Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

vb, been running some tests on not pumping water through the grow beds overnight.

My water temp dropped to 19c one morning so switched off circulation through GB and temp minimum was 22c, this morning (after overnight cloud cover) 24c - SP in eating frenzy.

So it does make a big difference and my future barra will still be pack'n on the pounds

yeah, you guys should really have a go at the barra. They grow really fast if you can keep them warm like that. Mine are feeding steadily with water temp now averaging 20 degs, but I can't imagine their AFCR being too great.

We have been lucky that the temps have been so mild so far. It is abnormal. I will be very interested to see what temps I can maintain as things get colder - I think I will be in trouble. Should be right once I get a greenhouse and put the tanks in the shed. Will do this by next winter (famous last words).

hmmm... I do remember a lot of similar "gunna do's" from last year

Vb I want to run my large system the same as your 1000ltr system with 8 growbeds (same as EKB'S) and a 2300ltr sump. Can you give me any advice/info on how to do this. Tank is about 3000ltrs, fish density based on 2500ltrs, growbeds about 4200 ltrs, water needed to flood gravel filled beds about 2000/2500lts, sump 2300ltrs buried, one pump in sump back to tank. The tanks is gravity feed to gb's same as yours.

Thanks

Aussieponic

So you worked out your air spaces for the growing media your using AP?

The figures look like it's cutting it fine... Any chance you could increase the sump tank a bit..? Coz the way thoise figures look, your gunna have an almost empty sump for some of the time... I guess what may make a difference is if you are planning on using siphons or standpipes.. I would thing that with siphone in the GBs you may have a chance of running your sump almost dry... May not be quite as bad with standpipes, but I'm still guessing to an extent..

EB I was thinking of standpipes. I will be useing the same grow beds as EKB he has posted that the water volume needed for each bed is about 200/250lrs. The sump and the tank would be full before flood and drain began. I was planning on the sump putting back to the tank as the drain cycle began. what do you think? how would you go about it?
don't want to hijack VB'S thred. Go to my thred and lets talk.
AP

VB your moniker is prolly the give away, but i still have to ask: when is someone at ur joint gunna eat a fish?

TT - my Jades are certainly plate size now (at over 500 grams), but I've been a bit slack getting my shit together to buy the new set of fingerlings. Int he meantime, the fish will get to survive and feed the grow-bed.

A quick update:

All is good. I pulled the sunflowers out last week, having finished blooming. The fruit on the paw paw are slowly getting bigger. I have masses of fruit on the tomato plants. The biggest plant would have at least 50 fruit on it. Had harvested most of the lettuce so planted a new batch last weekend. Heaps of fruit on chilli plants. I pulled the cucumber plant out a while ago because it was stuffed (hit hard by bugs). I sprayed all the plants with BT 2 weeks ago. At the time I had heaps of caterpillers and was worried they would get my toms. BT cleared up the caterpillers very promptly. The fish are all good. Night time temps are getting fairly low here. The tank is getting down to about 17 by morning and get back up to about 20 by night. The fish are still feeding so all is good at the moment. At this stage I am still running the pump to the grow-bed at night, but may need to stop this soon to reduce temperature loss.

VB any pics of your toms?

AP

I'll try to take some on the weekend. It's always a bit hard to get a decent shot because the trusses tend to sit amongst all the vegetation. Will do my best though.

As promised - here are some pics of the toms. I took pics of heaps of different trusses, but they all look pretty much the same so here are just a few:

and here are a couple of other pics of the system taken today:

Looking good VB amazing stuff.

AP