Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Ok, I have bit the bullet, about time I gave some photos.

as I have very little $, this is all done on an extreme budget - a 3000L/h pond pump $130

2 200Ltr Drums - $40

Various pipe and fittings $100

5000Ltr Rain Water Tank? $500K (came with the house) and is for temperature buffering.

2 x 500ltr FT/Sump Tanks - $99 at B

3.5x2.5 Plastic House? free with some labor swapped.

Now, I know things are not straight and whilst this bothers me, I had no money to level th spot, and basically leveled where needed by hand.

Now, I have the barramundi in a 500Ltr tank, with a overflow to a 500ltr sump.

The pump in sump, pumps up to the 5000ltr water tank, which overflows straight back to growbeds.

The growbeds and ft and sump are all in the hot house, and the Header (5Kltr) is next to the hot house.

I have a bunch of barra in there and it seems to be keeping a steady temp. all levels are fine.

I couldnt figure out how to include photo here, so i put em on my flickr account
http://www.flickr.com/photos/38176179@N08/sets/72157622780686558/

Ah very good...at the end of the day if you get fish and veg then thats all that matters..

Nice, Aj!
Very soon you will be thinking of expanding!! And it will be a "put together" system! lol!

Yeah, I have access to a 10x6x6' fiberglass rectangular tank for $400 - when I get that, I will also buy some more blue drums and have a new place (the old chicken coop) which is flatter for placing this new stuff.

*sob*

I came home today to 30C water

7.8PH

and otherwise fine levels

and 38 dead and 2 dying barra

The goldies are stressed (jumping out of water - weird) but otherwise fine.

ideas?

My guess,
With "a bunch of Barra" in 500L @ 30 degree water temp, would be low O2

ohhh no....sorry to hear, we know how you feel

Yep suffocation...

don't know how big the Barra were... but even if they were "small" ... at 26 degrees 40 fish in 500L ... they just never were going to make it...

15-20 fish might have had a chance .... for a few hours...

Did you have an air pump running or were you just relying on return water for O2

Daryl

several air sources, pump, spray nozzle from pump in tank direct back to tank (19" Sprinkler mist spray straight on water), return water from 2 seperate siphons - 10 minutes filling 2 minutes dumping

- the few that survived seem to be doing ok, so even though i have 5000Litre in header it is not enough? dumb q i know.

ah well, the chooks sure were happy this arvo...

I suspect the cause to be related to PH and DO (obviously temp related) .

funny think is, the temp was stable at 25/26 for last 3 days of 37+C weather.

today shot up to 30.2

sigh.... I cant wait to win the horses and have enough $ to buy what I need... when is the melb cup???? anyone got any tips??? (Hi Nocky.... LOL)

ah well, just pray the 2 I have manage to survive.

thanks all.

Woo - I have been re-jigging the system,tuning siphons, adding more air, topping up with humonia and just added a few more GB's and today I have found that one of the Gold fish has made it.

he is *HUNGRY*

I will order some more Barra (prolly 10-15) and split them between the 2 tanks and pray they survive.

Yep big air pump and air stones are pretty important to keeping dissolved oxygen up in warm water.

I have found that if I am collecting small fish in a bucket, they will very quickly decided the water in that bucket is not so nice anymore and start trying to jump out. Best to keep aeration going or move quickly before the fish start suffering (and that was me dealing with tilapia who can cope with deadly low O2 in comparison to most types of fish.) Also, Ammonia becomes more toxic with heat and high pH. Good Luck with it now.

Oh, in one of those pictures I noticed what looked like a corrugated tank. Is it aqualined and is it part of the AP system? If it is a metal corrugated galvanized tank and not lined or coated on the inside, it may not be good for the fish as the pH drops.

Oh and for posting photos. If you prefer to keep your photos hosted on the other site, you can simply use the Img button above and paste the location of the photos you want to show in between the Img tags.
If you would rather upload your photos to BYAP you can use the add a file which is below the first submit button bar. JPEG or JPG are appropriate for uploading. Just make sure the pictures are reduced down to 800 x 600 so they will fit in the forum properly. This can be done using the image re-sizer tool that you can download for free from Microsoft (part of their power tools or power toys) if you are using Windows XP. Will have to ask others how to do it if you use something else.
good luck.

hrm - I wonder if that is why they carked it?

Removing it now - until I can get replacement.