Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi all. Having introduced ourselves in another thread - here are some photos of what we are working with. Taken with phone camera so not v.good quality but should give you the idea. First go with attaching photos in this forum so I'll just try two and post some more if it works! Basically, we have a sunken pond which we dug ourselves about 18 months ago. We think we worked it out to hold about 2500lt when fully topped up (need to recheck that though). At the moment we just have a couple of gold fish and a couple of hundred (approx obviously) white cloud mountain minnows (have bred from original 20 we put in for mosquito control). We have picked up a bathtub from the tip shop and with the help of this forum plumbed it up yesterday (successfully we think - although yet to test it!). Husband is out getting the gravel as I type (this is a joint project - he is much more into the aquaponics project than any of my other harebrained projects eg the ongoing chook yard expansion - what is it about AP that gets the blokes so interested? Maybe the excuse to spend hours in hardware shops?!). We are going to start with flood and drain on a timer and gravity flow back into pond. If the photo has worked the grow bed will be placed on blocks right above/next to pond under the gazebo thingy (which is under threat of having its table removed and being completely filled with growbeds). The gazebo has a clear roof and gets plenty of sun. The pond on the other had stays mostly shaded due to trees and angle of sun. As per other thread our biggest hurdle (that we can see at the moment anyway!) is water temperature and getting the system cycled in the cold weather. We realise that nothing much is likely to happen until the weather warms up. Anyway that'll do for now. I want to see if these photos work. Look forward to sharing our progress with you all. Promise will TRY not to ask stupid questions but can't guarantee it won't happen Just to warn you - while I have a pretty green thumb and am good on the organic vegie growing side of things I am crap on the hardware and not much better at the science side of things (husband is much better on both).

that is gunna be fab margate.
You will find the azolla/duckweed in the pond handy for silver perch. It has implications for pH swings, oxygen in water and stealing nutrients from ur growbeds otherwise,so is something u need to think about. If the fish don't eat it u will need to remove it.
Can't wait 2 see how things evolve.

Point 1 - there are NO stupid questions in BYAPers vocabulary - only stupid answers

Point 2 - Aquaponics is NOT a hairbrained project - it is for fanatical maniacs only

Point 3 - love the pics, just got to educate you in resizing them to fit the screen

Point 4 - need to inform the forum of your gravel washing experiences (so we can all have a good laugh)

+1 for NOT washing the gravel Personally I dont think it is necessary

Pretty sizeable photos - oops. I will work out resizing In fact I will practice by posting a photo of the bath tub in place beside the pond. It's looking - well, like someone has whacked an old bath tub next to (what used to be) an ornamental pond. Hoping that when it's full of gravel and plants it will be a LITTLE less ugly (cue howls of AP is not MEANT to be pretty!!!).

So yes - next step gravel washing. I plan to do at least a couple of rinses. It's pretty dirty and we do only have one tub worth to wash this time around. I know it would probably settle in time but the bath tub is looking so ugly (did I mention that?) that I thought I'd try and avoid brown pond water as well. I also have 3 and 5 yo sons who I thought I could convince that gravel washing is a FUN job for the school holidays (yeah right mum). Have ordered a timer from ebay so plan for this weekend is to muck around with flood and drain times etc.

Thanks for all advice so far.

Any chance a moderator could shrink that picture so that we don't have to scroll back and forth to read this thread?

Yes - if a moderator could be so kind - I think I have worked out resizing for the future

Oh - and I do have one quick question. The bath we bought had the existing u-bend pipe still plumbed from the bottom of the drain (ie the exit back in to the pond). Trouble is - I think it's copper pipe. From a search of the forum it appears the concensus is that copper is bad in AP. But would the levels be sufficient to worry about when we're just talking approx 20cm of pipe? Safer to replace with PVC (not ANOTHER trip to the plumbing section)? Any thoughts?

If it's copper... get rid of it IMO...

The problem with copper in a closed system (as aquaponics is), the copper levels keep building up until way above healthy levels

Well - we have had the bath tub up and running for a bit over a week now. We cleaned out the canister biofilter and squeezed a whole lot of gunk out into the grow bed. Turned the water murky for a day or 2 but it's back to clear now. Planted a few lettuce and parsley seedlings. Bought a digital timer for $18 off ebay which allows 20 cycles a day. Cheap so not sure if it'll last the distance but working fine so far. Tub fills in 5 mins so we have 5mins on 55 off during the day and less at night. We put a bypass back to the pond for extra aeration during the flood cycle but are thinking it might not be enough given the short flood time. Might look at a supplementary air pump. We added a couple of tsps of urea a week ago and have recorded the following test results:

13/7 Ammonia 0ppm(mg/L), Nitrite Oppm (mg/L), Nitrate 0ppm(mg/L) (set up day)
15/7 Ammonia 1, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 0
16/7 Ammonia .5, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 0
17/7 Ammonia .5 Nitrite 0, Nitrate 0
19/7 Ammonia .5, Nitrite .5, Nitrate 3ish (just showing on card)
20/7 Ammonia .5, Nitrite .25, Nitrate 7.5 ish
21/7 Ammonia .5, Nitrite .25, Nitrate 5

So - am thinking that's all ok right? We only have a few fish in at the moment (goldies/white clouds) so plan is to wait until Ammonia and nitrite drops to 0 - then we can gradually add more fish until we're running with a level of nitrates to support the grow bed (and potentially an extra one too). We're sticking with goldies for this trial system so does that sound like a fair enough plan? Any tips as far as next steps are concerned?

One thing that has me baffled though - we have been testing pH throughout and it has remained constant at around 7.2/7.4 (including yesterday). When I tested this morning though it has shot up to around 8.2. Why? And is this cause for concern? It did rain overnight but I tested the rain water and it's PH is 6.6. Are fluctuations in pH a normal part of the cycling process? Any ideas appreciated.

I hope you ducked that low flying plane

noted

Good to see it progressing!

Looks like a top spot for it. More photos please.

How did you plumb your stand pipe? Get rid of the copper, it's bad. You can get plastic plumbing stuff from b* which fits 40mm pipe perfectly and even seals. Great for standpipes. This stuff:

Fits 40mm joiner a treat:


pH up to 8.0 could be due to the material you are using for your growbeds..... what ARE you using? If there is some kind of carbonate in it then it will raise pH. Could also be due to algae or duckweed as TT mentioned.... not too much need for concern just yet, just keep measuring and make sure it doesn't swing back and forth (if you measure first thing in the morning and last thing in the day and it's markedly different, and repeats every day, you can put that down to algae/duckweed/azolla and it's breathing cycle). pH swings will stress the fish, but if it sits up at 8 and comes down slowly due to nitrification then you shouldn't have a problem.

My big question is what are the water temps?!

Only getting up to around 8 deg during the day, dropping to 6 at night (mind you we're using an old brewing thermometer so probably not v.accurate). COLD anyway- and likely to stay that way, judging by the weather forecast. We're trying to work out how to manage the temperatures for a future system (with a fish tank housed in the shed) which might include edible fish. Can't work out how to do it ATM without forking out big bucks.

We got rid of the copper pipe. Just readjusted the tub out a bit over the pond so the water flows directly out the drain into the pond.

Re pH - we used 10mm washed river gravel for the media. Haven't investigated whether that might be responsible for raised pH, will keep an eye on it over the next week or so.

I still think we canberrans can use solar energy to heat the water using a pump and a solar collector. I would say the rain & cloud cover we're getting at the moment is unusual. We get a lot of sun here. Something sitting in full sun all day is going to inject a fair bit of heat into the system, so if you can find one of those solar pool heaters second hand then I'd be giving that a go. I have a feeling that the ground temps are about 8 degrees, so we don't get any help from that. I think tank in shed with some insulation around it is a good idea. Could get way too hot in summer though....

Anyway, keep that one on the backburner, you won't have any real crops in this winter, so you can put heating off till next autumn.