Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi all

Really enjoy the site and have learnt a lot in the past few months.
Caught the bug recently and decided to build a dual home system.
Consists of 2X 1000L APA troughs for the fish and an assortment of plastic ponds/containers for the grow beds. The system is just about 2 months old now and all going really well. Each trough is stocked with 50 silvers. I've employed flood and drain with the auto syphon but on a timer 15min on/ 30 min off with a battery backup airpump running 24/7. Being in Highfields near Toowoomba I've been mucking around with solar heating of the water (looking towards winter since today's the first day of autumn). Each system has a 100m coil of 19mm low density poly on the nearby patio roof. Initial trials have been good with a 2 hour circulation raising the temp from 21 to 27 degrees celcius, this is on a timer but for safety I think I may have to think about a thermostat cut out. The actual structure over the system is just a simple poly hoop with gal mesh and covered with a 30% horticultural shadecloth. I'll post more about the system as I think of it but I thought I'd place a quick post and say hello

nice job! What product is the shade structure pipe? Is that made for a greenhouse or did you bend it yourself?

Where did you get it from?

Wow so clean and nice!

Hi Blocker and welcome
Nice work, especially like the shade structure very neat and functional
Some details about your 19mm poly pipe heating system would be interesting
will look forward to seeing more pics
Cheers

Thanks for the comments guys.
The hoop tunnel is just made of 2" rural agricultural poly pipe which happens to just fit nicely over star pickets (steel posts). It's reasonably easy to bend into those sort of diameters.


Desertrat, I'll take & post some pictures of the heating system when our weather clears up, bit windy & rainy at the moment.
What I did though was buy a couple of 100m rolls of 19mm low density poly ($45/roll so it's a cheap solution) and then unrolled them and left them in the sun for a few days so they lost those tighter coils. In the meantime I ran 20mm PVC pipe up out of the fish tanks through the roof of my poly hoop tunnel and straight across to the patio roof. From there I went to the 19mm poly and laid the first loop as big as possible and then kept going around and around until finally laying the last section across the others and back down the return line (it'll make more sense when I post photos). I also tried it on an overcast day last week and was pleased to see that I could add a couple of degrees in a couple of hours even without the sun. I figure any increase in temp. that I can gain when we get to winter during the day and then cover at night will be a bonus.

Yes, very nice system Blokker.....

Can I ask what you have used for the growbed supports? It looks interesting..

Hi Earthbound

On top of the dry stacked concrete blocks I've used a combination of Galvanised RHS and 2 pairs of composite beams - I'm not exactly sure what they are made of (I think maybe some sort of variation of fibro-cement & resin) but they were throwing them out at work so I put my hand up for them. They are light and strong, I wish I could have got my hands on heaps more of them. Initially I even thought of running the plumbing & wiring inside the beams which would have been really tidy but I went away from that idea as it would have involved drilling holes in them.

Wow! What a great looking system! What are the two big green tanks in the background? Again - Wow! Very impressed.

Yea, must agree, very tidy and functional. Using the mesh to brace the poly is a top idea, I may have to crunch a few numbers to see how economical it is. It would be good for my prospective marron setup....sometime?

Thanks DéjàVoodoo, the tanks in the background are part of our rainwater storage (I think you guys might call it catchwater?). We are basically self sufficient water-wise from collected rainwater from the house & shed, we have 60,000 litres which mostly gets us through the dry times.

very nice system. Looks like you might want to add a few more grow beds to help with filtration. Also if the black pipe is left in the sun with no flow it will sometimes burst. Looks great though I wish I had the cash to build a nicer system. Keep up the good work.

They look a bit like scaffold planks.... A damn good strong plank to use for an AP system if they are.

You must not shower much or you get heaps of rain!

I have used 160,000L this summer so far and no sign of rain any time soon

Temps - if you stick greenhouse material over your structure then you should be able to eek out a couple of extra degrees (or keep a couple extra - I gather running through the poly at night will do the same job in reverse - it'll cool it). You can get greenhouse material pretty cheap off ebay, and apparently you can get clips which clip it onto the reomesh you've used.

Looks great blokker. Your polypipe arches are the same as what we used on our polyhouse/igloo over 20 years ago, (which now houses our AP systems). It is still standing despite having 2 trees fall on it and squash some of the arches. With the warmth from the sun and some prodding they were able to be pushed back into shape.