Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

You could also put in a sump tank with tethered submersable pump and get venturi airator going. I am using a 60 lt plastic garbage bin as sump but will convert to bigger one so I can put some other fish in sump tank. Thats the plan anyway.

put yabbies into your ST but not fish as this will result either in overstocking or if properly stocked will still result in unclean water returning to your FT.

System looks good Ash, get them bugs good and quick before they get a chance to reproduce, which they do exponentially!

Thanks Ivan (again). The builders block out worked a treat and we were all sorted within a week. We’ve lost one goldie since and the water temp issue explains the loss of the algae eaters. I also resisted my OCD urge to scrub the tank or change the water as I believe that this outbreak may prevent further algae issues if I’ve read correctly.

Skipd - We were very lucky to get the pump in the day after covering the tank, I think this helped save some of our little fishies. We’ve got a water pump – was this what you meant about the pump from the tank to the bed? We’re a bit reluctant to do anything else with pumps, filters etc as we’ve spent a fortune already and heaps of time and have one teeny weeny tomato and a healthy crop of Aphids I’m continually tending to (I am impatient but optimistic...mostly ). Might look at those improvements once we’re fully cycled and up and running

Yes Abdul, the battle of the Aphids has begun

For a cheap and easy tank cover - we used 19mm retic pipe and 75% shade clothe sowed in with fishing line, a little dodgy looking but seems to do the job (fingers crossed)...

Looking good. If I read correctly, you have been losing goldfishes. Goldfishes are pretty hardy and hard to kill, and take the cold weather pretty well. Did they jump out, sucked into the pump, etc?

We lost two in the great algae outbreak. One turned white and floated and the other was my fault - he got caught on top of the block out as the tape gave way during the day while I was at work. I found him floundering and popped him back in to swim on his side for a day or so before he finally gave up. He was a white runt with orange eye sockets and was named Gizmo - our favourite out of the 25 feeders (you can just tell we're going to do well slaughtering the future Barra given how attached we are to our measly feeder fish huh ).

We lost the third earlier this week - no spots or anything that we could see, just a floater. We'll see how we go and keep checking the levels.

Okay, do keep an eye on the system. If any more of them die for no reason, you need to start finding out why before you add the barra. Don't start naming the fishes, otherwise you will have a hard time killing them.

I was meaning from GB to Ft ,my GB drains to a sump which is then pumped back to FT via a submersable pump with tethered float timer in sump.
By doing this you can get a Venturi ( no cost ) system going. The water is pumped back into the FT and as it does it airates, with the outlet at the bottem of the FT you get awsome bubbles and a whirlpool effect by pointing outlet in desired direction.
As I see it you would need to buy a submersable pump (pretty cheap) a plastic container /sump and a bit of pipe. The Airation it produces is awesome.

See Stevesmart post for more detail.
But I can elaborate if need be.

Will do Ivan. I don't eat fish and the mother thinks that anything in a tank is a pet so it's up to the +1 - he has had the ultimatum to decide whether he can catch, slit and cook by November, if not we'll be getting some more goldies and naming them all.

Thanks Skipd, I looked up your posts after I posted and saw what you meant by the Venturi. Will get the +1 to look at this as he's much more handy with this stuff (but I am watching and learning...slowly ), any extra filtration has to help

Well if you are not too far away from me, I can catch, kill and eat the barras for you. I will bring along my +1.5 to help.

That'll add some weight to the ultimatum - TY

I have a theory that the goldfish aren't totally at home in an AP system - they prefer the still waters of ponds etc. Of all the fish I've had, I think the goldfish have been the least succesful.

Been awhile We ended up sticking with feeder fish as we were looking at Barra from Armadale way (Golden ponds?) at $15 a pop and transporting them to Marangaroo would have been very difficult. Between this and the attention my soil patches required, we were getting ready to sell the system but thought we’d give it one last try.

We had a little algae which didn’t seem to be a problem, and then popped 50 goldies in. The algae went ballistic - we were losing four to six fish a day. We tried block out and no feeding again but it didn’t work. It took two of us over two hours to scrape about 95% of 5+cm thick algae from the tank (a bonding moment in amongst the back pain and cussing ). The pump filter was also completely coated (we’ve now removed it) and it seemed that it really affected the water flow – we hadn’t realised how quiet the system was until we cleaned the pump and it resumed its noisyness. We adjusted the timer to full for two days, 30/30 for two weeks then 30/30 one hour and 15/45 the next. We’ll be going back to 15/45 this week.

As the system started to pick up again, the Nitrate went to 40, so we put more seedlings in. We gave it a week and then popped another 20 fish in, and another 20 about a week later. We’ve lost two fish in the last few weeks iirc. Current levels: Nitrate 15, Ph 6.8 or 7, everything else 0.

We now have 80 old goldies and may add more, but definitely not in such big numbers. We’ve also fixed an umbrella for shade (Bunnings - $70).

Some of the (newer) plants are a little yellow and not really growing very quickly so we may add some iron and look at feeding crushed up big fish pellets to increase nutrients through the system. We also have a funky smell and some black mould type stuff on the side of the grow bed that gets the least sun. We may remove the umbrella for a little while to see if this helps.
More lessons learned Fingers crossed

Now...



(We've now ditched the lettuce as it was very hard, but the rhubarb has managed to survive)

Sounds like you had a bit of an adventure while you were away from the forum.... Sorry to hear about your fish loss...

If I was reading correctly you had a filter in the pump... That should have been taken out from day one... The growbed is your filter... and if no one has told you yet, add composting worms into your growbeds...

Now what are you feeding your goldfishes?? Pet shop/aquarium store bought flakes/pellets?? Hope not, because those aren't formulated for waste and growth which is what you want in AP. Definitely look at getting aquaculture feed pellets and crush them for your goldfishes... You would be surprised by how quickly they grow with these pellets... and summer is the best time for them since they eat more...

Been awhile The system's finally starting to get there. Three months ago we added 40 silver perch (from G Nagle in Gidgegannup) and had collected up to 80 goldies over the year. The levels are steady but we're adding iron every few weeks due to yellowing of leaves. We're losing one, sometimes two goldies a week, and doing a water change of 50-75% and salting the water when we've lost a few at once (seemed to happen more often with the heavy rain), and topping up the iron again. I don't think we've lost any Perch yet. Just waiting on the grow house to to speed things up a lil before putting more in the grow bed.





Garlic loves the system - we've been surprised at how quickly its grown. We've harvested lettuce, beans and small capsicums so far. The peas and snow peas became overrun with powdery mildew so we won't bother planting them again. The plants seem to be fruiting very quickly considering their size, I'm hoping that we still get full grown veg.