Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Thats awesome glad they are working for you hopefully when they breed up you can tell us if they taste any good

Thank you for your input especially about the pump.
The guy that sold it to me assured me it would be less than running a bar fridge for the year.
I am not in a (financial)position at the moment to replace it especially because I just got it.
And well it's at the very least doing the job.
But it is good information to know and I'll look into a smaller pump soon.
Btw your right about how many liters.
My online calculations had it at 1272 so good math skills

Buddha my partner is a chef so hopefully he can do something amazing with them

At the moment I have 4 in the middle tear with Lemmon thyme, mint and basil, (the parsley didn't make it) so hopefully they will be "infused" with those flavors too. LOL.

Oh and in a previous post I wrote just shy of 5000lts I ment gallons.

Curious question? With the plants right in the FT could you just let them wick the water and bypass all of the expensive pumping? Maybe add one more pot and use it as a filter.

With algae. 3 things work. Shade, massive water changes or UV in line lights. And now maybe a 4th. mussels. Shade could be a fold up 4 posted umbrella tent. They cover 2 meters easy. One of the members has cut trellis over his out door pond your size. Right over and above the water in a horizontal mode. It must stop over 60% of the sun light and let the pond breath at the same time.

5,000 gallons would be like 17,000 liters. Is it that big?

The trough, pond, fish tank (whatever) is 6 foot x 2.5 feet. So I'd say it's fairly big.
The grow bed with the plumbing was a little experiment I was playing around with.
The tube coils in the tub (to create a whirlpool effect as it comes up.) I had grand intentions of building bell syphons and trying to do it as I've seen on YouTube. But got nervous about cutting holes, cutting pipes, waterproofing and messing it up, so I thought I'd see how just filling it and letting it create a waterfall would work. So far the tomatoes are doing great.
My intent was always more about a "pretty pond" then growing food.
I found aquaponics when trying to figure out a way to help filter the water.
I've always emptied the fish tank (inside) out onto the garden plants so it made perfect sence to me.
I've looked into several ideas for shade but (mostly) due to the massive slope I live on and building code restrictions it's hard to erect anything.
Thankfully we are coming into winter and the bit of rain we have had pluss a massive water loss, the growth of my plants and some cleaver fish and mussel additions means I actually have fairly clear water for now.
Hopefully come spring I will have come up with a better shade cover solution or my lilies will be doing the job for me.

Here are a couple of updated pics.

The CDs are to hopefully help keep the birds from having a sushi breakfast.

The tub on the left will soon be another grow bed.

Deuem, I hope the pictures and measurements can help give you scale.
I'm 5'5" in imperial measurements and when empty I could lie down inside it.
We thought about turning it into a hot tub at one point. LOL.
It's 6 foot across and 2.5 feet high.
(I think I said that already)
It came with the property and was once upon a time a veggie garden, many many years of neglect and now it's becoming a peaceful place to sit, relax and unwind.

I don't know if you are using the full 2-1/2 feet of water so I worked it out to 663 gallons per foot for the 6 foot tank So take 663 times the water depth.

The tub almost looks like it is a cutoff of a longer RCP reinforced concrete pipe from a large job site and then the bottom filled in with concrete.

Do the CDs scare away the birds or are they waiting for you to bring out a player.

Around here the often hang baggies with water and coins inside to ward off flies and other bugs. Any bug with a compound eye gets crazy around the bags and takes off. If you have flowers you would need to remove them to let the bees in.

So far I think the reflections of the CDs is working.
My neighbour is having a wasp issue and in the process of having them removed, they (the wasps) are still coming to my pond for drinks so I hope once they are removed the bees won't have too much trouble with the CDs.
The concreate troughs are common on farms around around here for cattle "food and water bowls"
All I can say is they are very heavy and very hard to move.

[and it looks to be ~80% full]

I'm assuming it is 6' (1.83m) OD, and the walls appaear to be about 75mm thick, depth 2.5' = 0.76m

So:
1.83 - 0.15 = 1.68m ID

(1.68/2)^2 + pi = 2.21m^2 area

X 0.8 * 0.76 = 0.61m deep

2.21 * 0.61 = ~1350 litres water volume

Your cows must be very strong and the ranchers don't want them to knock over the bowl or pick it up and walk away with it.

As far as to the amount of water we now have 4 or 5 different amounts, lol The only way to tell for sure is, the next time it is empty buy a small water meter for the hose and measure it going in. I do agree it is a lot of water.

maybe the baggie with shiny coins will keep the wasps away. It is a cheap try. A small hand full of costume diamonds might work also and if your loaded then use real ones. lol If you can't get rid of them, try to give them another place to drink. Bird bath? I got bit and stung by a huge one here, about 1-1/2 inches and wow did that hurt, so be careful. They hurt worse then bees.