Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Damn that overgrown silverbeet bed looks all too familiar. Pretty much looks like my old system ATM.

I'e been in Canberra since Wednesday, to see my son graduate from University and the Defence Force Academy...

It was predicted that Canberra, and most of NSW would be lashed by severe storms and flooding on Thursday...

Turned out it was pretty mild in Canberra....

But Gerringong coped a battering while I was away.... wind must of have howled...

Because this was what I returned to this afternoon...

... destruction of the trout tank....

168 Rainbow Trout.... average weight ... 1kg+... all up... close to 200kg of trout...

And about 25 Silver Perch that were also in the tank... average about 500gm... all up about 10kg...

The bloody annoying part....

Was I was going to cull down the tank by about 100 fish this week anyway... to give to people for Xmas...

And I'd been slowly clearing away space... for a complete redesign of the trout system in preparation for restocking in March....

Figured I'd eat/smoke the rest between now and then....

That is a big bummer look like they would have had a nice smell about them by the time you got home. Was it caused by the pipe coming out of that barrel coupling and therefore loss of pumping or water? Was that pipe glued into the coupling, joint looks a bit dry from the photo?

There were some big fish there

Yep... and the pipes were glued...

Mind you the system has been operational for several years, and the pump does whack a bit of force into the piping when it first starts, and even when running...

Wind has lifted the entire structure... which has leveraged the pipes out of the joints...

A known, potential point of failure... and one of the reasons for the pending redesign... it has happened once before...

damn.. that sucks....

after finally getting through your thread this week, i know you'll come back bigger and better and i for one am looking forward to it

Wow, never seen green glue pull out of a joint like that, any I have ever tried to pull apart have boken the fitting or the pipe before the glue bond has broken, mind you I am probably a little heavy handed with the glue.

Still envious of that tank

If you look at photo 5729 ... that whole section of collapsed pvc 25mm that was holding the shade structure....

Was actually on the close side of the pump piping.... it's not only smashed the joint... but lifted, and passed through between the barrel union and pump outlet pipe... onto the other side...

I was glued with clear PVC cement.... you can be damned sure I'll be being a lot more liberal with the glue from now on.... I've probably been a bit stingy in the past....

Oh No that's terrible Rupe. Sorry for the losses, do you have AP fish insurance?

Sorry to see Rupe...... hope things get straightened out soon....

jT

The other thing that has contributed to the fish deaths... apart from the tank pumping near dry...

Is the fact that most of the airlines are attached to the frame... and have been ripped from the air pump....

Otherwise... they might have lasted for a while longer... as happened last time....

Still, it happened about 24 hours before I got home.... and 200KG of fish in about 1000L... even with air... wasn't going to work for long...

Actually... I do Dave... I'll have to dig out the policy and have a look...

Got the insurance more for the pumps, but it does cover stock loss...