pipe, had to open the air look on it as the overflow pipe was starting to syphon. That's not a problem as it would still stop above the previous tank level but it was creating a hell of noise by sucking air in.

I installed a modified inlet pipe (as per picture) which directs the water to create an even better water motion in the fish tank, finally the barra have to do some serious swimming to stay in one spot.

The inlets to the gbs are upsized from 13mm irrigation fittings to 19mm irrigation fittings and there is still water left to use on future beds. The beds are constant flow with an air stone underneath the inlet.

The inlet filters are already full of old root fragments which for washed out of the gbs, the water became a bit murky as well but that will help in the long run to keep the bed free of oxygen depleted zones.

The high pH test came back with a pale yellow, do it's under 7.6 and the low one between 7.2 and 7.6

Unfortunately there is another monsoon trough on the forecast with a couple 100mm rain over the next 7 days which means the salt adding is all for nothing...

By the way, the top hole in the pipe is the air relief, so it can syphon back in case the pump fails...

Big update...

New roof over the aquaponics, 4 more troughs sitting here ready to be connected, doubling the grow area...

Working on the walls...

Slowly getting there...

Does the poly carb sheeting still provide enough sunlight for good plant growth? I'm interested because I'm looking to build a new location for my setup and am worried about the wet season flooding out the grow beds. Currently I have them on my veranda but the wife isn't keen on my idea to add more grow beds in its current location


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Hello Nedsrest

This type of poly filtered 100% UV and 50% of heat and light intensity. Before that we used 70% black shade cloth. We had less heat stressed plants and there was no sign of to little sun. One side was open and I guess some UV got in by reflection of the ground.

That was our reason well, the wet season rains upset the water chemistry.

Cheers

Oliver

Tip... Don't try to walk on these sheets when you install them...

Here is some pictures of tomatoes and chilli plants grown under the cover.

Cheers