Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Howzit Guys, I've been working on a small system over the past month or two and would like some extra input to make it better.

Sorry for the poor image will try get a better one today also that one's about a week old.

At the moment It is using a timed flood and drain 15on/45off which is working well although the drain part seems to slow down due to partial clogging

There is a partition in the rear of the tank where the pump and venturi are and also acts like a sump, keeping the front part at a constant level, seemed a great idea at first but the rim flow effect created when the pump is on sometimes pulls a goldfish over to the back
I think the first mod I need to do is have a SLO where it goes through a hole in the partition instead of a rimflow and will do a bit of cleaning at the same time. As im sure when the system matures a bit there will be a lot of solids trapped in the gravel.

This system has been running for less than 3weeks and this morning got no readings for nitrite and nitrate, ammonia was at 1mg\l.
On the 29thSep readings were as follows - Nitrite 0,02mg\l
- Nitrate 10mg\l
- Ammonia - 1mg\l
I'm not sure if the system is cycled or not because its less than 3weeks of cycling??
Does anyone have any ideas??

Thanks Andrew











i was surprised this morning to see no nitrites or nitrates

Just some more info on the system.

4mm glass tank with partition
+- 60Litres Total water
Grow bed takes 15litres of expanded clay
+-4litres water to fill growbed.
Right now there's mint, basil,chives and sage, all doing ok under lights
5 small goldfish in from the start of cycling
Energy efficient lights ( 2 x 20w)- Plants
Small fish tank light - Fish Tank
I used 20mm pipes and fittings
800L\hr pump
20mm venturi
Frame made from aluminium square bar with moulded corners

Hi Spoja, I'm not clear on how you are going to incorporate the SLO because that would require that it flow to a lower level and it looks like your growbed is above the tank. I haven't quite figured out the sump setup either so hopefully the new pictures will help. Looks like the system is doing pretty well.

While it sounds like you have all the bacteria present that are needed to cycle the waste from Ammonia to Nitrite to Nitrate, it doesn't sound like you have them in numbers sufficient to keep up with the load from your fish yet so sort of cycled sort of not.

This is from the side, you can see the partition at the back that creates the sump, it works fairly well just the water level has to be right, too full and when the grow bed drains and goes past the partition fish can easily swim to the back, too little water and the venturi is exposed and pump is close to sucking air.
The SLO will drain to the sump and should help with solids and keeping fish out

A front view which shows the pump and pipe going up the back.

Hope u can see it better now Scotty

Wouldnt most of your solids end up in the gravel at the bottom of the tank ?

Nice pics. Would it work to add another piece of glass in front of the partition that's higher than the partition, goes almost all the way down to the bottom and all the way across - Like a SLO. Your water would still flow over the partition but it would suck the water and solids up from the bottom between the new and old partition. Only downside is it might be difficult to clean but you could just cover it to keep light off and hide it.

I would think so, the SLO would only be able to take up in the immediate area, i'm toying with the idea of having a piece of vinyl stuck to the outside bottom with printed gravel on it so it looks like theres gravel but not.

Thats a good idea Scotty will def try that when I build the next tank, the only thing is would the flow be strong enough to pull solids from the bottom over the back partition? Also might be safer than me drilling a hole in the glass

Probably depends on how wide the gap between the glass partitions is and how strong your pump is. The water will flow back from the growbed at the same rate as you are pumping it up there - as long as there is no bottleneck preventing it from happening. Most of the medium to fine stuff will probably go but not the really big or heavy stuff (you'll have to clean that up or wait for it to break down then stir it up - that's how it works for my SLO).