Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

must admit, whilst I thought it looked like a cucumber, I had to cut it to be sure.

So, anyone got any suggestions as to my slow growth? I would have thought a nitrate level of 40 would be enough?

Maybe lacking Iron or some other trace element. I use OBO's ration of 250ml/1kl/month and i think im getting good results but i have started adding cleated iron in the form of a powder aswell. If things went downhill after you added the sump maybe its the mineral content of the water that has been diluted? i don't know just a thought

...as FF says plus a lack of maturity - systems normally take a few months to settle before producing quality food...items like tomatoes, cucumbers (fruiting vegies) seem to go well after a 6-12 month "maturity" period where as lettuce just grow from day 1.

"P" Ryan

I notice that my system needs really regular additions of iron and potassium to keep certain plants happy. I guess my well water just doesn't have much Iron in it because I can really tell the difference in certain plants a few days after I supplement with chleated Iron.

For potassium and trace elements I often use Maxicrop but since it is rather costly, I sometimes skimp and use murate of potash instead.

Those odd looking cucumbers are probably due to incomplete pollination but could also be due to some nutrient deficiency. As your system matures the flowering and fruiting plants will probably improve some since they depend on phosphorus as well which may take a little more time to become available to the plants in a new system.

I noticed today that my pump (Aquapro Stingray 6000) may not be pumping as much water as I would like. Possibly this may be due to restricted/blocked irrigation, but I think it just can't seem to handle the head height up to the top deck, plus the other 4 GBs down lower. If considered all possibilities, but was thinking I might just swap this pump out and keep it as a spare.

I've noticed at B in the plumbing section they have dirty water pumps for about $100, that seem fairly robust and would meet my capacity. Not sure how good they are or warranty or anything, but they seem like a good price for the money. Other factors for me are noise (dunno how loud they are) and power consumption (I think they dray about 200W, which is about 3 times what my current pump does).

The GBs are filling in about 20 minutes, but I'm constantly tweaking the flow to maintain some equilibrium between them. Hence, I'm having to pump for 30 minutes on the 15-minute increment timer. I figure if a new pump fills the GBs within 15 minutes, I can virtually halve the pumping time negating the extra power usage.

Any suggestions?

IMHO, don't trust the pumps at B. They're cheap knockoffs for the most part, and don't perform or last as you'd like them too.
Have a look st some of the pump threads on here. Go to a pump shop (although they have trouble understanding what you want) spend only 20% more and buy a decent pump.
If you look on eBay, you will find B style pumps for about 75% less than B charges.
This is just my opinion from first and second hand information, it is not my intent to slander B.

I guess your right. I'll steer clear from B pumps.

Anyone want to recommend a pump that can do 2 x 100L (40L water) beds at 2.5m and 4 x 100L (40L water) beds at 1.5M? My current pump is 6000L/Hour and seems to struggle a bit. Best I be checking for blockages methinks...

Pumps are designed for different things. The 6000L/Hour you mention is at 0 head. It's the biggest number they can legally put on so it looks better :-)
For such small beds, and reasonable heads, you wont have too much of a problem.
Go to a pump shop, find a nice looking pump, make sure the bloke says it's for continuous flow.
Then read the specs, there will be a table or a chart to show flow at different heads.
There is a tradeoff between pressure and head. Pump manufacturers can choose massive flow down low and very little head, or decent flow at head, and less 0 head flow - Whilst keeping the same power consumption and pump housing.
Look for a pump that will pump to 3.0m head, with a flow of at least 2400L/Hr. (for 1 fill per hour)
You current pump (if you have the box) will let you know it's capabilities.
I would fill every half hour, so would be looking for 4800L/Hr@3.0m
I doubt your 6000 will do that, but maybe.
Also look at your pipe diameters and total length. The smaller and longer the pipe, the higher the resistance. I would suggest minimum 25mm pipe.

Before I start trying other pumps to solve my irrigation problem, I thought I might investigate the issue of too many joins/bends.

Currently, I have the following setup (all 20mm poly):

• A T-connection splits the upper 4 GBs from the lower 4 GBs.
• The top 4 GBs have T-connections between each bed (3 T-connections)
• The bottom 4 GBs have T-connections between each bed, with a right-angle elbow at each furthest GB. (3
• T-connections and 2 elbows)

In total this makes 7 T-connections and 2 elbows. Surely this isn't helping the efficiency of the pump, which is currently struggling to fill all GBs within 20 minutes. I'm using simple overflow standpipes with 6mm drain holes on all GBs.

I have a spare tub that I would guess to be around 150L. Is it feasible to put that up on the deck just above the top 4 GBs, and pump from the ST directly to this tub, and have it gravity feed to all the GBs? I figure having a straight line directly from the pump to this upper tub to be much more efficient, and let gravity take care of the rest.

Did you check for blockages?
I was horrified to find the total blockage of three GB lines
from the tomatoes
Once cleared it was all good.
i noticed the delivery to the grow beds if the hole were downward facing
the roots had an easy time to fill the plumbing.
those upward or side facing holes were much better.

Haven't got full specs on that but it a appears to be max head 2.7m. ie its a high flow low head pump. Usually the efficiency curve is a fair bit below max head. Lots of bends and smaller pipes won't be helping either.

Yep, did that a couple of weeks ago. The only one blocked was submerged below the GB media. The others that didn't come in contact with the media were clear. I unblocked the offending one and made sure it didn't touch the media.

The other reason I was thinking about utilising the 150L tub was that it's spare anyway, and I might use it as a bit of a water feature, or to grow duckweed. Just not sure if gravity feeding into the GBs would work.

Not supposed to be a stupid question Ryan... but does your pump have a strainer, or plastic mesh ring in the bottom of it??

It's this one (the 6000 model). As you can see here http://www.pondone.co.uk/documents/TechSpecs_000.pdf it's probably pushing it given it's working partly at 2.3m.

Anyway, a friend gave me a loan of a bigger pump until I sort mine out. It now fills all beds under 15 minutes, and can handle solids up to 30mm. Hopefully it will also clean out the ST a bit. It's 400W, so too big (and dare I say inefficient) for permanent use, but will make a good backup.

I intend to sell the original 6000 model to recoup some costs. I got it on sale for much less, but it currently retails at almost $400 (albeit at a pet store)! Probably worth 2/3 of that at best price, so I hope to possibly get $150-$200 for it. It was a fine pump (it cam with a 3-year warranty, FWIW), just too small for my needs.

Still keen on pursuing the upstairs pond - or 2nd ST I guess - just not sure on how well it will provide irrigation via gravity.