Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Ditto... will also bring your pH back... act immediately IMO...

I found Kenny's water quality spreadsheet and have added a couple of sheets with temp column.
I also locked the sheets without a password, so to unlock and modify just go to "Tools / Protection / Unprotect Sheet"

Just cranked up one of the dishwasher pumps

Black pipe delivers 45 lt per min
Grey pipe delivers 30 lt per min
Small clear pipe delivers 3 lt per min



I don't think the small pipe is delivering any useful volume so I will blank that off.
I am thinking this pump will do two GB's simultaneously



I had to make the capacitor safe and will make a weather proof cover but apart from that it plumbed up quite easily.

Cheers,
Dennis

Made up coarse filter for inlet. I used gutter guard. Do you think it is too coarse
I used the second pump outlet to create a bit of a swirl in the bottom of the tank. Seems to work ok

Getting awefully close there Curnow....

Bit of an update.
Have yabbies in the system. Had a bit of a disaster with the high Ammonia. Lost 10 of the biggest ones but 6 small ones survived . I shifted all the survivors into our blow up pool where the water was a bit more friendly. I then dumped all the water from the tank and refilled with fresh. Seems ok. Ammonia still 0 Nitrites cruised along at 1 but has now dropped to 0 Nitrates have been travelling at 10 and pH has steadily risen from 6.4 to 7.0
What is a good number for the Nitrate?
Added a trellis for the cucumbers today.


Veggies are going not too bad.

Nitrates of 0 - 80 seem to be the go, its not toxic until extremely high levels.

My system runs with 40-80 Nitrates when the fish start eating well and the plants haven't caught up. There have been some that ran sky high Nitrates for a long time and their fish survived long enough to be eaten.

One thing I learned is that the plants can only take up so much nutrients and when things get out of balance, they can stall. Adding seasol or maxicrop and iron can sometimes suddenly cause the plants to use up more nitrates.

Bummer on the losses. When I cycle up a system I often test daily for Ammonia, nitrite, and pH. Especially when I add critters into the water it becomes even more important to have a daily fix on the water quality. When you put the yabbies back into the system, make sure to add some buffer like shells since the yabbies need calcium in their water and it will also help stabilize pH.

That tank in the background is that the fish tank for the larger system

Nah F&F not big enough

This is the future



Just need to get the D9 in to expand it a bit
Anybody have good ideas to seal up white sand to make water proof

Cheers

Down here some farmers are using a sort of PVC liner in Dams, not cheap though I believe,
C1 the Marchagee str8 cost me 11 points in my younger days

Sheezuss Nocky doing a bit of low flying

Do you know anyone in the earth moving business who needs a dump site for some clay. If you can import clay and line the dam with it then that can work. Need heaps though.

Update,
A couple of pix. The growth rate of the vege's is astonishing
I have put the date in the photo file name so it is easy to keep track of the time frame.





I still had a problem with algae even with the cover and blanket around the tank. I moved the yabbies back into the holding pool and put 3 hanging baskets with the second pump outlet running into them. I put 2 layers of coconut fibre in the baskets with some Lucerne hay. This I hope will help filter the algae out. The hay and coconut turned the water brown but it looks better than green



Cheers
Denis

Lots of bubbles on the surface?