tom77 wrote:
mattyoga wrote:
Charlie wrote:
Surely the person feeding your fish could check the water level
Trouble is a high water level can mean your pump has stopped working and your fish are about to die of O2 starvation - so just checking 'there's enough water in there' is not enough. I have explained that if the water is totally still (i.e non draining back from the beds) that all is probably not well, though I'm not confident the fish sitter is discerning enough to notice in time.
Hence being able to see water level and watch it go up and down with each cycle confirms there is enough water in the system AND it is being pumped round the system.
Not in my case as my 2 airpumps will keep fish alive even if the pumps stop.. also if power goes out one air pump is one of those small DC ones that switch over by themselves and there is a 12v bilge pump that kicks in from a lead acid battery when power drops out...
Yea mine is all plumbed through a UPS so if I have a power outage everything runs as per normal for about 6 hours. If the pump fails I have a 70lpm air pump and another pond pump that circulates the water in the FT which also acts as a venturi to provide aeration. Each of these things are in place to protect each other and the system.
As I mentioned, I like innovation and tech gadgets but I have no use for them in my small AP set up because it does its thing on its own and I think it would go to waste. I rarely check PH, Ive never seen an amm or nitri reading in years and I just top the water up when it needs it. It might be worth something to someone who is away regularly I suppose. Ive been away from home for a couple of months at a time in the past and I just get someone AP savvy to keep an eye on things. If water is pumping, all is well.
Maybe theres a time when you just reach a level of comfort with your system. I think when I have a really big system a monitoring system would be good for record keeping.
Backyard Aquaponics
