Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Great Rons
As long as it wasn't a painful experience
Cheers

Hi Jamie,

Wow! You have put a lot of effort into your eBook - nice work.

Tell me, what sort of flexible pipe are you using on your overflow?

Thanks Scottie
I walked into a local hydroponics/pump shop in brisbane with a sample of 25mm PVC pipe. They had a whole selection of flexible corrugated piping used in irrigation circles, and I just tried them all until one fitted snugly into the pipe. That was it. They then ran out of that so next I used a more rigid washing machine type hose. Not as good but it does the job.

Hi Jamie - how about an update on your system.

Hi VB,
download my eBook and find out all about it

Things are coming along really sweet at the moment. I've got 10 growbeds now with about 3,000 litre of gravel. So with my 10,000 litre tank I am severely below the accepted ratio of 2:1 (gravel to water).
I have been struggling to keep up with the ammonia output of the fish - had 6 die recently because my stuffing around with the beds and the relative water flows. The ammonia level got up to "lethal". Its now at "harmful", but the Jades don't seem to mind
Of my original 200 Jades I must have around 180, with the occasional individual deaths during winter when the water temp was 15C.
I really need more beds. But the plants are going crazy with the high levels of nutes. Heaps of all kinds of fruits. veggies fruits - toms, cucs, beans, eggplant, capsicum + all the various leaf veggies.

My fish are just about ready to start eating. Just building a huge net and plan to drop it in tomorrow to pick out the biggest. I will take some photos when I do.

I borrowed a mates smoker the other day and smoked some Basa (freshwater fish from vietnam). I managed to over-smoke it but very tasty if you like kippers (I do). So my mind is on smokers again at the moment.
So VB - did you get to do some smoking over christmas?
I mean fish

The problem with coming to this website is there is so much to read and not enough time to do it. But I hope to do some catching up soon.
I need more material for my book

Hi Jamie,

Some suggestions for your eBook - ignore at will.

page 47: did you mean 5 *cm* fingerlings? 5mm is tiny.
page 47: description of ratios is confusing - I can't follow it.
page 63: surely you mean 25mm pipe, not 250mm pipe ... that's a BIG pipe!
page 63: why are long drain cycles better? how do you "block up" holes?
page 66: Again, measurements are out by an order of magnitude in several places. (400mm PVC pipe ... WOW!!! )
page 67: s/250/25/
page 68: That seive looks familiar. My back hurts just looking at it!
page 69: do you have a problem with algae given that water is flowing over surface of gravel?

I think it is worth mentioning that some types of PVC pipe are
not suitable for AP - specifically, those that have a foam layer.

Just my 2 cents.

Hi Scottie - thanks for that
Just the sort of feedback I'm looking for.
I'll fix up all those things!

With regards to algae - don't have a major problem. There is some on some beds but its not a major issue, probably because they are usually heavily covered with veggies Have other people had major issues with algae?

Foam layer on PVC piping? I have never seen it? Where do you get it - never seen it in Bunnings.

The fingerlings should have been 25mm - they were small.

The longer drain cycles? Well, in my opinion they are better for a couple of reasons - the oxygenation is mostly occuring in the large surface area of the gravel as water and air permeate slowly through it. And the bacteria will also benefit from the slow movement of water and air - the conditions would be ideal for them.
When I say longer drain cycles I also say that they need to fit within the off cycle of the timer (assumed to be 15 mins). So I don't mean Looooong cycles
Now I have no scientfic data to support that, so its open to debate.

Hi Jamie,



Interesting. I'd read that this was something I needed to consider, but no point over-engineering if I don't need to.



Read this thread: http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum ... php?t=2005

I did smoke some fish a month or so back - had Les over for lunch. Went well for a first effort. I erred on the other side to you.

Well if its not pssing down with rain again tomorrow i'll have a go at smoking some Jades:)

Scottie - just checked out that link about foam filled PVC pipe.
Never seen it.
I have been concerned by what kinds of chemicals might leach out from PVC. But I am less concerned after looking at what happens to the inner surface of the pipes after a while. They get covered with a biological film which I'm sure actually seals away most potential contamination.
after all I've read about the huge amounts of contaminants we have everywhere on this planet - even the apparantly pristine snows in antarctica are full of chemicals - I think its a small worry.

But yes - you are right - I wouldn't like to use the stuff you're talking about. Reading the article - they don't really care what recycled crap goes into the pipe as long as its rigid.

Jamie - it is often hard to pick the foam core stuff. The core is often exactly the same colour as the outer and inner part of the pipe. I can almost guarantee that the stuff you would buy from B right now is foam core stuff. Not such an issue for using the pipe intact, but not good if drilling holes for standpipes and stuff. Need to be carefull what you recommend when you are providing the advice commercially - wouldn't want your arse sued.

I'll have a closer look today. It must be a bloody very fine layer if its not easily visible.

Well, today is the big day. Gonna finish my big net and catch me some Jades to eat. I'll take some photos.

Today I updated my website so that if you download the Home Aquaponics eBook you can get updates forever. Since the book is going to expand over time (80 pages at the moment) that should be a good incentive to buy it! (when I turn on PayPal- Right now its free for testing purposes).

I just added a link to a quite scary video on Global warming.

Check it out - on the front page at http://www.greenoz.info

How does the site look?
I designed it at 1440 x 900?

A couple of the images on the front page are broken. I think it has something to do with the %5C in the filename. ie. images%5Cscookersmall.jpg

(Using firefox browser on Linux.)

Otherwise, very good.

Thats strange - it looks ok to me on IE7.
The path is images/scookersmall.jpg
I wonder why its converting the "/" to a %5c (which is the escaped version).
hmmm