Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

G'Day Gang,
Has anyone had experience (Good or Bad) with the Biosystem2000 http://www.biosystems2000.com.au/products.html ATU?

Here is a thread on the Home One Forum that I am aware of - there may be others:

http://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.p ... 55#p777855

Someone complained of a system (from what I gathered was 15 years old) where kids kept getting infected when ever they cut the legs on the grassed area which was irrigated by a system like the ATU (doesn't say which system it was).

Bythebrook has one at her house.

I am looking at installing the BioWest for my next build (Country): http://www.biowest.com.au/

Thanks Arbe

Yeah, I've got one Curnow

If you are not forced to use an ATU just stick with a septic tank and leach drain, cheaper, minumal maintenance and you can always plant an orchard down hill from it to make use of the water in the ground.

As arbe said, I've had one since 2001. I live in the Peel-Harvey catchment area, and wastewater treatment is required to reduce nutrients entering surface water.

I've had only a few problems with submersible pumps burning out, but the rest of it works fine with only minimal regular maintenance.

I've found the most important thing to do with any of these wastewater treatment systems is to try and keep the water input as consistent as possible. I do a load of washing every day or two, and try not to flood the system with too much water to process. They don't seem to work as well if the house is only occasionally occupied, as the bacteria in the system reduce if there is no input (just like AP, really).

I use the treated water via sub-surface drippers on all of my fruit trees (about 30). The trees don't get any mains water, and I haven't had a problem in eleven years. The local council insisted on sprays being used, not drippers, so I modified the system without telling them. I understand the policy has since been changed. At the time, I had a dog who liked to put her head over sprays to get a drink, and I didn't want her to get sick if the system didn't work properly. In addition, the fine sprays would aerosolise any pathogens, which doesn't happen with drippers. The treated water gets filtered and chlorinated before being pumped out of the system.

If you want to go the sub-surface irrigation method, make sure the delivery pipe is large (at least 25mm diameter) and use the proper drip tube with the large holes for wastewater. As the drippers deliver less flow than sprays, you will need a lot more of them to minimise the back pressure on the pump.

PM me if you want any more information.