Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Steve, the flash went off, so it looks lighter than it is

Flash, ok!

Don't worry dude, once those babies start growing their going to be sucking the nitrates out of the water like a $2 ...............well, its a family site!

Isn't it a wonderfull symphony? baby fish go in with no plants, nitrates rise just as plants germinate, plants start feeding heavily at the same time that yur fish grow up and require more food and produce more nitrate.

Better get some more plants in there......fish might starve....... LOL

Go Mon, the further you get ahead of me, the harder I need to apply myself
Oh dear - feel a geriatric break comin' on

While you are off sleeping Les, I'm trying to see if I can flood my shed.

The other day I was being a smart arse and topping up via the sump cause my rainwater tank is low. I was waiting for the float in the main tank to kick on and didn't notice it flowing out of the overflow drain

Now, I've gone out to find my heater water return pipe has found its way into the same overflow drain and started pumping water out into my shed

Sometimes these things can be very frustrating

frustrating but impressive man

The biggest problems I have been facing so far with AP, is my greenhouse location has been too shady, and my beds drain at a different rate, and I have had trouble getting the float right in the fish tank. I can't speak highly enough of the piggy back floats once they are set right, like I had it set about a week ago, but for the last few days I have had nothing but floods and dry tops since I opened the flow between the 2 tanks. Also, I felt the pumps were cycling too fast, ie no down time between floods and drains, so it would take 11 mins to flood, then an hour or so to drain, then the float would kick in and off we go again. Also, if the sump didn't fill up completely to shoot the last 200 litres back into the tanks, the flood cycle wouldn't kick off etc. Wheras, because the beds were draining unevenly, even with the same amount of hole in the standpipes, if the pump in the fish tank kicked in reliably , it would tend to be when one bed still had a couple of cm's in the bottom, hence every cycle, there would be a bit more left over in that bed.

SO, I have taken out the float from the fish tank to trail one of the 14 on/off cycle digital HPM timers which were found were the most on/offs you can get in a standard timer in previous threads. I have now got a 1.5 hour flood and drain cycle, based on 11 minutes to fill, an hour and ten mins to drain and about 9 min breathing space, from 7 am to 2 am, and then 2 hourly until morning. Will update on how this goes.

Also, solved (hopefully) problem number one of too much shade. One of the main things we love about our yard is the big shady trees, but nothing gets in the way of my AP, so some light but strategic pruning has been done. It was pretty tricky because the main branch we wanted to prune was hanging directly over the greenhouse so I had to stand on the shed roof and help guide the falling brances away from the plastic "tent" as my BIL so disrespecfully names it
It was touch and go a few times, but we managed to get thru with only 2 small puncture wounds which I was pretty happy about, no major dramas there.

I do have enough wood lying around in the backyard now to get any pyro excited, but that will have to sit there until the next working bee.

Hopefully tomorrow, I will see the sun streaming in and plants growing out not just up looking for the sun. ATM my lettuces look like small trees with flimsy trunks.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

I tell ya, my heart stopped about 20 times during the pruning. We had one near miss that could have been a disaster, but ended up getting off very lightly

Correct for digital - but the non-digital ones have 15 minute cycles, which I have foud to be more like 25 minutes. My flood cycle is about 25 minutes and drain is the same usign one of these timers and a small pond pump. For the last few minutes of the drain cycle the water flows therough a gap I have cut in the standpipe - ie it is well and trully flooded at that stage.

.....I have no idea what you mean Monya!!!!
having ground pruned many tallns' but hate it...

Adrenaline rush central.
Give best wishes to H & co

Just ran the first cycle thru. Came on at 10, of at 11 minutes past, flooded evenly to perfection. I'm a happy camper

Good to hear Mon.

That's a long drain cycle Stu. Means you are putting less water through a grow-bed per hour than I do with my small pump setup. Not a problem now - but with full stocking rates it could be???

Hi Stu,

For some good information on Golden Perch, take a look at the AusyFish site.

I concede that we Brisbanites have probably got the drop on you when it comes to keeping the temperature of a tank up at its optimum limits.

I'd have thought that the water should be in very reasonable shape having just percolated through your gravel.....and particularly at that rate of flow. Having said that, while the water is unquestionably aerated, I don't know that there is not an issue with the high rate of flow.

If you have a valve on the supply side of your DWC troughs, you might try cutting the inflow, in one trough, back progessively.....until you notice some change. Small sequenced changes will minimise your risk and will maximise the final result.

Given that your nitrates could be quite a bit higher than they are (before they pose any threat to the fish), have you considered feeding your fish a bit harder?......and pushing the nitrates up which, will then have the effect of firing up your plants.

Anyway, it will be worth seeing what impact the tree pruning has on things..... before making too many other changes. You may find that your growbeds will explode with growth......particularly having sorted your flood and drain cycles.

VB, I suppose I should keep an eye on all that. The big advantage of leaving it 15 minutes extra is that the beds are completely empty when the flood cycle starts again, so they fill evenly. I take your point though, well worth monitoring the situation.

GD, re feeding the fishies. They will pretty much eat as much as I put in, which I was advised of at the hatchery. Problem being, that they can eat themselves to death. I notice if I feed a larger than normal rate, they get really round bellies, which apparently is not optimal. I have upped from about 60 grams to about 90 - 100 grams of food a day, and will continue to increase as they grow, and will monitor nutes as the plants grow too and start extracting them more efficiently. I suspect i will encounter similar things to VB where my fruiting plants will tend to strip the nutes as fast as I can produce them, then I will up the feed levels.