Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

G'day All, I'm Sean from Adelaide.

Been lurking this and other forums for a few years (litterally) when bored at work and not in the mood to google for funny photos/videos.

Built my first system a few months ago which is growing a few kitchen herbs and powering along quite well (when I put the right plants in for the weather conditions...) with a few goldfish in the bottom. Pump is constantly on and flood/drain is controlled by a Bell Syphon.

Intending to re-build this system to make it a bit prettier so that it can sit outside the kitchen and not be an eye-sore in the next little while and in the long run to build a system to actually raise some edible fish and yabbies.

Key issue for me is low maintainance and building it to take care of itself. Intending to dig 2 IBC's completley into the ground as a fish tank and sump and use half blue barrels as growbeds utilising a single pump in the sump delivering water to both the growbeds via a sequencing valve and recirculating water to the fish tank. Flow diversion back to the sump utilising a low voltage latching solenoid that will work down to 3psi to interrupt flow to the sequencer and reset for the next set of beds.

Initially I'm thinking of raising some Tandanus in the burried fish tank but long term I think I'll end up having a surface level tank for these and using the burried tank for Trout. Yabbies will be in the sump.

I'm pretty good with nuts and bolts stuff and my brother is a technical wizard so I'm intending to automate the system as much as possible to allow remote monitoring/control as well as having feeding, air, and flood drain patterns change in response to water conditions.

The system is going in next to my 20KL rainwater tank so I'll set up an auto-topup system off this as well as a system to allow me to remotely dump/change water.

The missus is keen as mustard to have our own fresh fruit and veg, she works in fruit and veg and would rather not eat the stuff she is supposed to sell! Only worry with her is that she'll start naming the fish.

I work away in the drilling industry so the system will need to mostly look after itself and will be quite lightly stocked as a consequence. I tend to only work about 9 months of the year so I'll have a 3 month window to build, cycle (goldfish) and monitor the system before I slowly start adding some (tasty) fish in my weeks off.

Lastly a much belated thankyou to all of you, been reading your posts for years and it has certainly given the grey matter something to chew over in that time.

g'day SeanD welcome on board pics please

welcome and pics always get us excited...

Haven't got many with me but just dug these off my iPhone.

System is a "pickle drum" bought from Paramount Brownes in Adelaide, used to import Gherkins from India and still had the shipping labels on the outside so I'm fairly confident it was food grade.

From memory it's about 200L in capacity, made from quite a thick plastic with a large 2-part screw top lid, just perfect for putting bodies into a bank vault.

I coated the mating points of the lid pieces with a liberal amount of aquarium silicon and then cut the top of the drum off a bit below the ridge near the top.

This was then inverted and bolted back into position upside down with access cut into the sides for the fish tank.

In the bottom of the fish tank is an 8W pond pump with a piece of garden hose jammed onto where the spray rose was meant to go. This piece of hose is about 1m long and has a hose clicker on the end of it.

Through (what was once) the lid I bored a hole and poked a barb-hose fitting through barb first from the bottom, the flat mating surface got a liberal coating of aquarium silicon. I bought a big tube I may as well use it I figured.

This barb side then got a piece of hose jammed onto it that was the same as the growbed depth and a T piece at the top to deliver the good stuff to the blue metal gravel.

Autosiphon is an Affnan Bellsiphon but a bit simpler than his videos, I didn't use a reducer at the top or any bulkhead fittings, I just bored the hole a smidge undersized and rammed the standpipe through with a bead of silicon around it.

Just below the level of the access windows I drilled a series of holes to allow the water to overflow without loosing any fish. There were a series of convenient ridges around the top of the growbed that I drilled some holes in so that if the autosyphon blocks up the overflow returns to the tank rather than running out and pumping the tank dry.

I was just going to poke the hose through to the top but put the hose clicker on so that I can un-click the hose and drain water from the tank using the pump should I ever wish to do a water change (rain has been taking care of it) or need to move it.

All in all total costs were $20 for the drum, $25 for the pump, $3.50 for the gravel (had to shovel my own bag full at the landscape supplier, $5 for a prefilled one) and I bough a few 1m lengths of PVC and a pressure cap but can't remember what they cost.

It has about 10 goldfish in the bottom, I think they're all still there, and seems to grow most things I stick in it fairly well when I plant them at the right time of the year.

So far I've tried with success:
Mint (raised in potting mix and transplanted when big enough)
Coriander (transplanted established plant)
Lettuce (seed)
Radish (seed)
Spinach (seed)
Rocket (seed)

Cycled it initially by cleaning my aquarium filter out into the gravel to get some good bacteria and occasional doses of seasol. After about a month I saw some goldfish on special and decided to drop them in, never did any tests beside pH which is sitting a little higher than I'd like for an aquarium but the fish are alive.

And I'm back again!

I now have a (not always) cushy office job and I'm home about 340 nights a year, before I was home more like 60 nights a year. Now something I have time to do something I've always been interested in

Looking to build a much bigger system, mostly utilising wasted space around the yard.

Probably will be 1 or 2 IBC fish tanks, 1800L of flood /drain beds, and 1800L of sumps (1 for each bed)

Yabbies in the sumps (can size/gender sort them between the 16 sumps hopefully), trout in winter and barra in summer.

If I add more tanks later I'd love to do tantans

I figure that I have space for around 6 or 7 IBC's for fish tanks, 4000L of grow beds, and 50m of gutter beds without taking up existing yard space or looking unsightly, but it needs to prove itself to my wife before it gets to big

Lucky enough to have a bunch of contacts and accounts through work who know nothing about aquaponics but sell very useful things (ie solar pumps, washed inert media, uPVC pipe, irrigation fittings etc)

Hopeful that I can run the whole thing off a minimum of electricity with a view to making it solar eventually (once it's proven its worth as a food producer)

Rather than using solenoid valves or sequencing valves, why not consider using motorised ball valves.
They are available in a number of sizes and configurations, most are available for 12v DC operation and draw no current when in the open or closed positions.
2 port or 3 port valves are available. 3 port valves can be 'L' or 'T' configuration. 'T' configuration could allow flow to one port, both ports, the other port or all ports off.

Prices on ebay are very low.
eg http://www.ebay.com.au/sch/i.html?_from ... ve&_sop=15