Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

What is the system doing now and what improvments did you and steve do [photos we love photos ]

KP
I read in another topic somewhere that you where going to get some Tandans, did you end up getting them?
If so how have the been to keep, how do they grow?

I know they taste great and would love to get some next year when I set up my big system.

They keep well so long as they';re big enough to survive winter. They grow slow, but are great like silvers for keeping your system going over summer.

Milne,
Ever since you visited I have been losing up to 1000litres from the system.
It has taken until today to find the problem
Believe it or not, adding the air to the sumps is what caused my leak. Also, when the sumps drop, the backpressure on the airline drops, so the stones in the FT no longer pump air, due to the path of least resistance So when I lose water, I lose air too. Probably because I'm not feeding yet, I have not lost any further fish Yay
Steve and I put in the sewer Bypass so it's out of the road of future expansion, and later that week Steve leveled of the area for those 3 extra beds. So a little more work and I can think about installing them.
Some pictures tomorrow perhaps, if we're lucky.

Leak, explain more about the leak!!!!!! How did adding air cause the leak? Now the pressure thing with the air stones and varying depth tanks, hum there is a challenge. Does it mean you need to use a separate air pump to aerate the sumps?

I must admit, I intentionally left that vague it's a good gauge to see who's reading but not commenting much...

OK, well.
F&F suggested air in all tanks and in the sumps.
Not a problem.
I soon posted that all tanks are clean and that worked a treat!
I also mentioned being able to clearly see the buildup of solids in the GB near the inlet.

Alas in my 'Hidden' beds (beds under 2 inches of gravel, so it looks like one massive bed or a large gravel area) the buildup was quite severe.
As 1-2 years of silt was dumped in at once, and these are timed beds, not cont flow, the solids all built up in the fine scoria I was using.
When the timer switched off, these solids dried.
this formed a nice dam.
then the pump turned on, and put more solids in, but these got filtered in the no blocked section.
before long, the water was unable to flow freely from the inlet to the rest of the bed.
As such there was a wet section of bed 6" in diameter, overflowing right above the inlet.
Took me AGES to find.
I thought it was those beds, but at the other end, as I had removed a standpipe to show Milne, and feared it was not replaced at the correct height (mine are variable)
I then thought Steve and I had not fixed the pipes he hacked through with the mattock (of course it may have helped if I had told him they were buried there )
But alas, that was all dry and safe
I was at a loss and fearing the worst.
Finally a day with no rain, lots of sunshine, it makes leaks easier to find.

Intentionally vague ,, now I get it. I apologise , I realy didn'y know the reason before now:)

OK well as I have changed out about 6000 litres I expect this round of testing should give the all clear:

pH = 7.7
NH3 = 0.5 - 1.0
N02 = 0
N03 = 10

I don't trust that ammo reading, I've not fed for a week and done a hundred water changes... but I have to run so I'll test again at lunch

OK, retested and ammonia is < 0.25
so unless the sample jar of AP water has been offgassing ammonia in the last hour, I would have to say I must have added one of the reagents twice... I now remember asking myself: "have I added this already?" but can't remember for what test it was
So. I think I will start feeding again tomorrow.

So what did you end up doing about the "covered" beds Kuda?

Fair go mate its only been a week gees

Oh sorry, I left that out. I just dug up the gravel around the input. The clogging was only local. Not much to tell really. Unfortunately I had to disturb some freshly sprouted seeds to do it
I left the hole dug, so that it would be obvious should it start to happen again

I've seen somewhere else on these forums the idea of putting an "inspection hole" - i.e. a piece of offcut pvc shoved into the gravel so you can have a look see. In the context it was given, it was so that they could see whether the sump was leaking (the sump was in a pit backfilled with gravel), bit I don't see why it wouldn't work with you. Stick a cap on it, and occasionally you can just pull off the cap and make sure all is well down there.

My sump is clean and easily accessible. Is the gb that got blocked and overflowed. It was due to the sudden influx of a heap of SIDS and should not happen again AP gods willing.