Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

It's a nice mild 39.9 here ATM with a 26knot nne wind

Bout 22 inside with the evap cooler on.

Silvers are loving the tank temp of 25.8

Same temp as my big tank, but the small jade perch one has hit 28

they would be feeding well then

Yeah but ammonia is up to 0.25 in both so I wont feed till it zero's. Guessing the extra dozen medium sized yabbies and the higher feed rates are doing it in the big system, and I have probably been overfeeding the Jades

Might check mine tonight havent tested anything for months

Yeah, dont want ammonia sneeking up with the water temps rising like they did today
0.25 should still be ok at my ph of 7.2 but would rather it at zero

Just played with putting am air stone into a bit of 40 PVC with a t on the bottom that has slots cut init (it's my old end off the slo before I got fingerlings)

It moves a lot of water and sucks the crap off the bottom well it's awesome

What sort of head height do you get, 1-2cms or more?

Yep bout 2-3 then the bubbles escape from the bottom, I'm sure I could get it better with some better design, but it does the job of lifting the shit out of a dead-spot in my tank

I put it over a pile of food that had built up in the corner of my tank was like a vac

Been thinking about making somthing like this on the bottom of my SLO, would assist in sucking up crap and also airate the water out to the growbed....


anyone ever experimented?

Will it make any difference to the SLO in its ability to suck crap? Wouldn't the pump flow be the limiting factor to the total water flow and as such the solids sucking?

I don't know, can't help but think that the fish are the main ones to benefit from extra air so stones are probably better in the tank... Perhaps you'd better experiment and find out...

Been looking at this thread with interest to what you are doing is making the water murky as Joel said it would be more beneficial to have the air stones in the fish tank and have your water return to give a swirling action in the fish tank and put the pump where the junk builds up
i havent cleaned a fish tank or sump in nearly 3 years

I don't have an issue with a dirty tank at all, whirlpool and slo take care of it crystal water and spiffy clean tank.

I'm just bored and playing, there's 1 spot in the Ibc that tends to have a small food buildup in it but it's usually gone in a few hours. It's where the outlet is kind of a dead spot in the whirlpool. So with this in place it just flicks it up again and the fish prob eat it sooner.

Still have the airstones in the ft, like I said just playing/experimenting and may give others with some solid buildup issues some ideas on how to move them around.

Hi Milne,
All the best for New Year. (OK end of highjack)



Have seen you make this statement on many occassions, have been wondering is it due to size pumps you are using in your systems (eg swimming pool pump) and the volume of water that is being moved, albeit for a short time.

I am using high volume pumps (with timer and float switch) and reckon it is just as economical as a smll pond pump 24/7. Bonus is ability to pump up a head of water quickly for cleaning/flushing the FT.

Yeah, a big pump would surely move a lot more crap. Milne has IBC's as fish tanks too as most of us know , so I am guessing he has a lot of water movement in them, from having lots of fish, and the big water flow.
Or he might just be lazy