Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

And Drain from Header Tank.

Cool!

You could use 13mm poly pipe, and small poly taps to tune the water distribution.

Total Eden has a huge range of retic parts, and 4mm is a standard retic size. 6mm is used in miniscape drip line and both have a range of fittings. There is a Total Eden in Osbourne Park somewhere

I agree with DD about crud build up, but if you have not had a problem yet then perhaps your system has less crud than others. If it works go with it, were all learning.

i AM using 13mm poly pipes and are using a few fittings that came from ozzie park total eden
However I dont buy a lot from them as they are a lil more expensive than the other shops in balcatta
While I do praise osborne park total eden for having a lot of fittings that I wanted, they do NOT however have all the fittings I need for the miniscape drip stuff. And this is aquaponics the dirt have to be able to get through the pipes to the GB so I am not using the miniscape drips because as you said, they'd just clog up the system.
As with the crud build up, I'm trying anything out - innocent until proven guilty you know.

While we're on the subject, I bought a 50kg bag of Hydroton on Saturday and just added it to one of my GB pots. I'm thrilled with how light it is. No more buying gravel it's gonna be Hydroton from now on!!

in the cubbyhouse AP I've now added Yolo Wonder Capsicum seedlings, Lebanese cucumber seedlings and English Spinach. All are looking sprightly even though the cycling system is only 4-5 days old.

today, the ammonium levels in the cubbyhouse AP have reached 0! It's cycled !!
at the moment I have 10 goldie comets, english spinach, yolo capsicum, leb cucumber, cherry tomato seedlings, a strawberry plant and some stringless celery!
The FT is 220L and there are 5 GBs, 3 are 45L and filled with pea gravel. 1 is 60L with hydroton and another is 40L with a mix of hydroton and pea gravel. the pump sends dirty water from FT to height of about 2 metres and distributed via 13mm poly to all 5 beds.
Each bed have inline valves controlling the input of water. all have bell autosiphons draining out in 6mm clear vinyl pipes straight down back to FT.

cvt (clear vinyl tube) will develop algal deposits soon
be prepared to change those out when they start to block your fittings

With C1 on that one, the green stuff is better. Could just get a piece of hosepipe cut it lengthways put it over and tape it on (or zip tie) if you don't want to slip it over.

6mm siphons may not block up too quickly - siphons have a remarkable cleaning power.

But, black pipeing would be better.

thanks for the suggestions... I'll think of those when it is truly blocked. I do have beautiful algal flowering blooms but at the moment it doesn't seem to pose a problem.
Though the fact that they can grow there means that they WILL get bigger.... I'll just wait for it to happen before I throw my money away! am considering covering em with waterproof duct tape or something.. just to stop the sun shining through it.

OBO I'm sorry to say that the gidgegannup fishery is also in recession, they're waiting for their spawn and have a long queue. My extended family and we did go to the lake for a swim but they wanted me in the fun, not out walking and talking business!
Sorry... for not letting you know sooner and not getting the result we wanted. but I talked with everyone about it and they all say that the local council hasn't been stocking the lake for years now and that the last time one of us checked out the fishermen, they hadn't caught anything. So, in the peak of summer, it's unlikely that we would catch anything anyway.

"I'll just wait for it to happen before I throw my money away!"

Best you use some of that tape Jensilaedi...
or it could be doing what you don't want to do

[quote=Jensilaedi] I'll just wait for it to happen before I throw my money away![/quote]

May want to fit an overflow system if you're going to just 'suck-it-and-see' - The day your siphon stops working is the day you pump all the water out of your FT

Cool use of the childhood cubbyhouse too!

How could it overflow? I'm watching it like a hawk... I cant wait for the veggies to grow! I've applied some Dipel to stop the eating insects and it worked like a charm. There are some birds flying through it every now and again. Sometimes when I'm in there spying on the fish the birds get close and spy on the GB's. They really startle and fly away when my head pops out of the FT lol. Honeysuckers, Willy wagtails and the like... very pretty birds.