Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

A few slight changes to the system.The bananna is going to out grow it's home so decided to put into a new bed before it gets too hard.The f/t is still the same just got rid of the existing growbeds and replaced the bananna bed with a bigger one.Works well and a bit easier,only one bed to fill.No more playing around checking water levels.

Nice new bed for the banana plant. The bath looks perfect, I just hope you got it at a good price and thanks for the update Kelly!

Bath had a small chip in it ( on the outside where tiles would cover).Almost felt guilty using it but it was less than $100. We now have 2 systems on the one battery supply.By changing this system to 1 bed we halved to pump on time to 7 mins. Bilge pump flows freely through 3/4 inch pipe no restrictions.

We have just recently added 30 Barra fingerlings to our IBC solar system. We have a small heater in there at the moment and things are going well. It's great to try a different fish species, Barra are sooo different to S/P you can almost see the growth daily.Anyway just finnished a job using aircell and bought home the left over pieces, I've put it around the IBC to keep the heat in a bit more, but in doing so it has made it very dark inside the tank. Does anybody know if this affects the fish ie: how well or much they feed. Prior to fitting the insulation they were happily feeding 3 times a day.Not eaing much today but that's understandable as I only fitted it last night.

Just one to throw out there. Has anybody come across a decent 12v pump that will last? Between the 2 solar systems we are running we've been through 4 or 5 pumps. We have bought both expensive and cheap pumps and find that they have about the same life span. In all cases it's been a case of water leaking through the seals. Power supply is good and constant so power to the pumps hasn't varied.
Starting to think maybe an inverter with a 240 pump might be the go!! Does anybody have any suggestions?

atm i have a inverter running a 1000lph(Actually pumps about 700lph after head loss) pump that is rated @ 16 watts but currently using 10watts. with my 300l GB i can run 20mins on 40mins off. Just got to find a timer that will run from my inverter. what sort of timer are you using??

regards
Matt

I'm not sure if these are too big for your application or if you are still looking to add on in the future but the sun pumps by sequence are great. Ive got a lot of feedback from people that have been using these for 3 years continuous without any problems (I don't think theyve been out much longer then that). It is a low head pump(9ft max head)Low watt draw, high flow rate 12v/24v pump. Here is a link to their website for specifications, not sure if they have a supplier over there.

http://www.mdminc.com/SunPump1000.aspx

the metal sink bed would most definitely have a much wider swing in media temps..

check the temps of both beds a couple times a day and note... should show a huge difference, the metal sink will heat up much faster, and probably get quite a bit warmer than the 'crete, and cool off much faster as well

Mat, have had a real quick flick over your system.I like it. We have 2 12v timers in the system as each timer only has 8 on/off cycles, they are digital timers but there is no brand name of any kind on them.Even the box they come in is plane white with no writting.We got ours from the local solar shop but I think I've seen something very similar on 'Rainbow Power' website in QLD.They cost about $50 ea ( there is a photo of them at the start of the thred).

Thanks for the info Ryan will have to check it out.

Keith, we no longer have the ss sink in the system (been lots of changes since the start).
We now have 2 systems running from the same power source.
The original system now consits of 1 bathtub ft ( same as we started) then only 1 gb which has the banana plant growing in it.
The second system is just a standard IBC system.

Just goes to show , the importance of air.Checked the Ibc system Sunday morning and found that our airstones had come out from their rock weight and were floating on the surface.Further looking found that all 23 barra were dead.This happened overnight as I had looked at the system the evening before.
Anyway all's not too bad we filleted the fish and got about 3kg of flesh.The biggest were about 500g.It just happened a bit sooner than we wanted.

at least you got your fillets Kelly

Sorry to here of your loss
the barra look fantastic though!!!

hoe long did it take to get the barra to that size??

regards

Matt

thats a bugger about the barra
how big (weight wise) were they? any isea?

We got the Barra about mid Oct and the biggest was about 70 - 80mm.We didn't weigh all the fish, just half a doz of the biggest and the smallest of them was 450g.But there was a number of small ones as well.