Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Should have said also - that I am very confident of the fact that in my gravel bed I have anaerobic activity anyway and that this is responsible for keeping my nitrate at a fairly constant level regardless of fish density or feeding rate.

who knows, they may be of good use in sewerage/waste water treatment plants
shifting a lot of sludge

La Rochelle, c'est sur la cote, si je me souvien bien,
je travaille dans la Nievre pour trois ans et puis deux ans en banlieu sur de Paris en 1973, avant de venir ici. Ca fait long temp a ne pas parle francais.

Salud Copain

Brilliant french!!
Je suis très impressionné!! La Rochelle est bien sur la cote atlantique.
Where do you come from?
To come back to the subject, whoever wants to go on synaptoman's blog can see a picture of an intensive fish farm using them.

OT: Wow, the difference between using http://babelfish.altavista.com and using http://www.google.com/translate_t is phenomenal... It didn't even make sense from the good old babel fish.. Damn google is good, going to run the world if we don't watch them.

Tchecoslovaquie (n'existe plus), Moravie du Nord, pres de la frontiere Polonais.

Sorry for the hijack.

They are already the biggest sellers of personnal information of the world.
I've heard from very valuable TV show that they have integrated a registring device for all research done by one person (IP) to define the centers of interests, and then sell statistics for market analysis.
No way we are really free, just close eyes and dream...

Just on the point of ranks, frank, as soon as some one starts paying me 50K to sit down after my day job and allocate ranking points to the 1253 registered uses based on what I perceive to be valuable contributions, then i will.

Until that time i guess that the automated system based on post numbers and fun quirky rank titles will have to suffice..............................

Steve

And it is a free forum so the chatter we get is what we get. Yep it can be a bummer to try and wade through pages upon pages of posts on a single thread but that is what you get in a highly active forum like this one.

I have to say, and active forum is better than a slow one any day. Heck here, if searching for a specific bit of info, try a search and see if you get the answers you need and if you don't, post your question and some one usually answers real soon and may direct you to the thread you were looking for in the first place!


Back to the topic of using that top tank above the flush tank to test sand as a grow bed media. Gravel costs a lot of money here but I have three cubic yards of sand for free from digging my fish tank! I want to see How well I can make it work. The barrel ponics system is really a test and experiment system and that top tank/bed is pretty small so if I decide to un-do it, not such a big deal. Currently, there are no fish, I'm fishless cycling and things seem to be moving along quite well on one 500 mL bottle of Hummonia. I'm still waiting for the Ammonia readings to drop so I can add another bottle but at least the Nitrite is going up and so are the Nitrate readings.

As to the solids getting to the other grow beds. I have a feeling some will make it there anyway but if they are getting digested in the top bed, at least some of the nutrients should get carried around in the water. The biggest issue I foresee with the sand is that my flush tank will wind up with a goodly layer of sand in it. Before I put sand up there, I need to sort out a bell siphon that will work with the current inflow rate.

Let's all get off of TC's thread - too much highjacking here.

TC, with sand you may run into problems later with goop building up and becoming anaerobic. If I was to use sand I would put it after a gravel bed, and maybe put in some voids somehow (piping?) to keep the sand from being too far from an air source.

Safety first, or at least before anyone falls in.

Went to tractor supply and picked up a cattle panel to clamp over the big hole in the ground so no one can fall in.

I'm planning on making an arch with these panels (they are 16 ft long and 47 inches wide) If I put a row of them arched over the tank area I can do a fair bit of shading and during cold snaps, pull tarps over it to keep things warm. I've seen pictures of hoop houses made with this instead of pipe and they look pretty sturdy. Also, during the warm months, it will make a great structure for the cucumbers and beans to climb.

Anyway, the panels cost about $20. We managed to fold this one in half to fit it into the minivan.

TC, some good ideas there from dave. i too would be careful about the sand getting blocked.

you may also have probs with a very slow flow rate though it.

thanx for the comments and apologies for the Hi-jack

All points about sand and anaerobic activity and blockage all being taken into account and considered in my experimentation plans.

I expect that any sand bed probably requires a fair amount of poking with a stick as well.

was just thinking, you might be a ble to manufacture a grid out of reo (the stuff you have covering your hole) with some vertical bits welded onto where each "square" is formed (i'm probably not explaining this very well)

basically what you'll get is a square piece about 1/4 the size of your sand bed with multiple "pokers" then once every determined period you simply put it on the bed and push.

mucho poko

Like aerating your lawn?