Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Busy weekend, finished washing the gravel, note: don't get pea gravel unless you want to spend a whole weekend washing the mud off). bluemetal or riverstone. So after finishing that, we got all the plumbing up and working, raised the FT higher, tested all the connections and it all looks good.

Fired up the pump at dusk on Sunday and the flow damn near blew my fence down. I said to self.... pumps a bit strong. plumber mate said lets move the tank next door... the pump'll reach it. the sump emptied in about 1 minute flat. the pump's more like a souped up double overhead cam V8. So need to drop down the outlet from 40mm to 25mm.

The systems a CHOP or CHIFT PIST, I think they both mean the same, I have one pump in the bottom of a 500lt sump tank (stratco) pumping back into a big FT. the gravity flow from the FT goes straight into the beds and I've got bell siphons to pull the water back into the sump.
slight overkill on the gravity feed, 80mm pipe

This little suckers allmost ready to start, just have to fine tune the flows a bit
Getting excited now.

Photo's to follow.


So I was thinking, for next winter I wanna put in solar heating pipes on the shed roof, has anyone looked at that (with a temp controller of course) ?

Hey phred,

I'm putting an xls file together for my project here in the States.

Could I take a look at how you approached it?

I'll have to include a metric to english converter.

Gday Phred. Yeah i spent my afternoon washing that stuff. I think i bought it as it looked like expanded clay. I have 7 of my split BB's fulll and need to buy 100litres of rock and am going the hydroton way and redistribute it all to alleviate the massive washing need of pea gravel.

Horse for causes mate... If you need to drop down the outlet to restrict flow, you will be putting more back pressure on the pump, the pump would possibly heat up more, efficiency drops and current draw goes up, electricity bill goes up...

The other thing you might find is that your siphon cannot siphon the growbed enough because it is topping up faster than it could drain...

instead of restricting the pump just put a fitting with a ball valve in it onto the pipe going to the FT, then adjust the ball valve to dump half ro so, whatever you need, back into the ST. This way you can get a perfect flow going to power your siphons and extra aeration from the water splashing in your ST, and you keep from hurting your pump and your elec bill

Lots of good feedback thanks, I've put in some ball valves to restrict flow to the beds so that's controllable, Just need to make sure the pumps going to work ok, it's got a valve switch too, so it won't run dry.
I think if it lasts a year then fine, I'm also putting in a small air pump & backup 12v air pump in case of power fail, I'll also be working on a 12v alarm and relay cutover.
currently researching ideas for that.

after looking at it tonight, I think the flow might be ok, as long as the pump switch kicks in.
The Bell siphon's are the bit to test this saturday.
oh and I want to get my seeds in, they're currently in my temp greenhouse containers - already the snow peas are 20cm high ! beans are close behind, corn's coming round the outside, and tommy's only an inch, but coming on strong (sounds like the great race...)

... this weekend I'll post some real pic's, when my "mates" who were too busy to help will come and visit.

all ready to go

It's dark it's late (well only 9:55pm) and i just got back inside, it works woo hooo.
I've got the bell siphons working, grow beds emptying, the pump's a pumpin, one bed's dropped a bit so will jack that up, (I'm in a very sandy area (used to be sand dunes 20 years ago).

My neighbour popped his head over and introduced himself, his missus wanted to know what the monstrosity was, he left rather intrigued/curious/interested/wants one ? not sure yet....

Only missing ..... fish and plants, I threw 3 or 4 buckets of pond water in there from my gold fish pond and a little bit of seasol,(maybe a little bit too much) maybe i'll transfer over a couple of goldfish on saturday in prep for the fingerlings.

I've promised a few mums kids they can come and help me plant, so should be fun on Saturday. crack a bottle or two

Sounds like you're just about at the fun part, well done Phred!

Cheers

Tis a great weekend, commissioned the system in went the veg, fixed up a sagging bed, adjusted flows, just using pipe down the centre as the pipe around the rim of the GB wasn't going too well, nothing wasted will re-look at it soon.

I thought it's time to try planting something different... some puppyponics. They were fascinated, I unplugged the water to let them have a play.

Dog plants... and a thriving crop at that... haven't seen dog plants for ages...

I guess as they grow... you'll end up with a lot of bark...

ooooh my first fatality.....

Kermit in a blender.....

I woke up on Saturday morning, checked the FT and noticed some legs in the bottom, and some strips of meat. On closer inspection with a net, I realised it was kermit the frog.
He must've jumped into my sump tank , got sucked into the pump, chewed around and spat out into the FT. I'm sure he felt nothing

His legs were a good 5 inches long, so rather a big fella.

Shame I didn't have any Marron or yabbies, they would've loved him.

confessions.....

I've been off forum for a while (no that's not my confession !)
my system almost died (that's my confession)
I was a bad aquaponicistsistst.

I made a number of mistakes with my system I'm not sure it's all fixed yet... but here goes my lessons.

Initally I installed 25mm tank connectors on my grow beds to drain the water. I have proven 25mm is too small, and have changed over to 40mm tank connectors with standpipe and the full bell housing over the top. (very similar to the affnan siphon)

I made a number of mistakes.
1. I waited and waited for barramundi, in the end I lost out (all you guy's got them from freo tafe), and ended up going down the track of Silver's I now think silvers were a better option.

2. I used the wrong food for my silvers, (trout pellets) I was sold/sent the wrong product.

3. All my marron were eaten by the hungry silvers

4. not enough fish..... 3000lt tank 25 silvers = not enough poo.
I have now put in 100 silvers and they are going great guns, jumping up to feed.
I have two grow beds and want to increase to 3 or 4, but need to prove it all working first.

5. My FT is higher than the growbeds and I rely on gravity to fill the GB's via an 50mm pipe. dropping to 25mm on each bed.
This seems to work, but will monitor. I have a sump tank where my float pump pushes the water back into the FT about every 15-30mins.

My question for you all is :
What size tank connector do you use on your systems, I have asked Joel the same Q. about his 3 bed test system.

With a standard flood and drain system what do you rely on to cauase the drain ? you have a siphon of sorts installed but how does it work, how different is it to the affnan type.

Do I have enough Perch... if not - I notice the supply in Perth is rather depleted who has them ?