Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

BTW, I finally used up all the Bronze feed and they were out of it at the mill so I got Silver to fatten them up faster!
40% protein 10% fat versus 35% and 5% for the Bronze feed.

Took apart the dead pump, had a little strip of twine wrapped around the impeller. It's a bit loosey goosey but it should work fine enough for the plants.

What is up with the waterfowl? Front gold fish pond - dead bird. Back plant pond - dead bird.

You may be able to purchase a replacement impeller. Much cheaper than a whole new pump.

Really bad tempered gold fish and poisonous plants

JP, not a big deal they were only $40 anyway. This is noisy but I think it still pumps fine.

Stage 3: Complete.

I hooked up a new 240GPH pump for the plants today and started moving a little bit of fish water upstairs with a bucket. I guess I'll plant basil and lettuce as they grow fast. What plants are good for the end of the year as it get cooler? Peas, broccoli, spinach?

Solids and nitrates are out of control. I fished some of the floating poo out with a fish net, and may start doing that when they are being fed. The richer food doesn't seem to break down as cleanly as the rougher stuff.

To get a lot of exercise I guess I will try to move a couple buckets of water between the upstairs and downstairs at feeding time as well. While that is going on the grow light will be turned on - fish play time!

I am going to look at filtering out solids again somehow at the drain that goes into the sump. Right now the net basket is back there again, but that doesn't work very well. The fish net material works well to catch solids, maybe something like that. I have a bunch of scrubbies from the dollar store that could be put into the net basket but they are colorful and have a very plasticky smell...

Tore up my knuckle twice pulling the stand pipe out to adjust the height. That never happened with the siphons.

The AP god is not with you....put the siphon back to appease him

Hi Ell, one reason I'm doing the standpipe outside is because I don't really need the thing to be filled up constantly since it is not really working much as a biofilter but just a grow bed. I plan to only run a couple cycles during the night if at all for example.

Is there any data on when a plant does most nitrate removal? Like, is it mostly light or dark cycle stuff? If it were dark cycle I would want to circulate some during the night but if it were a daytime-only thing the pump could be off all night without negatively affecting nitrate removal...

The 70 gallon Rubbermaid is only for water aging, and maybe for duckweed later.

Sounds like plants only take up nitrogen during the day, at least for my purposes this sounds accurate enough:
http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/conte ... 49/321/721

Planted broccoli, peas, lettuce, cilantro, and basil.

Researching clarifier designs, ideally would have some kind of removable poo basket that I could transfer easily to the gravel upstairs.

Dave, I don't think it is the nutrient take up by the plants so much at night but the depletion of oxygen in the water...if the pump is turned off.

Forest lost a batch of SP due to oxygen depletion, when she started turning her pump of and not supplying an alternate aeration system.

So, if you turn off the pump, inject air and let the plants have the nutes all day

sounds like a song les

If you have too many nitrates, build an RSG filter.

Already have something like that JP, a sand column in one of the beds and a planter full of sand in the sump. Don't have a nitrate test but the water is still very yellow.

Are you running outside yet at this time of year dave?