Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

love the idea CG, but it would only really work with tank water. If you were on the grid and you spung a leak the auto topup would certainly maintain a level, but the fiah would probably die from chlorine and or temp..... (just as AM )

Think you missed the point Steve, the idea is if the fish water drops below a certain level then the float opens
and doesn't allow water to continue flowing to the grow bed (just returns to the fish tank) - have a look at the drawing on the previous page by CG

yep, missed it completely damn working 8 to 5 on a sat!


REVISED COMMMENT:

CG, bloody good idea!!!! A+

Thanks for the diagram CG... love the idea

yeh, i been coming up with lots of uses for float valves recently, there just as cool as the auto syphon!!!!!!!!!!!!!

......and float valves don't need to be large and cumbersome.

The floats used in small livestock waterers would be suitable for many purposes.

See.... http://shop.valleycountry.com.au/catalo ... ategory219

Those float valves would be ideal for AP Gary, easily mounted,
only minor concern is if there is any parts that will rust as it will be fully submerged (but that can be overcome with suitable replacement bits)

Toilet valves are good for this sort of purpose. I have an old one operating a automatic chook waterer. THe water recepticle is the old ceramic cystern :-)

Tommies are going NUTSO.

first one is ready to harvest and there are lots more to come.

Water is still very clear tan colour, but i seem to have quite a bit of fine suspended solids in the tank, any ideas? maybe i should have put some finer sand type substrate around the stand pipe instead of the ultra coarse scoria?

Steve - you could try running your water return through a couple layers of old socks. It would filter out some of the stuff. Or, you could just increase the water turnover through your main filters (your GBs), and see if that helps.

Steve

I have used old socks, scouring pads, teddy bear or cushion stuffing as filtration media, all work pretty well , high flow rates are good to actually lift the solids.

I have found that the airlift bucket filter systems containing river sand and / or pea gravel are amazingly efficient and can be easily retro fitted... I used a tiny one made out of a flower pot for a small aquarium and my friend has used a wheelie bin version for his massive koi pond.

In both cases supended solids were cleared up, water finely polished in 24 hours or so.

Steve any pics, I'm definitely a visuals man! Great to hear the tommie are doing well

By the way, I have a heap of window lace of course and fine fabrics if you wanted to make a post-growbed filter out of it (FREE of course). If any one else is interested your welcome. My mother-in-law owns a curtain shop in ballarat.

I used an old T-shirt for filtering out solids from the return water, if the water is pretty bad then whatever fine filter your using gets clogged very quickly..

cool, thanks for the ideas.

here are some pics!

My grow bed is officially at capacity

note that most of the growth has been with very little fish feeding, maybe every other day.