Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Overall the system is still a bit green but hopefully as roots grow and with more filtering through gravel plant pots it will clear up while not so pretty I think the high points of my system that I am proud to share are my siphons using a dripper as a valve, and the second valveless setup which I think is the way to go especially if a growbed is any distance from the tank.

General system Aquaponics derived Duck-ponix system overview from L to R grow-bed, duck-pond, reservoir (probable future fish tank) and the final growbed, this is temporarily all under a large Jacaranda tree.


The first growbed contains pea gravel in pots as before I said I would be moving the system at some point, around the pots I have placed some water plants which seem to be doing well!

The black square pond plant pots have served well to stop tree leaves and flowers blocking up my "auto siphon", this worked well allowing the pond to have continous flood and drain before I plugged my pump into a timer.

The 2l/hr(any would do) dripper in the top of the auto siphon has worked well as a valve to let air out, air flows well through them unlike water but as soon as vacuum forms a neat rubber disc blocks the back flow, I have positioned it above the water flow as if it gets wet it requires a flood over to clear itself.


The bed empties into a pond plant pot to reduce noise.

From the duck pond the water flows through the stand pipe and in through the reservoir base into yet another pond plant pot which filters out the feathers etc the second growbed "auto siphon empties here also.


The page I should try and put everything on

Good to see you're up and running Ev..... keep us up to date regarding your water... I'm curious just how long or how much it takes to clear.

Ev,

I've wondered about the specs on autosiphon too. I think details are a lot more critical if there is only a small height differential. I worry about depending on turbulence to start the thing as biofilm-buildup will change flow characteristics. I've experimented with various diameter pipes and found that the narrowest that will effectively drain the beds starts best (I must be some kind of genius, eh?), but may clog fast. Larger pipes take longer to start, so fill far higher before draining: something in-between would be best. I'm sure there is a rule of thumb relating inflow rate to outflow diameter that should be possible to figure out on a hot day with a few buckets, some pumps, and a lot of fittings and duct tape. If it were summer here.....

Of course, if one has a 1 meter drop even a small pipe will empty the beds beautifully and reliably while with a 20cm drop one might just unexpectedly end up with a flow-through system.

Let us know what you find out.

nice system ev,

would like to see some more pics in detail if you don't mind.

looks great.

cheers

Water is now clear, porbably took about a month I guess, I made my water fill into the growbeds go through more gravel with more outlets, water is now quite clear plants are doing well

Which bits you need to see and I will go take some higher res shots for you

UPDATE:I purchased and removed a single garage frame from a demolition around the corner, and will hopefully soon be moving it under there and digging the pond and tank into the ground. fun fun fun...
I will utilize my yards hot spot where my current garden struggles a little, slowly evolving my backyard into the oasis I desire.

MAY 2008 System evolution:and July below

The system is in its new home and the extra beds and pond are set up, this is a preview of the system and the new adjustable autosiphons I have designed, they work flawlessly with my pump on 30minutes every 2.5hrs.

OK I think I have finally made auto siphons easy, having tried coiled hoses and other slightly complicated plumbing adventures, this has been the simplest and best I have come up with.

The drainage system begins with standard 40mm drainage fittings plumbed up to near my duckpond then adapted to 40mm pressure pipe fittings and final outlet pipes of both 15mm and 20mm both work perfectly well, although one would assume the smaller is more responsive.

The 40mm adjustable joining piece (the "fat" fitting) has a 100mm range which is adequate for most fine tuning. I set my highest height to have the top bend in line with the growbed media.
While the adjustable piece could be done away with in makes installation quicker and has helped the seeds scattered around the top germinate so in the next week I can lower the water to avoid algae growth quickly and easily



OK JULY UPDATE:

1000l pond, wishing I had chosen the 3000l now though, 5000l/hr pump is adequate though, my Koi and the base pond are visible from angles I cannot photograph well!!! I decided to choose something easy as my first fish project.

3 Growbeds plumbing is mainly buried, I chose to lay pipe across 2 of the beds so I can change the outlet area occasionally.


Have grown a good crop of Mizuna, have some tomato plants developing, a pineapple cutting that has rooted yay!. Also have some spinach, coriander, lettuces, bok choi, mint, peppermint, lemon balm, garlic chives, basil.

Had to move some pond plants so I stuck a spare taro in.

My poor lemon grass is not doing so well though, I lifted it up a bit today, anyone know what I am doing wrong?


Because I am concerned about the high levels of particle/silt that are in my system each outlet flows through a filter foam into the bed, I hope that when I have better root development in the system I can perhaps do away with them.


The plumbing comes out of the ground and flows to the pond, while it keeps quite clear I had been scooping it but will now experiment and allow an active sediment layer to form, and see what happens.


From a standpipe in the pond the water is gravity fed around the corner by 50mm into a fancy looking combination of 100mm joiners and out on a filter sieve (pond pot) to remove feathers and course debri.


Then on though a large filter foam and then a finer type underneath, I had to add this as otherwise I was constantly having to scoop my fish pond clean and also remove sand and silt from my small bed of filter plants (lebanese and english cress and pennywort). Would love to find another filtration method that does not want the twice weekly I give it at the moment to keep things nice and clear.

The filter area has a siphon effect emptying so it is flood and drain so I also start some plants off in pots in there before transfer to a main bed.

Future plans include possibly a larger tank above ground and a pump to send water up to it, oh how it would have been nice to have just started off with a 3000l in the ground, instead of the the 1000l.

Also plan on putting an edging around the duck pond as while the ducks have been mellow lately this is not always so and it will increase the depth they can have.

Once again thanks to all for sharing their ideas, and I am hopefully looking for some helpful criticism to improve on what I have let me know please.

See you all tomorrow night

Finally my backyard is all detailed here and is the first place to get new stuff!
http://www.evansmotorcycletraining.com.au/backyard.html

Cool, thats the first time I have been able to read a post without my specs.
Thanks for the update Ev!
All looks good, nice big water trough for the chooks to eh!

Who's been a busy boy then.... nice to see it's all starting to work for you Ev...

For that filter box that you don't like cleaning all the time, you could try filling it with media or gravel since it is kinda flood and drain. It doesn't take a little while for bio-slime to build up on the media but after that, it usually does a good job of clearing the water. You might still want the plant basket to catch feathers though. Then you can put some plants in it and call it a small grow bed.

You might want to have a read on this document ...

http://www.fao.org/docrep/field/003/AC249E/AC249E00.htm

It shows an experiment done to check the effects that different types of manure has on the fish growth in a confined tank environment.

OCTOBER 2009 UPDATE

I upgraded the duckpond to the 1000+ litre around 6 months ago with the depth alone now most the silt/sand remains trapped in the pond where it causes no harm, to further enhance this I constructed a baffle/tube filter with a HDPE container and perspex sheet which I will soon fill with pipe pieces replacing the flower pots and grow some filter plants on top around the stand pipe, previously the gravel medium/plant filter bed was silting up heavily and was not sustainable and would have eventually required a very yucky clean out , with the new baffle filter I am hoping to only occasionally have to open the duckpond drain to let out any build up and avoid silting my sytem. The ducks also get somewhere to stand and a drink container for the chickens.
The photos should be clearer this update I used a Cannon Legria HF200 camcorder with polarising filter on the lens for the water shots allowing clearer view of my fish and the water clarity although this is somewhat obscured by the algae growth on the walls, some of the other shots have cheap... wide angle lens rim on them oops.




The filter bed is now continually flooded by a second pump pumping water over some gravel filled pots and the filter plants, I find the taste of water cresses mundane and I will try to grow some other plants ? spinach? in the water as it is high in oxygen and fast flowing sitting around 4cm and rising to 10-15cm during cycle, will be researching and experimenting to find which plants I can use as well as hopefully getting some suggestions from BYAP.



The fish pond now has 2 pumps 1 for growbed flood/drain on timer and the other continuous cycle running water up to the filter bed, the Koi are doing well and I hope to try and run a batch of 20-30 Tilapia if someone can help me out with some breeders please! anyone tilapia thanks PM me!



The growbeds are now flood and drain with, ideally the 2 ports should be middle of growbed but they are working fine where they are, all excess water flows into duckpond through the 32mm standpipes I made by heating the pipe in boiling water and forcing into the 40mm drains, I was also able to make some nice 50mm standpipes with 40mm pressure pipe using the same method, this is a cheap standpipe solution and the previous fittings lacked the flow rates I needed.



I am quite happy with how it functions now and am optimistic with all I have learned and done so far that I could leave it for a month and not touch a thing as was my ultimate goal. The only maintenance I expect to do is once every few months is scoop some solids/sand from the duck pond and agitate and purge the baffle/pipe filter every month or so.

?I thought Tilapia were not legal there?

May just be a permit type thing, like where I'm at.

Interesting to see the fish have the best surviveability with manure and best with the chicken manure!
Ev, I really like the way it's intergrated with the chickens and ducks. Any problems with the birds eating your plants?

As for birds eating my plants, despite the chooks being able to jump into the growbeds they never do, although if something tasty grows over the edge they will eat it. The ducks are a meat/egg variety that struggle to get off the ground, so the low fencing around the filter bed stops them.

WA is the only Australian state where Tilapia are legal I believe.