Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi all,

Finally making some progress with the initial water filter for my rooftop AP setup. Hooray!!!
Here's a plan for the ruffle filters:

And here's the site:

And some pics of our work in progress....
TBC...

Nice start Fer9us

Thanks Faye.
Here's some more pics -- including one of the nifty hole-driller I picked up. It worked perfectly. Only thing I am finding is that top and bottom of barrels I'm drilling into taper slightly, so connections need a lot of rubber washers to seal. Still not 100% sure about these connections.
Here's the finished product...
And so the sand filtering begins. This was a MAMMOTH job. I'd bought about a tonne of sand from the local hardware shop, but it turned out to be pretty dirty. We had to spend two solid afternoons sifting it. Only just finished sifting this afternoon and my neck and shoulders are feeling it. We ended up with sand in three sizes: >5mm gravel, >2mm sand and >1mm sand. Wouldn't recommend this job to anyone. Much easier to buy it from the shop pre-washed and ready to go.

Love your super duper hole driller, that looks soo cool. All that sand shovelling is character building Fer9us, just like the gravel induction, it is all just part of the process. Keep up the good work and I'll check on you again tomorrow

... and then it grew. Out of necessity, really. We needed somewhere bigger to wash the sand and gravel. So, that IBC that had been sitting around was finally about to become useful.
Again, luckily there was help on hand Nice day too...
The stairs in the top right of this shot are the ones we have to climb to get onto the roof.

Pretty happy with the result. Should fit some pretty good size fish in these IBC halves.
Here's what sifting sand looks like
Some of the gravel that came out of the sand filtering will be perfect for growing media (which I've been looking for for a while) because it contains a lot of pumice that is very light weight.
I'm considering using broken bricks also, like in the mammoth Green Evolutions project in Thailand (watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jRh3EuoHXA). Broken bricks would be MUCH cheaper than clay balls -- here Hydroton is Super expensive @around $75 for a 50 litre bag

Glad to see your making lots of progress fer9us. That's going to be really neat when it's done.



This looks like it was designed for a hand drill with two cutters, first time I've seen one like this. Most only have one cutter and are designed for use in a drill press not a hand drill (Hard to balance with only one cutter)

They aren't as safe as hole saws (you can whack your fingers pretty good with one of these (or worse)) but they are more versatile. They are called fly cutters or circle cutters here in the states.

Thanks for encouragement Scotty, Faye.

Posting some more pics of today's progress. Today we finally got the big tank on the roof! And first stage filter is basically done too.
I'm so happy and a little surprised that it all came together pretty quickly.
THere's a couple of leaks here and there, but the house water supply is now back on, the big tank is full and the ruffle filters seem to be working and it hasn't fallen through the ceiling yet. As of 12.15 anyway.
We'll probably add more sand to the third barrel once we get bags for it. I'm guessing there will be a continuing flow of little jobs to maintain this system from here on in... There's just so many places where problems could occur. Little things like what should be holding the pipes up so that the weight's not on the wall of the barrel, etc.
More pics to follow...
[attachment=0]IMG_6772 (Custom).JPG[/attachment

The plumber I worked with for this is amazing. If you don't have the right bits, he just makes them, reusing PVC pipes etc. Super resourceful. Perhaps not as schmick as some, but he gets the job done.


This shot was when it was 98% complete. Now the big tank is properly connected to the house pump which is just to the left of the guy in the straw hat.
So far so good.

Nice job. You have made good progress already.

I don't know what that means, but since I'm a results-oriented type, sounds good to me.
I wish I had bamboo like that. So useful.

Looks like brilliant fun Fer9us - All the gear is so massive, you're nae messing about! You're gonna have an ace set up hehe is yer water coming from a well or is it piped in?

Aye, it's ground water, Jackster. That's what this filter is really for -- cleaning the groundwater, getting the pathogenic bacteria (e-coli etc) out of it so it's safer for home use and the next stage: aquaponics. Hope it works.

--- I mean that his work isn't always neat and tidy; he makes use of old bits of pipe and connections, which is great for me, but if one was concerned about appearances it might be an issue. He's a good problem-solver, although sometimes his solutions look a bit slap-dash.

The bamboo is useful although quite a high-maintenance plant. We have to cut it back every couple of months to stop it cracking through the concrete slab at the front and filling the pool with leaves. It's great for shade -- and you can cook and eat the shoots too. They look like rhinocerous horns. It grows to about 6 or 7 meters tall, and has often fallen on and cut off the phone lines / cable after when we cut it -- this happened yesterday.

A little update: It's really hot out there. This morning went to find out what was leaking to find seals on the big tank had all perished. Called plumber back again. We had to drain the whole thing. About 2000 liters.
2 trips to the hardware store later (first time round they gave me washers that were too big) and I think we're pretty much back on track now.
^^^ This is the kind of thing, @Jimbo Rollins, I meant by making use of whatever was around. The guy made extra washers out of an inner tube because the ones we bought were getting chewed when he tightened the nut.
This afternoon off to pick up my sand bags for the final stage of filtration. Ordered 40 of them. Hope it's not too many.
Thanks again for support

Feels silly to admit this but it seems like this is the kind of project where what looks good on paper or good in theory doesn't actually work out the way you expected it to.
I was a little disappointed today to find that the header tank and first blue barrel haven't been draining quickly enough into the rest of the system and are overfilling (and wasting a lot of water) before the bottom tank gets full and the pump automatically switches itself off.
So, for now it's back to the drawing board for some redesign on the fly. My plan is to increase the height between the header tank and the first blue barrel, and the first and second barrels -- which should speed up the flow. Here's what it should look like: You may also notice that I switched the flow to go from top-to-bottom to bottom-to-top instead. It seemed to make more sense, and would make cleaning easier, I thought.
Tomorrow I may also fix up the plumbing between the header tank and first barrel because it's a narrower diameter than the rest of the system and so would be slowing the flow in some areas.

Great work fer9us!!
I take back all of my complaints about my minor issues when I read of your hurdles...

I have considered planting bamboo as a renewable $ making stream but dont think I have a wood mill close enough that would utilize it...yet (bamboo flooring is a hot ('sexy' if your from down under ) fashion statement here)

Good luck and keep up the good work!!