Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

looking great mrBill!

Looks like I'll be having lots of time to work on my AP system.

Finally went out on long-term disability. Good thing I made the aisle in my GH 4' wide. Maybe I am the only one with a GH that is handicapped accessible? LOL.

And it looks like I won't be washing any gravel. Reckon I'll let it cycle itself before adding any fish. Almost ready.

Long term but temporary?

Gardening should be easier AP style as long as you can reach all parts of the bed. I have some trouble reaching the far end of my beds (& that's standing up).

As an aside, I'm on a Great Pyr list and quite a few people with mobility issues use them. Takes a little training but I've read some nice stories.

Nope. Long term till death do I welcome. (Old injury from 15 yrs ago is coming back to haunt me). Will walk (and work) around with a walking stick for a while until winter gets here then hibernate like a bear so I don't have to deal with cold weather. LOL.

Just worked with the tractor in the dirt garden making "raised beds" with a 4' wide path between the rows. Hopefully the chickens don't see it as their own playground and wreck the rows with their scratching.

Made a 14' long X 3' wide raised bed with 2X8's left over from our old house. 4' aisles around that as well. Set it up in an area where eventually we will have a huge fish tank buried in the ground. Planning for the future - right now. The future is coming faster than I imagined, eh?

Have a line on some large trash can type containers probably about 35 gallon size or so. These things are made of some real thick PVC material. They give them away out the back of the warehouse that makes them, guess they are seconds or something. Shoot yeah, I'll take them. Load me up.

In the existing, still unfinished dammit, greenhouse I am working on loop siphons for those growbed barrels. We'll see how it goes.

CJ, check out our farms website. We have the GP dogs that guard the goats, but they don't like me. Most dogs don't. Must be the body chemistry. Or that's what I've been told. Interesting.

How many dogs do you have? I have 3 LGDs.

Have you tried treats? I know they can be indifferent to treats - mine will often take a treat and then put it down on the ground so they can inspect it more carefully. Like I was going to poison them or something!

Only one of my dogs is a full Pyr & it took him the longest to warm up to everyone. He will take treats & likes a little petting but refuses to come into the house.He seemed offended when I offered him a turkey foot at harvest time.

Got one of my loop siphons working on one of my beds. Just wanted to see it work. Cool!

oopsy, forum won't allow mp4 videos. Looks like I'll have to get a YouTube account.

Loop siphon video. Kinda rough, but you get the picture of how far I have come and how far there is yet to go. Need to figure out how to embed these things.

Messed around out in the GH. Found that the loop siphons have to be tight - as in no air leakage around the fittings. Was just trying it out anyway to make sure it worked.

Put together some fittings for spray bars for the grow beds, drilled the holes for said spray bars, ran out of time, energy, and painkiller. Won't allow myself to get addicted to those things.

On a side note, have (had) a 300 gallon black stock tank buried in the ground that I had pumped water out of. Was going to work with it to attach it to the one inside the GH -the blue tank. Then it rained for three days. Yeah well, the tank was actually floating out of the hole. Interesting. Good thing it wasn't hooked to anything. Might have been a mess. Made it easy to get it out and move it anyway.

Gotta look on the bright side.

I think it was Outbackozzie who had a really big tank that floated (if you search there are some good pics).

BTW, I decided against the loop syphons & went with a timer. Seemed like too much trouble. In last place in the BYAP Trials too.

Well, you might have something there. made another loop siphon and can't get either one to work now. have to do some more research before I go another route. Hate to waste the fittings and the holes are in an awkward place for any other use.

I saw OBO's tanks when he posted them. Lots easier to fix my small tank. I believe he used a crane to offload his from the transport!!!. Not quite that far yet in my AP system.

Video of inside my GH. Warn you though, it's rough. And I still haven't finished the greenhouse roof.

Hey

have you ever thought about using my overflow siphon?

works great, and where you locate it is where the max water height is...

I think I have a layout in my thread

JT

You are currently at 54 pages. Which page are they on? I see you are good at taking pics to log your processes. And you take your time to get it right, not rush through things.
Working on your thread...

Searching this forum, found a bunch of info, most said the bloody loop siphons don't work all that well. Would still like to know what I was doing wrong though. Don't like to fail and not know why.

I just made 6 stand pipe siphons for my GB's. Ran out of energy, not PVC parts. Couldn't do the last 2 GB's. Just sat there with the parts in my hand trying to find the energy to finish. Blast.

The ones that I did build, the siphons worked great. Held my palm over the outside pipe and could feel the suction. Very cool. Using cheapo test plugs for the tops of the siphon pipe. If they don't work out, I'll buy some proper end caps.

Slight problem though. Was listening for the siphon to kick in and heard a trickling of water where it shouldn't have been. Turns out I overfilled my FT cause I was so involved with getting the siphons to work! Oops.

Thanks all who post to this forum. The good and the bad. Pics are always helpful. Speaking of which, please be careful and don't drop your picture phone into the water. It ain't pretty.