Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Might have to come and check it out when I have your loan tank empty and ready for return (and you are free of course)

Go the continuous flow

I'm not going to push, you'll come round in the long run... there's already second thoughts creaping in...

We will see - only the AP gods know

Thought fish tank was a bit on the nose today - didn't think much of it until tonight I thought I should do some tests. Ammonia and nitrite are up - both between .5 & 1. To be safe - I went back out and turned the pump on. Better with cold fish than sick fish at this stage. I gave them some food fairly late today and am not sure it all got eaten and/or taken out of the tank to the grow-bed. Don't want the ammonia and nitrite levels to rise overnite because of no pumping. This is all because of the siphon not working well over the last couple of days. It has resulted in inefficient conversion of wastes.

Get that smile off your face Joel

amazing how you can pick by the smell once you are a seasoned ap'er, huh?

tested dads water 4 hours after the 4 handfulls of food. ammonia 0.5 (will proly rise more by morning) but the smell was distinctly different to beofre i put the fish in.

Tell ya what, the nose of a pregnant woman cant be beat! Get reets preggers and you see how she will smell things way before you even suspect something is about to go off... (hmm, well, maybe not tonight )

seems like a raw deal, for 9 months of ammonia testing.

LOL - but then you will have your very own apprentice to train in the sacred ways of BYAP
(and KY will help with that raw-ness

Fixed the siphon. After stuffing around with different siphons and changing airpipe postions etc - I bit the bullet and did what I shoudl have done from the start. I chucked a tap on the hose that feeds the tank from the pump and reduced the waterflow a bit. Everything works fine now. As the biofilm builds up (I cleaned all the pipes a week or so ago which has contributed to the issue) then I can turn the tap on a bit more as the bioflilm will reduce the flow also.

All is good - back on track and I love my autosiphons again/still

score one for auto sipohons!

Spoke a bit too soon - bloody thing still not working, must have just fluked one. I have reduced the size of the hole now and will cross my fingers. It friggin sucks. Writing is on the wall - I need to make the siphon bigger.

Thought you were going to say 'Joel is right'

Fixed for sure now. Made the hole half the size of what it was. Siphon now very reliable.

You're as bloody minded about them as me - Joel just has to whisper "convert back" and I can hear the low rumble emitting from Bunya way building into a thunderous roar

One day I will have to list the reasons why I will be going siphons in my big system. I think they outweigh the disadvantage - of which there are a few.