Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Made a spring that fits nicely inside some 20 mm electrical conduit. I reckon it will aug well.

Now for some electrickery :-)

nice use of the word aug

My wood drill is around 14mm in a 40mm tube and works fine.

The most important bit is to make sure the section immediately beneath the hopper has some auger action. It's this bit that will push the rest rather than the rest pulling this bit.

I moved a PVC spacer to the other end to make sure of this.

At the very least you need to be able to see a bit of auger action when you look down from where the hopper will be. The rest will take care of itself.

The new trigger looks like this..

The feeder recorded 7 hits over night, and no hits when the light was off. ie no illegal hits.

I think that means they understand that they don't get fed if the light isn't on.

I hope the cops dont come past Bull, it looks like a bloody pipe bomb

Yeah it does a bit. As I mentioned on my blog, I'd hate to have to take it through a carry on baggage check. I'd be explaining for hours.

Especially with that tilt detecting float arrangement

Actually I have to keep that in mind. That arrangement but with a weight would make an excellent tilt detecting switch. The little momentary switch has just enough spring in it to keep it upright, and a ten gram lead sinker on the top would make it very sensitive to tilt.

I cant really imagine what I might want with a tilt switch, but I'm guessing there will be some application for it at some stage down the track.

Another 6 hits and one illegal attempt.

These are the first decent numbers of hits I've seen during the day.

Perhaps they are a little freaked out by the new tackle over their heads during the day, and have only been game to hit the lever at night.

My previous thoughts that perhaps they preferred to feed at night may have been premature.

As the data set gets bigger, the reality should be revealed.

I think form now on I'll try to take a reading on the number of hits at 11am and 11pm.

I guess it wont really be science until I add a data logger.

A few days ago I upped the feed amount to more like a heaped teaspoon of feed per hit, and it was probably a good thing. The original very small amount of feed was probably too easily guarded by a bully fish like I have. My biggest silver has harassed others to death, so I wouldn't put it past him to stand guard over the lever. The way it is now is just by chance, but I suspect a decent dose per trigger event, dumped directly into the water input stream means that everyone gets a chance, but it still reinforces the idea that it's the lever that provides the feed because all food lands right near the lever.

Another thing of note is that the fish have discovered a path to the lever that provides maximum cover. There is a narrow lip that runs around the front of the IBC, and the fish hug it on the way to the corner where the trigger is, so they don't really get any exposure any more when they hit the lever. This might be why they seem happy about daytime feeds now. They wok themselves around the boundary, hit the lever and then turn to go down right away, but change their mind when the food starts falling from the magic PVC thing, and turn back to the surface to eat.

Thanks universe for being so interesting.

Come on BW,

That lever is just crying out for some flashing LEDs to be put inside it...

Here fishies, hit the big white flashy thing!

Maybe you could then put a hoop in the fishtank with flashing lights around it and get them to jump though.

Actually I was thinking more of gradually going up to get some marine park action, then hacking my webcam happy snap button so I get a pic of each hit

Fish harvesting would be so much easier. You just slip a frying pan under them and none of the other fish need to get stressed.

Try this me...

A headphone jack works well if you solder a nice length of header pin to the legs.

Hmmmm....

What's the second PVC tube running parallel to the bit that the hopper feeds into?

And is that a servo?

It's a bit hard to see, but it's just part of the conduit T piece. It's the inspection plate.

And yes it's a servo :-)