Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello everyone! I'm back! I finally managed to scrounge up a little bit of money, and with some dumpster diving I've managed to pull together a very basic and very small system: but once everything grows it'll be a nice little cash saver.

Short clip of my system running

I'm tempted to name it after eagles system - ghetto on the waterfall, for it's lovely tacky nature. But I'm open to suggestions!

At the moment I'm waiting for the first ammonia cycle before I add the fish, and next weekend I plan to put up a shade cloth and put some treated pine around the base of the containers because they're not supported by anything other than compacted sand which could easily give away in one of queenslands classic summer storms.

The pond is quite small (I estimate about 130-150 litres) so unfortunately I'll not be able to put any edibles in there. I'm gonna go with some ornamental goldfish and probably a couple of yabbies: which brings me to ask, will they live together or should I seperate them?

Oh also before anyone mentions it, I am aware those clear containers will degrade in the sun but so far this is more an experimental thing than anything (I live in a high salt environment so almost anything not native to Australia dies here), so if we get three/four years down the road and it's still going good, I'll invest in some nice quality containers!

Katmac was right there are a few anerobic spots, but the level of the water isn't HUGELY different (two centimetres if that) so it doesn't really bother me.

Well done, it's a great start

Thanks!

So I put a stocking over the end of the pipe from the pump to stop rocks going down it (it goes in the bottom side of the top container), the water flow wasn't as high as it should be so I checked the pipe and found it was full of dirt and sand. As you can see in that vid the water is very cloudy because I didn't wash the gravel, if I just leave my system as it is and empty the stocking every day will that clear the water?

EDIT: I was worried about the pressure messing with the pump so I just covered the hole in duct tape and moved the pipe so it goes through brillo pads first, I'll check it tomorrow to see if they're fine enough to catch the sand and dust from the gravel.

Also, can anyone advise me on how many times a constant flood system should cycle in a day? Currently a 1000l/hr pump at about a metre incline which is enough to completely drain the system in about 45 minutes, but can I use a timer to have it run say 8 hours of a day or does it need to be on 24/7?

Gday Jessssuhh
It's best to clean the grow media before putting it into the AP, it may take a while to clean the dirt out of the gravel now but it will eventually clear up.
The rule of thumb is to turn over the volume of the fish tank min once per hour so you can work out the timing from there.
Good luck.
GTK

I knew the once per hour bit but what I'm wondering is, if my system turns over 32 times in 24 hours, can I turn it off for 8 hours so it cycles 24 times in 24 hours? Like does that logic work or do I have to just keep it on?