Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

MM, I think VB had a couple of valid points, but it certainly is worth giving it a go..

Got most of the gravel in, pump going. Water seems to flow pretty good. Some of the gravel dust that settled to the bottom of the crate caused the pond to cloud a bit but it has settled now. Going to get the second growbed in and gravel washed (yay!) on the weekend ....

I planted some of dad's organic bok-choi seeds in some seedling trays, these things grow fast, should be big enough in a week or two. I am hoping that because the pond is established, the bacteria will have a kick start. I'll get a few more fish once it is all stable again.

Heres some pictures:

Now those are some happy fish!

I do hope they stay that way. One of them is hiding up the other end he/she is about 25 cm long. It stays that clean for about 10 months of the year. In the middle of summer we usually get an algae bloom, just goes a bit green. We went bush to 'obtain' all the toodyay stone, it has a good bordering effect.

a nice looking pond, and now a usefull one too

that looks fantastic, sensational fish

I spent most of last night tinkering with auto-siphons. I have decided, as a test I will run a continuous flow and a flood and drain system side-by-side and test each for effectiveness. I will plant the same number of plants, at the exact same time and detirmine which system works the best.

So... my auto-siphon. I am sure you have those moments just after you drill a hole, and you think S**T I should not have just done that. Well I did that and as a result my auto-siphon is a bit more complex than originally planned but it worked. I managed to get it to flood and rain 6 times in a row so far without any issues. I will have to divert the drain pipe directly to the bottom pond because the waterfall resembled niagra falls. Heres some pics of the auto-siphon (see if you can get your head around it):

Yeh - when it goes, it gooeeeessss
Ell

I have finally managed to get photos of the finished system (minus plants) with all the gravel and plumbing done. I just have to get a suitable timer for my flood and drain half (left). I was thinking I need 2 mins on 10mins off. That should be plenty. A 555 timer and a relay might do the trick for now.

I have also attached a picture of my conventional vege garden, all grown from organic seeds collect each year.

very nice, I like the use of modern building materials for stands

far out Tim, it all looks great. You must be eating heaps out of your backyard. Wicked!

We're really in-between seasons at the moment. We managed to sucessfully grow potatoes in pots, this year. A quick list of what we have grown this year. Silverbeet, Spinach, Spring Onions, Brown/White salad onions, four to five variants of tomatoes (same lines for 10 years), potatoes, sweet potatoes, leeks. lettuce, peas, corn and about 10 species of herbs. We had pizza on sunday and 3/4 of the ingredients came from the garden.

Really quite inspirational... Mini/temp system... I'm starting to think that I should just do that & once I'm happy with it, see where it takes me afterwards.. Nifty.. I'm looking forward to seeing some plants in there.

The pic of your garden produce really makes me feel very impatient.. I can't wait to get some stuff growing properly in my little courtyard! I too, like the use of modern, yet eclectic, materials for the pot stands. I think I'm going to need to start doing that for some of the plants that require more sun than they get down on the ground.

Hidden under most of the pots next to the yellow crate is a big old pottery wheel. It is probably about 60 or so years old. Came out of Courtland Pottery for those in WA might remember it on Great Eastern Highway. The rest, well they just happened to be the closest things at hand when we shift the pots.

Bit of an update, I planted some lettuces about three weeks ago. They are coming along quite nicely despite of the lack of sun were the growbeds are positioned. I will post some pictures tommorrow.

One of the growbeds (right-hand side) is my continuous flow/dwc setup which runs off a ~300 LPH pump, this runs 24/7.

Next to it as you can see in the above pictures is the flood and drain setup with the autosiphon. The pump is 4500LPH and runs for 10 mins every 50 mins from 6 am to 6 pm.

My observations so far point to the continuous flow/dwc setup as the clear winner. Which is not suprising as they are in water all the time with nutrients slowly being replaced 24/7. However the plants in the flood and drain look more healthier than the others so it will beinteresting to see which taste better.