Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Woot, Woot... Nitrites are at zero, Ammonia is at 0.25ppm and Nitrates have dropped to zero too. Fed my fish for the first time in nearly 3 weeks today (thought it would be a perfect opportunity to swap to floating pellets) but nothing. They didn't seem to be interested.?.? Will they come to the surface to eat when they are hungry enough?

Nangkita rd, Mt Compass, just follow the signs off the victor rd.

Went & had a look couple of months back ....private residence that also sells Deer. From memory I think they wanted about $60 kg & not sure if they sold little ones (I was looking at getting breeders, so didn't ask).

Cool Cheers SuperD2.

I got mine from KI for $20/animal at 18-24mth age. Apparently perfect for breeding. Do you know how to sex them?

OK so have started playing with the solar upgrade

After visiting my local battery shop and doing some research online i have come up with the following:


Total AC Load:

2x80W, 240v pumps running constantly for 24hrs/day.

160W x 12hrs = 1,920W

Allowing for 85% inverter efficiency (value found online) total AC load is 1,920 / 0.85 = 2,259W


Required Solar Input:

2,259W / 6hrs (average daylight hours for Adelaide,SA) = 376.5
376.5 * 1.4 (cant remember what this number was for) = 527.1W

I have access to 240W Solar Panels and based on the above values would need 3 connected in parallel.


Solar Regulator:

The panels i am planning to use have a shout circuit current of 8.47A per 240W panel. This gives me a total of (3 * 8.47) 25.41A. Allowing for a 25% over current buffer i end up with a value of (25.41 * 1.25) 31.76. Therefore the minimum rating of my regulator must be at least 32A.


Inverter:

2 x 80W pumps = minimum of 160W.


Battery bank:

Amp-Hours required = [{(Total Load * Days without sun) / System Voltage} / percentage max. battery draw (0.7)] * Battery efficiency loss (90% = 1.1).

This gives me a value of 252Ah based on the fact that i will be running a 12v system with a backup of 1 day. Therefore i would need nearly 3x 100Ahr batteries and 3x 240W solar panels to run my 2x 80W pumps.



I have not worked with solar before so if anyone is able to verify my calculations or let me know where i have gone wrong that would be awesome.

Not sure the wife would approve....would recommend lots of lube ....Harhar!!!

Just found this website

http://informedfarmers.com/marron-production-and/

Some good info.

Can't help with the solar... But looking the goods .... Be interested to know the final costing & how long to recoup the $, once off the grid.

Cheers for the info. It's the first document i have been able to find with Marron specific information. Still have no idea how to sex them, mine look completely different to those blurry pictures

Have attached some pics if anyone out there can see something i cant.?!

Gave the solar a test -

Went and bought:

1 x 100Ahr battery (AU$269)
1 x Solar charge controller (AU$39.95)
1 x 300W inverter (AU$69.95)

I had the 240W solar panel left over from when i put solar on the shack so no cost there


Hooked it all up and left it running for a few days with a 10W air pump. All seemed to be working fine. Battery was draining and charging nicely. Decided to hook up a second 10W air pump. Again, after a few days of continuous running all was still good with the system. Then being the dumb @$$ that i am - i took the two air pumps off and connected the 80W pump... well... it didn't like that at all. within a few hours it is emitting a high pitched squeal that was enough to wake half the neighborhood (i was doing my testing at night - as you do). So after going over the calcs again i have determined that i need more panels, a new (bigger) charge controller and more batteries to make this work...

All 3 images are females

Thanks Charlie. How about these - a little blurry i know but they keep moving when i try to take the photo

boy
girl
boy

Charlie your a legend. Thanks


Gonna re-look over the pics again and try to see the differences myself for future stock.

Think i may have killed my bacteria

I added approx 200Lt of tap water to the sump approx a week ago and within a few days all my counts were at zero. Now my Ammonia level is slowly climbing. It has been sitting at about 1.0ppm for 2 days now with no change in nitrites or nitrates. Plants and fish still doing well. Stopped feeding the fish when i fist noticed the ammonia climbing.

Anyone else had this issue before? Is it because of the chlorine in the tap water? Think i am back at square one...

200L wont hurt.

What are your stock levels Timbo

Make sure none of those marron have karked it or dead fish in your pipes etc

I have approx 35-40 silver perch fingerlings (approx 3-5cm) in the FT and 6 marron (adult) in the ST. All are well and accounted for that i can see and checked the pipes - they are all clear too.

My readings leading up to and during the crash:

My nitrates & trites sat at 0 for a couple of weeks after cycling with ammonia hovering somewhere between 0 & 0.25..... Maybe it hasn't crashed & your plants are sucking up all the nitrates...just a guess ??

As I was writing that, it got me thinking... Where do you take your test water from?

I have always taken samples from the water pumping into the FT.... My thinking that this would give the best idea of water quality (after it has been filtered through the grow bed)

As you know only a newbie like yourself so just putting it out there! : )