Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

So I started off in Aquaponics whilst doing research on a tropical fish tank for my daughter. I was having discussion with some chaps on another forum I frequent and they suggested I link the tank to an Aquaponics systems.

And So began my addiction. That was two months ago. My daughter got a gold fish, (which committed suicide ) and I started planning and researching and planning and building and doing more research etc. SWAMBO was even starting to get annoyed with me.

So this is how it all went down:

I decided to go for the 3 x grow beds and 1 x fish tank using the CHOP MKII system.

My grow bed stand



cutting the IBC cages

The general Layout of the system



Cutting the grow beds, the sump and fish tank





Painting



All painted and ready for the next phase

The plumbing now installed




My home made bell siphons





Then is dawned on me.....I had made a fundamental error.....I had built the entire system in the shade

Needless to say, I was a bit despondent and seriously disappointed with myself. All that hard work

So SWAMBO and I set out to find a new location in our garden. This is the spot we selected

So the great move began, I had to cut out the bushes and level the ground. Then created a nice border and compacted everything, covered with DPC and some crusher stone.

I needed to install a power point on the opposite side of the yard from the house, so a trench was dug and power point installed.

And then the system had its new home.

Right....so now the system is in the sun, everything is ready to go.....WRONG

Another fundamental error -

After I reinstalled in the piping, loaded the crushed stone into the grow beds, (approximately 1.6 metric tons of the stuff) I took a step back to admire my handy work.

I had miscalculated the requirements of my foundations and the front right hand side of the system had sagged about 30 to 40mm. this is without water. I realised that once I add another 600 odd KG of water, I was in for some serious trouble.

Back to the drawing board it was for me. I spoke to one of the engineers I work with and got a better design on the foundations. The downside is the whole system had to come apart again. I did not take those photos as I was upset.

Anyway, the system as it stands now with new foundations, plumbing and finishes to meet SWAMBO's requirements.

I was very proud of the fact that my siphons and plumbing worked first time perfectly.


My first crops, the sacrificial ones used to get the nitrogen cycle started.

And that, so far is my build.

I will start with water tests etc this weekend and hopefully in about three weeks from now I will be able to start stocking fish.

Welcome to the website - your built looks very good. Once the addiction starts you may need to consider rehab in a few years time!

Ps - Your site name brings back fond (and very old) memories of driving between Pretoria and Benoni/Boksburg to date my first girlfriend! Does it still get as cold as as i remember? You may have to think carefully of the fish you want to stock. Trout may be a good choice if you can find them?

PS - The granite should be quite a good growing media.


Keep the pictures coming,

Yip, still gets very cold here. As you can see, my garden is basically dead from the winter. This week we have been hit by a cold front, so morning temps are around -3 to max temps of about 11 deg C.

I have been covering my "sacrificial" seedlings at night to try save them from the frost. Which is working so far.

Trout is what I am aiming for. They seem to be readily available and I am trying to establish the permitting requirements for them.

So I did a bit of fine tuning this weekend.

I noticed that the flow rate through the three grow beds is very even , which is fine, but they run very close to each other, which put my pump at risk of running dry when all three beds are filling at the same time. This is not optimal as my sump is about 100l too small, I made a measurement mistake when cutting

Anyway, I decided then it would not be too much of an issue as I could time the inflow and outflow of the beds to ensure that there is always sufficient water in the sump. This is what I was trying to achieve this weekend.

I noticed that by nature of the IBC's, there is a slightly deeper area of the sump, where the "floor" sits a little lower due to sag in the plastic. I decided that I should relocate my pump there as this would allow an additional 5 to 7 minutes of pumping before the pump starts sucking air.

Now all my plumbing is done with rigid PVC piping, so to move the pump, I needed to cut away a section of pipe and put in a coupling. easy enough....NOT

I now have a leak on

Anyway, to top it all off...the plumbing shop was closed so I could not get any spares. I managed to manoeuvre the leak so it drips back into the sump, which means I am not losing water. But It means I still have an issue to fix. Will get to it this week.

Other than that, I did some water tests, these are looking good. I will post the results later.

Timing the draining and filling of the grow beds is probably not going to work. They will eventually all be full at the same time, leaving you without enough water in the sump.

I suggest a switch to Constant Flood, it's worked for many of us and you can still run most of the grow beds flood and drain with siphons since your sump is close to the correct size. This way your sump will only fluctuate by the changes in the beds that are running on siphons.

Hope this helps.

mmm....some food for thought. Do you have a link to Constant Flood information so I can see what I am looking at?

Probably easier just to explain it to you. For constant flood on one of your grow beds (you can do others if you like) -
1. Remove one of the siphons from a grow bed but leave the standpipe. If there is a small weep hole in the standpipe then flip this so that it is at the top of the pipe. You don't really need this hole because when using CF with a small sump you don't want the water to drain into the sump if the power goes out. The standpipe still sets the water depth. The constant water movement keeps the water oxygenated. The maximum water depth is approximately the same as when you were running with a siphon but now it's always at this depth so you never have to be concerned with that extra water being retained getting to the sump.

It's just as easy to switch back if you don't like it.

If you look at the BYAP trials thread you will see how the different systems compared.

Is that what you were looking for?

Thanks for the info. Looking at constant flood, it is not a method I want to use unless I have to.

My system currently has sufficient water in it so that did all three beds are filled at the same time, there will be sufficient water in the sump to keep the pump submerged. Especially now that I have put the pump in the "deep" end so to speak.

I will monitor it over the next few days and see how it goes before I start changing things. In order for me to remove the stand pipe, I will have remove the stone, which I seriously want to avoid doing.

You could always put another sump under the growbeds and plumb it into the current sump. The pipe should be as low on each sump as possible though. This will ensure you have enough water and will save you the hassle of getting a larger sump later.

Hi Lear 300

Welcome to the forum. Your system is looking good, I run my tomato's constant flood and it's working out rather well.

Regards Willem