Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Figured I should get some photos up of a new system we built on the weekend.

Hopefully Dave will be along shortly to give his system a more imaginative name...

It's your basic CHIFT PIST system, made from two IBCs.

Photos first.

Wavey washing the gravel.



The IBC frame in the hole I dug.



The frame Dave and I made last week, out of non-treated pine lengths. Went together pretty easily, but claimed the life of Dave's $19 XU1 drill.

Once the frame was in place, resting on top of the buried IBC, we cut a hole for the siphon. Siphon used a bulkhead fitting from Bunnings, with a 90deg bend at the bottom. Still needs a little fine tuning, but would you believe it kicked in the very first time? We were well-chuffed.

Next we placed the fish tank, with a SLO from the bottom middle of the tank. Another bulkhead fitting from B through the tank. They're expensive, but a lot less stuffing around.



The FT overflows into the two GBs, which are now full of gravel.

And this is how the system looked at the end of the afternoon:




Need to filter some of the fine dust out, so will probably put a cheap sponge or something near the water inlet to the growbed.

Also planning on putting a cosmetic cover around the GBs and FT to make it look a bit better and shield them from UV.

Dave put 20 goldfish in it yesterday as a starter. I think we're in a bit of limbo when it comes to fish though - too late for Trout, and too early for Perch? Apparently some Marron are on order for next weekend, so they'll go in the sump.

Oh, and yes, will attempt to include a photo with some toes in it.

And we'll be making a cover out of a frame with shadecloth stretched over it for the FT and maybe the sump.

Pump is a Jebao 4000, which seems to be working well. Pumping about 1200L/h by our calcs.

Looks good.
Is the tree staying or going?

Tree is staying AFAIK. The cover for the FT is a priority, to stop leaves dropping in and blocking things up.

Fair days work guys... looking good...

Note to others... that's how simple it can be done...

And most importantly, there's plenty of room for expansion.

If it took "Curly" & "Wavey" to knock that up.... you'd have to get "Mo" to help with any expansion...

It looks like it'll be hard to cover the sump with the growbeds on top of it...awkward if not impossible. I learnt from my IBC setup that shading is really quite important...mine wasn't well shaded and the algae caused havoc to the ph levels....also watch out for the crenelattion at the bottom of the pipe in the FT...I cut mine too big and the fish swam up the pipe to their doom....their DOOOOOOM.

Nice work guys, dave sure looks like he washed the gravel the hard way though, good your scored the camera curly

Planted some seeds last night.

Now, a question about bacteria. We included a bucket full of gravel from Wavey's cycled system, however we filled the tanks with water straight from the garden hose and started pumping straight away... Is that likely to kill off all the bacteria colonies?

I suppose the best option is to swap a bucket of gravel between the systems every time he comes to visit for the next few weeks.

alright - about the bacteria...
How long did the water run for before adding the water/gravel from Wavey's system?... if had been a few days with the pumps running then all should be okay... but that also depends on what your water has been treated with by your local council - do they use chloramine or chlorine... Chlorine gasses off fast enough, especially if you run the water and/or add a bubbler - chloramine however is not as easy to get rid of.

The water was filling from the hose as the system was pumping for the first time...

Dave will hopefully do a water test tonight - will be interested to see whether there's a blip on the 'ites or 'ates, but I'm not holding my breath.

The PDF that I posted on the "Lost trout in two days " thread suggests that there will be traces of chloramine in all the WA water system - although they are only adding it to the Kal. pipeline for now - and I haven't rung up to find out if they are using it in winter. by the taste of the water here I suspect high doses are only a summertime thing as the higher water temps breed more bugs.
Here is an excerpt

Why is chloramination toxic to fish?
Chloramines like chlorine are known to be toxic to fish at concentrations typically used for disinfection of
drinking water (~2 parts per million) and even down to concentrations as low as 0.1 parts per million.
Due to the persistence of chloramines they are likely to be present in most of the supply system.
Free ammonia, which might be present in chloraminated water, is also toxic to fish. This means that a pH of
aquarium waters above pH 8 could significantly increase the toxicity hazard, as the proportion of free ammonia is
greater at higher pH values.

(I added the highlighting)
John