Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Good evening to all APers,

Time for another lurker to come out of the closet.

I first became interested in hydroponics nearly 20 years ago, after a trip to EPCOT. Since then, I have tried Autopot Smart Valve1, Ebb and Flow, Flood and Drain, NFT, Root spray, and always coming back to Autopot. I currently have about 50 valves in single pots, hanging baskets, window boxes, smart trays, drippers and home made units. Some of these are in my tiny lean to green house.

Traditionally I have not had any interest in growing anything that was not edible, but in recent times (in an attempt to soften up SWMBO for upcoming AP expansion) I have also propagated bunches of flowers, orchids and fuschias.

As I move forward, I expect to remake many mistakes, but from lurking a while I know there is enormous knowledge, skill and enthusiasm here.

Regards

Barry

p.s. My favourite garden tool is my battery powered rotary saw

Continuing the tale ...

Here is where I am up to in my first AP system. My tanks are 3 x 500l tanks from B. These may hold 500l of air, including the domed top, but are really only usable to 450l max. They are plumbed together along the bottom through shower traps and 40mm pipe to a QB-60 pump, where the plumbing currently stops.

Tanks live down the shady side of the drive way, grow beds will sit on the shady side of the ex-carport - removed steel roof deck and replaced with solar film. So feed water needs to go up over carport to grow beds, and a second return pump from a sump to return to the little fishies. Grow bed stand are built and ready. I've not decided how to drain my grow beds yet. I am thinking of combined auto siphon and a slow drain. I've got Joels book and his slow drain with standpipe seems simple, but a good number on the list seem to like the auto siphon.

What next? I suspect more plumbing and gravel washing, though I had planned to use scoria, but that is very dirty.

I reckon that between keeping SWMBO happy and trying to keep a lid on the Honeydo list, it will probably be 4-6 weeks before I try to find some fish a new home.

Cheers

Barry

Hi geek... seen you quietly reading through things.....

Welcome out of the shadows into the light.....

....

Suspect Les will probably require you to upgrade from a toy to the real thing......

Chainsaw..... LOL

Welcome mate! Glad to see you come out into the open - what you have there already looks great! Looking forward to helping you and getting your input into 'things'


I dont bother washing the gravel anymore - I recon there is valuable stuff in that 'dust'... and it selltes out of the system within a few days (you just have to put up with a murky system for a few days )

LOL - just realised there has been another camparitive added to the camparison of size - nice use of the mose mate

well GG, nice to see you fight your way out of the closet You seem to be well started on the AP trail. Well done.

fantastic! I love my (one+) battery powered circular saw too.

I'm planning to build something very similar, so I'll watch all your mistakes first. whereabouts in Melb?

How are you going to plumb the blue barrels?

Hi Barry,

Welcome,

Do you ever get blockage problems with the Autopot smart valve?

Fish poop and natural slime etc. etc seems to block up some of my valves, hoses etc. etc ... so I have not yet purchased an Autopot smart valve ... but .. if it is fairly robust and forgiving , I reckon maybe I should try it.

(Perhaps an in line filter before the smart valve would do the trick.)

Looking forward to hearing about your experiences.

Johnnie

Welcome GG!

Can you post more pictures of the tomato tree (is it like at Epcot?), is it AP or hydro too?

Hi Johnnie7,



At present I don't have my Smart Valves on the same system as my AP. Maybe in the future, depending on water use.

I have my smart valves (~45 at present) fed from a pressure pump. The only time I have had blockage problems with the smart valve is when plant roots get in the mechanism, or one time I had a worm get caught in the float. The only other time I have valves not close is sometimes my outdoor valves get into a funny state after rain - water applied from the top seems to cunfuse them at times.


Other than that, my experience with the smart valve has been great

Regards

Hi DD



These are just 'Sweet Million Cherry Tomatoes' - a standard vine tomato. They are sitting on one of two shelves in my green house which are either 1200mm or 1500mm above the ground. I train the tomatoes up to roof level, trimming all laterals and leaves, except fruit bearing clusters. I then let the tomato spread across the roof, supported by 100mm concrete reo. I regularly trim the leaves and most lateral growth to give the plants as much light as possible.

Hope this help

Regards

Nearly ready for Fish

- Completed first set of four grow beds - sprinkle distribution with autosyphon and slow drain on the grow beds.

- 7 mm scoria as the growing medium (Picture says it all!)

I guess I need some air for the tanks, and maybe a water change and then "here fishy fishy fishy ..... here fishy fishy fishy"

hahahahah.... looks almost like tomato soup there GG... good to have the mouse for comparison so we know your not a dwarf or a giant...

But on a serious note, good to see it all up and running, one point with the irrigation lines on the growbeds. If I was you, I'd look at drilling larger holes in the irrigation pipes and putting them in the underside, and possibly using an extra couple of elbows to bring the pipes down onto the surface of the scoria. Squirting onto the surface like that will allow the algae to build up on the scoria and it will become a bit of a slimy mess as algae grows on it..

Not sure if i nmissed it in your earlier posts, were you have it continuous flow, or flood and drain?

Hi Earthbound,

Current plan is flood and drain. Thanks for the hint on burying the pipes - I hadn't considered the algae growth.

Regards

Flood and drain is good...

Yeah, not burried so much, but just sitting on the surface of the gravel, with the holes poking down, so water shoots straight out and down into the gravel.. And judging by the size of the squirts, they look like the siz I drilled in one of my earlier systems, and they were forever gettting blocked. I drilled them out to 2-3 times the size and they never get blocked...