Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Yeah my pleco has been doing a bit of damage too. I am also a bit suspect on my bristlenose eating the stems of some of my plants.

The cherries are going good. They are loving the moss! It is a constant battle with the moss keeping the pump clear and the filter unclogged but i like the look of it and the cherries go mad for it. I am slowing getting it all planted with live plants. You gave me an awesome kick start i think.

That is a massive size for your trout. Makes me think i might be underfeeding a bit... I bet your cull tasted good

I find the bristlenoses dont do too much damage to the plants if they are well fed. The plants that do suffer the most are the swords if they get a bit peckish. The Anubis nana and the java fern are indestructable. If you want any more plants let me know.

The moss is a pain with the intakes of pumps. I have had to put a foam cover on the intake for my Ehiem canister filters to keep it out.

The trout were going through about 700gms of food a week and I only feed once or twice a day. Some days they arn't interested in feeding.
even with 5 beds and only 28 trout and hardly feeding the perch (only a tablespoon every 2 or 3 days) I was struggling to keep the ammonia below 0.5ppm.

I woke up today to find the sump overflowing and the main tank half empty. Thankfully I had installed a float switch on my main pump to prevent a complete loss of water. Found out the float switch on the 3 month old Grundfos pump in the sump had stopped working. A quick call to BYAP found that they don't have any replacements in stock but EB saved the day and I now have it up and running again. Thanks so much EB you were a real life saver
Problem is that I can't find the receipt for the pump . I have receipts for everything including my first bag of food i bought from BYAP but not the one for the pump. I'm sure it is around somewhere, but if not it can't cost too much too fix.

But it gets worse - before I headed off to BYAP i disconnected all my 12v backup and left only the 12v pump in the sump working to move the water back to the main tank. I thought I was being real clever. When I got home the sump tank was overflowing and the main tank half empty - again . This time the 12v float switch did not cut in. That too is only 4 months old but I have a receipt for that!!

So in the end it was all good as I now will have a back up pump (when it is fixed) so a quick change gets me running again while I sort out any pump failure.

I know that float switches on the main pump are recommended (and are still going cheap at Creative Pumps) but until you experience that HSM you don’t fully appreciate the need.

I now have a complete 12v back up that replicates the 240V system, float switches on all pumps (incl 12v) and backup pumps. (and all have been used in the last 12 months) The only thing I don’t have is a backup for the backup

Many good things come from these failures.... glad to see you back in buisness and no fatalities.

Thanks Charlie, you're right there is always a silver lining, even if it is learning something new.

I was always going to get a second pump, just needed something to get my procrastinating butt into gear.

And the big ++++ goes to Joel and BYAP with their outstanding customer service (again!!). It's a rare thing these days.

The irony is that after all this effort to keep the buggers alive I'm going to kill them.

Well it must be one of my other fish then... Keeps chewing on the stems of the plants...

You are hammering the feed into them!!! You feed more in a week than i do in a month. I have fed probably 1/2kg in a month. Although part of that has to do with taking it easy on my GB to start with

Good work on saving the day too mate. I really must get a float switch....

You can prevent pumping dry by incorporating an upside 'U' in the suction and drill a breather hole, so if the water level gets to the top of the U the pump will lose suction. OBOs design, not mine, but it works brilliantly and is much cheaper and simpler than float switches.

Sent from my GT-S5830T using Tapa.!talk 2

Hi Bunson, top idea but I'm not so sure how practical it would be with one of the dirty water pond pumps that many of us use as it would require the dismantling the pump cage to connect an inlet pipe. I think from memory OBO is using a different type of pump so a hole in the inlet would be the way to go as you suggest.

Mine is a "dirty water" pump (purchased at BYAP) It's very simple to remove the outer shell and attach a suction piping system.



Excuse the water quality, I have been ripping out plants and planting out new ones so have disturbed some of the solids from the GB. A few hours of pumping and that will clear up, back to normal.


Scott

Love it Bunson. Now that is simple and effective

What size holes are in the inlet, how long is the inlet and what size pump. Oh and what size pipe? How easy was it to attach the suction pipe to the inlet?

I would imagine that it would have a much greater capacity to extract the mulm in the tank as well.

The total length of the suction inlet was the exact same length of 25mm PVC I had laying around!

The inlet to the pump has a "standard" fitting, so attaching the pipework to the pump was not problematic.

I cannot remember all the numbers I used at the time, but for drilling the holes in the suction piping, it went something like:
The internal diameter of the pump inlet is 30mm so has an area : pi * 15 * 15
The pump is able to handle solids up to 6mm, so I used a 6mm drill bit which creates a hole : pi * 3 * 3

To make the total area of the holes the same as the area of the pump inlet I needed 225pi/9pi = 25 holes, then added just a few more to account for friction losses etc.

The breather hole in the top of the 'U' is also 6mm.


Scott

Thanks Scott, appreciate the help. All makes sense. I should be able to make something up with the bits I have laying around so I dont have the pump off line for too long.

Cheers
Marc

Wipped this baby out on Friday afternoon!

The last one that I pulled out (euthanased) on 22 May was only 250g (Check out above for the pictures). 10 weeks later and they are up around 600- 750+ gms




I've only had them on the 7mm pellets for about 2 weeks and already the flesh is getting pinker.




Looking forward to eating the rest of them.

Why is it that the biggest fish are the fastest ? or is it that they are the biggest fish because they are the fastest

The fish is in the same plastic tray as the one I pulled out 10 weeks ago. Interestingly it is not much longer but is significantly heavier (its all the steriods in the 7mm pellet)

Hi Ryan, finally managed to get a shot of the current Pleco. That dude sure was hard to photograph. As soon as the pre flash flashes when off so did he/she. Getting close was a challenge. If I stood to the side of the tank where I feed them he/she was ok, but as soon as I moved in front off it went. The cat runs on, and around the tank and the pleco does not move, but if I move too close its history. Still they are great to watch... from a distance.





PS I can't believe how dirty the front glass is. It does not show up when you look at it but is very clear when taking a photo.