Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

was a nice bit of rain hey steve.............shame it was too wet too mow the grass

bad luck BK, yours, I've got no grass to mow

Had RDO yesterday and time to install the Tubs controller and associated hardware,
relay board and a junction box plus all the rewiring needed.

Because of the showers throughout the day have connected the backup air pump
to an external power source and isolated the whole AP sys just to be on the safe side.

Still need to make a low level water sensor ( microswitch + float) for the tubs.
Everything else is installed and tested. Works sweet.

Mibuna is coming up nicely.

Just came back from a long weekend in Sydney to find the IBC empty
with only two goldies surviving in 3” of water but all (25) SPs dead.

The pumps in the IBC most probably dead as well, luckilly they are not the expensive ones.

Tomorrow must find out what has happened, where did the water go.
Sump didn’t overflow and the return line looks OK,
Every GB does have an overflow going into a common return line with the loop syphons.

Until now any marked water loses were related to heat caused evaporation.

Why the controller’s HSM didn’t work?
It works as it’s supposed to but have found float from the Low Water Sensor on the IBC’s bottom.
Quite robustly built by myself. Originally it controlled the sump pump in my first AP sys. until replaced by the tubs.
Will replace it by spare ball based three-wire float switch.

The irony of it all, until now I really didn’t know how many SPs from the fist lot I had left or their size.

Tomorrow will post few picks, too late today.

The Tubs sys. is OK, had no losses there yet.

Damn Steve, That's bad news
Go get some more, and don't tell Gloria, she'll probably not pay enough attention to notice the change in size...

Sorry to hear about your fish.

Have to many in the Tubs, were expecting some loses but none so far,
when I sort it out will transfer some of them into the IBC.
She saw them, not yet plate size bud did surprised me.

Me too Dufflight, everything running so smoothly when being around.

That's sod's law steve. nothing you can do except accept or become a paranoid lunatic. For me it was a simple choice

Bummer... sorry to hear about ya fish Steve...

Bugger

27 the final count, from 110 to 170mm in size, ouch,

First, why it wasn’t prevented –
that float is quite heavy, weighted to be submerged 2/3 but its bobbing up and down
somehow opened the safety pin of the stainless steel fishing swivel and unhooked itself, not happy.

So low water HSM protection didn’t work, and because of the murky water I never saw the float on the bottom.
May have been there well before us going away.
Already remedied, when filling up the FT, the new float wouldn’t let the pumps turn on until a full FT
and does have enough “hysteresis” to prevent false triggering.

And how did I loose the water, I can only speculate, no apparent reason I could be sure off.
The two rows of GB drain each through its filter box into the sump.
I do clean both filters each week regularly rather as a precaution, not that they really do need it that often,
and I did also cleaned them the day before leaving for Sydney on Friday.
Lately I was noticing some very small black snails (1 to 3mm) collecting on one filter.

That filter was quite covered with them, not totally but may have been enough to restrict the water flow
and cause some water to spill over on each flood and drain cycle.
I took the filters off but will trim them so as to leave a gap on one side for unrestricted flow
or will do without them altogether.

Anybody got that tiny snails, I did noticed them already last year in the sump.

Have replaced the two pumps with 3000 l/h dirty water B specials,
filled the FT and will let it run for few days to see what happens before putting in any SPs.

About 40, and would like to put in also 20 cats, that will leave me with 30 fish in each tub
but not sure how well will they cohabit. Any advice?

Used to look at the weeping hose at B but never dared to use it as air hose until seeing it mentioned by OBO,
if not mistaken, that’s the L shape on the bottom weighted down by a piece of rusty round steel.

And the last of the Ox Heart tomies.

Too bad Steve.
However, if it makes you feel better, posting details of you setback motivated me to go and check the operation of my low water float. Not working
You may have saved me from a similar experience in the future.
Cheers

Bummer Steve back on the bike
As scott said posting your mistakes can save others
Did you find where all the water went!

Already dark when I came back from a 12hours shift so no picks.

Scottt, that float was switching one of the sump pumps until recently so I may have been too confident.
Have replaced it with a proper (expensive ) float switch and reused the homemade one
for the purpose it failed.

If I may post a plug, last week have called F&F's friend at Nightingale’s to order four float switches.
The kind lady promised me to post them that same day and I did received them the next morning .
5m 3 wire cable with weight. A$20 each.
Their web page wasn’t updated for some three years.

F&F, do you have more friends like that?

F&F, no leaks and no siphon and no apparent sabotage so only speculating.
One of the filters was full of tiny snails.
Not enough to block it completely but may have restricted the water flow and cause some overflow
on each flood and drain cycle,
The water loss would have been gradual.

Threw away the filters for now but will replace them after some modification of the filter boxes.
Macro capabilities of my camera are nonexistent so didn’t try a pic of the snails.
Were seeing them in the sumps all the time so must be common.

I have silvers and catfish in the same tank. They get along well.