Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I think that the covering i have over the plants in the growbed is doing all that it can atm to stop more heat being added to the gravel. For the dirt garden yes misting the gravel sounds like a good idea, cheers.
As for the fish tank temp it is still under the air temp is so its a case of the water temp slowly moving inline with the air temp and this is very hard to combat with my tank outside. An indoor tank well insulated would be nice but you also need the option of isolating the growbed/sump from the tank and running an indoor biofilter maybe. But then that would be aquaculture.
My biggest concern now is that im going to have this same problem in reverse in winter. Heating water must be easier than cooling wather though and im sure silvers will be fine.

awesome system ff.... man you set the bar high....

i realise that as a newbie this idea may have been tried already...but..


would a covering of organic mulch act as a buffer for the radient heat of the sun??? would it also help retain heat in winter??

Nup not really even an air pump will alter the temp of the water i say just go with the flow and use what ever fish suits the temp trout 2 to 24 silvers up to 35 deg
you can heat to save the small silvers over winter

How'd you come through the heat FF?

Chatty

hi Chatty yes the heat was ok plants suffered a bit corn burnt a bit [no cover] corn it dirt ok wicking bed booming [will do others as they empty]
weathers stupid now water from around 28 down to 17 now silvers still eating
Looking foward to the sa meet in march

+1 grow fish suitable to your temps. Covering the plants and gravel with a sheet worked well but mulch would inhibit the growbed from breathing IMO. Temp problems i was having were due to high air temps and hot nights so there is not much that can be done about it.
All the plants you see in my garden that are not AP are dead except the Iris. I think they died because they were all only planted late last year so they weren't well established. AP plants are doing great. Fish are doing well, but I had a few showing signs of tail rot so the system has been salted to 5ppt again.
I had my power go off just a few times and my power backup took care of them. Currently I'm building a an automated top up system using a timer board and irrigation solenoid so that if the water in sump gets low it will give a set number of minutes of tap water to top it up. I will post some pictures soon.

Is your power backup an emergency air supply or does it run the whole system?



Wrong Mt Barker! I'm in the one that managed to avoid all the heat in West Oz!!



Will you convert AP beds to wicking beds or are you converting dirt beds over?

Chatty

Chatty,
My backup is a mains fail relay and deep cycle battery with inverter and runs the whole system (100w pump and 30w air) for about 4 hours on my small battery or 12 on my larger one. I share there batteries with my car fridge.

food and fish,
Are you coming to the SA meet in march?

Just converting dirt to wicking

My word food and fish and jim also

Already booked staying in handoff

Awesome looking forward to meeting you both.

look out for those cheeky old buggers

Today I did a 30% water change to reduce my salt levels and while the growbed was offline i decide to get a few pictures of my auto syphon.
I know that a lot of people including myself have trouble setting these fellows up for the first time so I think this may be of some help to someone. Notice in my pictures I have added a cup type setup on the side of it. The water level in this cup drops faster than the level outside it allowing a real sudden slurp and stop when it sucks air. I had to add this because my growbed is receiving a continuous flow of about 3000l/hour and without it the syphon would stop after about a minute long series of slurping noises as outflow starts to match inflow.
The small air hose is used to slow the flow but it also vents the cap once the syphon stops and this prevents a false start on the next cycle. This airline is vented outside the growbed area so that it only sucks air not water, the airstone on the end is just to keep the noise down. Where the small air tube enters the Syphon cover i have a small irrigation dripper that i have used to limit the amount of air I let in. When i first started using this it worked well but would get blocked up on the flood cycle when it got under water so the air tube came about to prevent this small hole getting water/gunk sucked through it.

This is where my syphon sits, it is connected to 90mm pipe and 3 drains under the growbed to help empty the 950l of water my growbed holds and the water that enters it while it's draining in about 15 mins.