Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I have connected the tanks at 50cm with a pipe with tap. The pipe sucks from the bottom of the back of the non pump tank and runs via connection to the pump tank. As the flow drains from the pump tank it gravity feeds from the other. The idea is the water is gravity forced from the bottom of the non-pump tank helping cycle the water from the bottom up. Its actually a pretty slow feed but seems to keep up. I added a tap in just incase i need to isolate the tank later. The pump tank will drain around 300ltr per cycle. If i expand later i can see I may need to add a sump tank to maintain a more steady flow in the 2 tanks but it will be fine initially. At 50cm if there is a pump blow out when i'm not around, it can only drain the non-pump tank to 50cm. I have tied the float on the submersible to stop around 50cm also as another backup so i cant come home to dry fish


i took a couple of pics before adding water

I get it!
thankyou so much, I had an idea to do something like this myself but wasn't sure if it would work, but you are doing it, fantastic!
cheers
DAle

MMM ok so got some things done on the weekend.
Hooked up 2 more barrels to make 660 litres total. I opted to join them with one tank fitting outlet to lenghten the drain out time (more air) and lessen the pipes required. The end bed sank a bit and put the outlet lower than I wanted but I made it work in the end. After a bit of tinkering it works well as it takes about two extra minutes to fill the double barrel which is good because the main overflow enters the fish tank and adds to airation.

I picked up 25 trout from the Australian Rainbow Trout Farm and put 15 in the big tank and 10 in the pump tank. Seemed like a good idea at the time to give the little guys more space. Steve Malseed the manager was really helpful and re-enforced a few tips and suggested a few things like add 3 teaspoons of bicarb soda to help water hardness - also recomended a water hardness tester.

So cycling up now with slow and steady does it approach. I am feeding multiple small feeds per day to keep the ammonia steady and avoid spikes. Also adding 2 ppt pool salt ove the next few days...

I have covered the tanks with some marine carpet - doesnt look too bad & made some wooden kiddie covers. The fish seem pretty happy and are feeding normally. also had earwigs floating in the water every morning which are now not around so I guess the fish like them too.

Have also made some filters out of plastic garden mesh and some bio-wool lying around from an old fish tank. Is clearing heaps of the suspended dust in the water and will be good for solids filtration.

Ammonia has been steady at 25ppm with nitrite and nitrate zero. PH seems to be @7.2. So far so good.

I like it, simple and straightforward.

I'd like a sump to pump from, and more space over the IBCs, even if had to move the GBs, but its working for you, thats what counts,

more pics please as it matures.

Hallelujah!
Finally after 40 days I have a nitrite reading in the system. I'm pretty sure the cold weather (coldest in Vic for 15 years or something), although stalling the nitrogen cycling process has given me a break when it comes to the ammonia levels and their relative toxicity. If I'm right, chucking fish in in winter might have its advantages for the newbies.

The trout have been pretty happy and feeding pretty well. I've been feeding 2-3 smaller feeds per day. In fact they hit the surface so hard half the time they are jumping half out of the water before a flick of the tail to dive back in. Trout like worms too apparently.
I caught 3 on the w.e. and 2 were 7 inches and 1 - 8 inches so pretty happy with the progress.

Water temp was hovering around 10deg C on the weekend which is up from 8 deg C a few weeks ago. I've changed 500ltr twice when the readings have been high but the fish seem pretty happy either way and the ammonia comes back up to between 4-6ish somewhere pretty quickly. I was lucky - again i think as its cold - i forgot to restart the pump for 24hours after changing some water. I noticed the fish werent coming to the surface. Whoops. they are all fine and fingers crossed i havent lost any. Will have to be carefull still while the nitrite gets going! I'm also running 3ppt salt so all up seems good.

I have added a few dashes of seasol from time to time and the plants are going well. I ended up having to build a fencee along the back as the chooks worked out a free feed was avaiable from jumping up onto the system. Arrghh - they decemated by bok choy!


I had originally intended to add a sump to the system later but I think i will make a small adjustment and just make the pump tank a proper sump which will convert this to a CHIFT PIST. Should take an hour or so next weekend. With only 300ltr of beds the water level movement is already obviously unsettling for the fish and I want to add more beds so just makes sense. I'll be able to add some fingerlings to the sump come November if need be. Also means moving the remianing 8 fish in the pump tank over to the main FT. All good fun.

A printer friend dropped off an IBC that has been used for Aqueous Varnish, which is apparently non toxic and as the name suggests, water soluble. I'm thinking of cutting this down for my next GB although haven worked out quite where to put it yet...

Hope this pics are ok from my phone...

The other side of the garden...

Nice one....

Just be careful of the barrel join under the media, roots will get down into there and block it up eventually..

Looking good, how long did you wait till you added the fish after setting up the system?
Chooks can really destroy your garden in very little time can't they.
Keep up the good work, I look forward to the next update.
Dale

Hi Dale, I was too impatient so I put in the fish once I had the GB's ready to go. Its a bit of a waiting game but I am happy to manage the fish while the system runs in. I just hope I dont regret it as the nitrites rise. So far I've only pumped out 500 litres about 2 weeks apart. I'll wait for the next rain (when the tank fills again to do it again).

Well, I'm still getting high ammonia readings but now have Nitrates - yay! The water temp has been 10-13deg c all week and seems to be enough to get things going...
Ammonia: 6+
Nitites:1
Nitrates:5
PH:7.2
Hopefully the ammonia will settle down soon. Fish are still happy and feeding except when i leave the pump off overnight by mistake!

It noticed that there were heaps of solids in the tank water so I decided to make a SLO to the pump tank and convert to a technical CHIFT PIST.



Thought that was great and after deciding to do fixed height in FT and hence have a fully fluctuating ST I would put all the fish in the FT. Yeah right. I still have 2 fish in the ST and I dont think I'll get them any time soon. They were jumping over the net out of the water to not get caught!

I have since put a filter on the outlet which took out heaps of poo in just one day so i think its shaping up as the right choice. I was getting the impression that the solids were keeping the ammonia consistently high as well...Hoping the system cycles up in the next few weeks so i can feed the fish more - they have been going on for nearly 2 month on half food....

Nice work and writeups
Probably good to have one or two fish in the sump to chew up any mossy larvae come spring

Things are looking good:
Ammonia: 2
Nitrite: .25
Nitrate:5
PH:6.6

The ammonia is now coming down so I think the system will be cycling fully soon. It was a releif to see the light colour of the test after dark green for ages. I have been feeding the trout around 1% of body weight most of the time, with a few gaps where the levels got out of control. I made a mistake and did a 50/50 water change. I assumed my tank water was good - but turns out its at a PH of 6 or less. the tank went straight down to 6.4 from 7.2 - it has come back up now with some garden lime and a few handfuls of shell grit (scanne dthe forum and plenty of tips for ph crash - except i caused my own!)plus a teaspoon if bicarb for good measure. keeping an eye on it but looking ok after a week.
Also added some more seasol and chelated iron - found it at the chook feed store. Eating some lettuce and the peas and spinach starting to take off. Have been lucky enough to get some IBC tanks for free so now I can work on adding more GB to the systems. I am aiming for additional 600-700ltr of grow beds to make a total of 1200+ for the system which should keep me busy for a while.


The last thing I have done is run one of the gbs to the FT, I need to connect the others too but will wait till my new beds are ready. I have tweaked the pump out so that the 3 that run into the FT fill three times faster than those that drain into the ST. I estimate its about 400+ litres that cycle every hour into the FT. THat will have to get better as the weather warms...
I have also created a filter from the SLO as it drains into the ST. It is a sewn together t-shirt, squished between two trimmed platic bucket rims. It cleared the water quickly though so its good. It needs cleaning every few days and it is cold on the hands....


Have a great day!

Oh no. Changed my format a little bit and was testing the timer and pump settings. Got distracted, went to work, forgot to leave the pump on auto, disaster struck.
Only survivors - 2 cheeky little trout who swam to freedom up the SLO to the sump tank last week.
Everything was going so well too. Will have to get some replacements on the weekend.

Big fish were 200grams.

I need to get some replacements as the system is just coming good, but now its mid season I'm not sure what i should do. Any suggestions would be welcome.

Give Ballarat a call to see if they have any advanced yearlings left.

harsh man, whatever kills the fish makes us smarter, next batch will go better