Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Decided it was time to do a major harvest. Ripped off a heap of silverbeet leaves and pulled out 4 more lettuce. Can't possibly eat all this myself, so people at work will be lucky recipients.

Mate you will start to look like a cross between a lettuce and silver beet if you eat all that! Didn't take long from planting to harvest. Have you replanted in the gaps?

Below is a pic from 23 September.

Haven't filled the gaps yet Stu. Unfortunatelly there are bugger all gaps - just those left from the luttuce, which were very closely planted. I need more beds. Maybe I should get me some grave beds .

Good thing is it tastes so good you can eat it raw. Even my 5 year old is eating it raw straight out of the bed. Of course it is also fantastic cooked.

I have always found home grown silverbeet is unable to be compared to the bitter shit that you buy from the shop - and this is even better.

What a difference bio-film can make! My system still runs on a timer to regulate the flood and drain cycles. Over the last couple of weeks the bed has stopped flooding to the correct level. I decided it must be the pump, which is getting pretty old.

As my grid setup is only temporary awaiting the removal of my original tomato plant and grow-bed from the top of my big bed, the tubing feeding the grid is just 16mm aquarium filter type clear vinyl. I have this coverred in panda plastic to stop light geeting in and therefore preventing algae growth. It also prevented me seeing that a thick, I repeat thick, layer of bio-film had built up in the pipe. I have now cleared this and I expect my flooding of the grow-bed will again work properly.

Just something for people to be aware of, particulalrly if using pipe which is not hugely thicker than what is needed.

BTW - none of this changes the fact that a pond pump I recently bought from ebay is crap. It pumps nothing like what is quoted. To give an idea of how poor it is, the pump is quoted to be a 4500 litres per hour pump. That would obviously be at 0 head. I tested it at 15cm head (about as little as I can get and still test it, and it pumps 1600 litres per hour. That is a big difference and makes all the difference for me as to whether it is usefull or useless for what I want it for.

so i take it the dude didn't get positive feed back

Still trying to work it out with them. Of course they want me to send it back to them for asessment - then replacement or refund. Naturally they want me to pay to get it to them and I expect that if they give the refund, it will be just the product cost, not the exhorbitant postage that I paid to get it here in the first place. Will see what happens. In the meantime I have had to order another pump to keep my system running when I return the faulty one. This time I have orderred from Ageofaquariums. At least they have a shop front and a phone number if there are issues.

Quick questian where did you buy your 1st one and where are you buying your second one so others dont fall in the same trap

I bought a 4500LPH off ebay... a green one, it filled up mt 55L growbed in just under a minute at 1 metre head. So that roughly 3500 LPH. It has been running great for about 2 months now. I will keep an eye on it though, thanks for the heads up. I am hoping it is just a particular model.

F&F - I may wait and see what the outcome is before bagging them. As for who I have orderred the second pump from - ageofaquariums.com.au. They have good range and prices and a single delivery fee of $7.50 regardless of how much you purchase. They also have a shop front at Browns Plains here in Qld.

Tim - what brand is yours and where did you get it from?

Yes smart move

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/JEBAO-submersibl ... dZViewItem

This is the one I have, cost me $100. There are similar ones online but without the brand and the 2 year warranty.

We have those pumpes here cost around $60 Aus but they are all black how does it work for you?

There are so many similar ones around... I have no idea which are better than others. Thats generic crap for you.. mine seems to be running fine, I have put a ball valve on the output to restrict the flow to be marginally less than the speed of the siphon. But it is all good.

VB, what did you end up getting your NO3 back up to?