Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Don't think they are omni's

Hey Mon - those fish arrived yet, don't forget to keep us informed of the kill rate (I mean survival rate) :sunny:

Monday 10 am mate. 200 of the suckers.

The oh sh*t factor kicked in today. Am setting up the vat as a stand alone tank for the first few weeks until I get the 2nd big grow bed full and the plastic on the greenhouse. Bought a 3000lphr continuos rated dirty water pond pump tioday which will pump through a blue barrel full of perlite. Want to be able to move it later, so gravel not an option!

Got the temp from 17 to 21 without too much fuss. Have a 300 watt heater in there and will circluate the water with the new pump overnight and see what the temp reads in the morning. Sunday I will transfer about 1000 litres over to the attached tank and refill with hot water from the laundry tap, and hopefully get in to 27 degs, and hopefully, being insulated, with one decent heater, it will stay close to that.

Looks like some serious work needs doing on a solar heater, MF has a system that I like whereby it is only used for a short period of time per day, this removes the problem of having water continuously cycling through the heater. It still doesn't make copper a viable option but it certainly brings others like PVC back into play

Yeah,I like his a lot. Given time, i will buy a roll of that blue stripe poly that they use to pipe water into houses nowdays, and some joiners and set something up on the shed roof. Unfortunately, time is not on my side.

Just put the new pump in the vat to circulate the water around the heaters. Temp at 21.5

If you're going to buy the blue line, then you might as well buy the one specifically made for hot water lines. At least its rated at the temp. Dont forget that a garden hose left on the floor in summer with no flow can burn your hand when the water is turned on. I'd feel better about using plastic that was rated at the temp.

goodpoint, will do.

Outsidetemp 12 degs, water temp 23.6 degs Success! At 8 30 am

what size heater/s do you have in there Monya

One 300 watt that is set at 32 degs but has clicked off at 23.8


One litllie that I dragged out of the spares box, real old, no temp scal, still heating though!

Temp up to 24 now, so I feel a bit more relaxed

Those little tube heaters do work eventually. I still use them sometimes in the winter when we get cloud cover for weeks at a time and the solar heater is useless. Steve you make a good point and it made me think of something else. Do you think the plastic leaches anything toxic into the water? The water doesn't smell funky so I figured no vapors were being released. The plastic is rated for hot potable water as it is the same pipe used for residential plumbing.

Thats what i was getting at MF, if you've used the one for hot potable water then you've gone the safest option IMO. I know that standard LDPE, for example starts to oxidise around the 70C mark. HDPE is100C or above.

I think so too Steve. Though my water heater doesn't exceed 70C and I'm not sure what the plumbing plastic is rated at. I know for a fact my roof and the tubes get hotter than 70C in the summer.

installed a quick biofilter for the barra tank today. Consists of a blue barrel sitting on top of the vat, stad pipe, filled with perlite and a 3000 ltr per hour dirty water pump I got from the dreaded B (friend was working at the time, gave me $20 off when I told him they were cheaper on the net)

Have added about 50 litres of system water from my goldie tank, sucked out of the gravel, and the perlite fromthe pot on top of the tank. Hopefully this will help to cycle everything quicker.

a few pics

Check out the nitrates in the goldie tank after a 50% water change

I would love to find a plant that doesn't mind low light for the pot above the tank. The fern that was in there was slowly withering away despite the plentiful nutrients. (and now has anew home in the dirt garden)