Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Good to see psycho..... although these days I tend to support the Swans, my original loyalties belong with Hawthorn... indeed as part of the then VFL's "fostering" of Rules within NSW the Dapto Hawks club, which I played in for many years, was adopted and sponsered by Hawthorn....

Have many memories of player development weekends spent under the tutorlege of the greats like "Lethal Leigh", "Dipper", "Dunstall ", "Dermie" and "Platten"

Also was fortunate enough to to have scored tickets to the '89 GF through our allocation via Hawthorn.... so I know what you're saying

Myself though.... I can't stand Collingwood......

lol rope im with ya....I being a true richmond supporter only follow em when they're winning...which isnt often.....but I took great delight in them beating collingwood

Who can (apart from Eddie )

Who can stand Eddie - other than Collingwood??

I have just come to the realisation that I am playing aquaponics whack-a-mole!

What is whack-a-mole? It is that game where these little moles appear through holes and you hit them with mallets. As you hit on, another appears.

The only variation with my version of the game is that rather than moles, I am encountering problems. When I manage to hit one problem on the head, another one appears.

For example.....

Because I have not yet netted the tank, the birds have been using it as a bath. The Carrawongs (excuse spelling) have been using it a lot. Because of the current fruit that the currawongs are feeding on has lots of seeds, they have been getting into the water. These seeds have been sucked up by the pump and siphoned down the pipes to the grow beds.

Now, this should not have been a problem as I have drilled holes that are large enough so that the seeds should have flushed right through onto the growbeds. What I didn't realise was that the taps that I had added to the pipes to control the flow have filters in them and the seeds were getting stuck in them, blocking the pipes.

To solve the problem, I purchased filters for the lines to stop this debris from getting into the taps. That mole hit!

Unfortunately the filters were too fine. They reduced the flow considerably. As a result, they clogged up too quickly. The end result was not enough water flowing to to fill the grow beds. I realised that when I get fish this would become a bigger problem. So I purchased flywire screening to replace the filters with. Next mole hit!

Unfortunately the flywire screen was overlapping when installed so it also ended up clogging up. The solution as to sew the flywire screen into tube shapes. The was supposed to prevent the overlapping. Unfortunately with the amount of debris flowing into it I was forced to empty it daily. So, in the end I had to remove the filter. Then Occums Razor kicked in and i realised that I was filtering at the wrong end. The end solution was to add the flywire screen at the intake of the pump. When the pump is running, any of these rogue seeds are sucked up against the flywire screen. As soon as the pump stops, the seeds sink back down away from the pump. Next mole hit.

I noticed today that my grow beds were not filling again. I tried flushing the pipes. No, still not filling. Maybe the pump is not pumping enough water. No, the overflow pipe is overflowing which indicates that the water is flowing enough. So, what was it. Turns out that the flywire screen was causing the water being pumped to be too aerated. The end result was that the pressure down the pipes was reduced by all the air getting into the pipes. So, I extended the inlet pipe so that it was not in the bubble stream. Now the beds are filling! Next mole hit.

Now I am waiting for the next mole to appear!!!

You may read this and think that I am down, or frustrated or depressed. Not at all. I have built this system to learn, and I am learning so much at the moment. I love it.

I can't wait to get home from work each day to see how it is going and if there are any new problems.

I will be getting fish soon. A new raft of moles will no doubt appear with their arrival.

Yippee!!!!!

another addict

Jaymie, I became an addict when I visit Joel in Perth......

What's ya point exactly Simon ???

.... all sounds pretty normal to me

Good to see you're enjoying the journey Simon... and by the sound of it you're well on the way to stocking the system....

Did you guys get lots of rain over your way last week?

No real point ROZ.

I know that I am not Robinson Crusoe on this. Just wanted to share my love and enjoyment of what has become my real passion and obsession.

As for rain, heaps of rain over the last week. Not as extreme as SE QLD. Not much flooding here. Only constant rain...

I have not tested the ammonia levels but I suspect that there will be little or no ammonia or nitrates as the tank has been overflowing consistently for the last week.

Still, I don't begrudge the rain.

Well Simon, it looks like you are getting some of the technical stuff sorted out. That seems to be the way most of my projects go, lots of little bugs to work out before everything works the way you had intended for it to. Just keep on plugging at it!
Kevin

It's great that you are working out the "bugs" and "hitting the moles" before you get your fish. It's better than losing fish right off.

Well, my system has finished cycling and has some nice growth of lettuce, tomatoes, eggplant, spring onions, cucumber, zucchini and rocket.

I went to see the fish man on the weekend to get some SP and typical for my luck, there was none! Apparently I have to wait a month or two to wait for them to start spawning.

So in the end I purchased approx 80 feeder fish (not the goldfish but a smaller fish - not sure what it is though).

The plan is to get some SP (10 to 15) when they are available and place them in with the feeder fish. As they get bigger they will no doubt eat the ff which will not be a great loss.

Anyway, I put the ff in the tank yesterday and apart from a couple of dead fish which got stuck on some shade-cloth which I had temporarily placed over the tank they seem to be happy enough. Anyway, now that I have thought about it it is probably better for me to start with these ff as if they don't survive then there is really no loss as I have no expectation with these ff.

I will keep you informed as to how these guys go.

Simon

Great to have an update Simon... and to here it's all working for you.

Any chance of some pictures?

Simon, you may be pleasantly surprised, the SP are quite kind to other fish