Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi there,
I am building a small AP setup and I thought you might like some photos. It is built from recycled things that I mostly had around the yard, hope it works, this is mark 3, the previous ones were full of glaring errors that did not surface until the water started to go through the system, leaks, insufficient filling up of the growbeds due to same pipe size in as out.......yes I still can't believe that either,
regards Ruth

here are some more photos, the pipes on top of the grow beds will have holes drilled in them and the tank next to the tank with the pump in just has an overflow pipe with a bend into the tank with holes drilled in and it sits on the bottom of the tank, its definately not elaborate but I don't have the confidence to put barra or trout in there so I will start with goldies and try not to kill them. I am not connected to the mains on the block but I do have a bore with good water ph 7

Welcome Ruth!

Love the pics, nice looking system.

Looking at the tanks I can see some green in there, if you can cover the sides with something even old paint this will help keep the algae down.

I used gold fish in my 1st system too, hardy little things and put up with all sorts of abuse and they also have a bit of personality.

Good work and please keep us posted.

thanks Decal I have a frame that is going up on monday with a lot of help but I was just going to put shadecloth on it I will see how that goes, painting the tanks sounds like a good idea but. There is hell amount of sun here even without daylight saving.

Welcome Ruth... things look a bit dry around where you are...

Where abouts is "Corrigin"

Looks like your going to get a fair bit of evaporation. Since your on bore water I discovered today not a good idea to put a lot in at once.
Had 3 Silvers that had escaped from the main tank into the sump probably when I was cleaning the grill on the overflow.
Poor things went belly up with all the signs of oxygen deprivation. Rescued them, but two were too far gone by the time I spotted them.
Bore water temp and tank temp only different by 0.5deg so don't think it was that. Added about 1700L into a 2500L sump.

Hi Rupert
Corrigin is about 230kms inland from Perth, about 100kms from Nocky in Narrogin. Very small place about 750 friendly good people, its a nice little town, and is "famous" for our "Dog in a ute" competition, we beat the Vics and had more dogs in utes than they did, we had a lap through town and ended up on the oval, dogs tied to utes and swags out and a band and we all got very thirsty after dancing, you should have been there.... and we have the dog cemetary which is full of you guessed it ...dead dogs...a real tourist attraction . We used to have thursday night shopping, once a year at Christmas time but they banned it cause kids kept shooting people in gophers with water pistols so we just go to the pub instead for annual thursday night shopping.
I know Gerringong cause I used to live in Nowra and grew up in Batemans Bay, it is a very beautiful part of Australia.
We have had the worst drought on record this year and the town morale is very low, so we are organising a "scrap dog sculpture" and the sculptures will go along the main street, keep the farmers mind off the drought. We have a website http://www.friendsofcorrigin.com and we are having off road racing on 13th and 14th November, come over it should be fun. We have the annual billycart race too.
If I keep going with the aquaponics I might be able to supply organic nice tasty veges for everyone, thats the plan but will start with this till the cash and experience comes for a larger setup
regards Ruth

Hi Privateer
sorry to hear about your fish, do you think that the bore water doesn't have much oxygen or is it the temperature change?
I will have an evaporation problem so I have to get the water oxygenated and at the same temperature as the tank before I add it ? now there's a challenge

help! the water went clear but then the plants went yellow so I put in some seasol and the water went really green again, I only have 11 goldfish in the fish tanks and I think I need to add more grow beds and fish and purchase some ammonia and nitrite testing gear, the ph went to 8.3 but has come down to 7.2, the plants are looking alright now, this is an incredible juggling act..... the tip man John saved some 90mm stormwater pipe about 3metres long and some larger diameter pipe about the same length and I wanted to put some end caps on and drill some holes in them for extra growbeds can anyone suggest whether it should have gravel in the pipes and does water stay in the pipes, at what height the drainage hole go, have done a search on here and utube but i'm not sure what search word to type in and haven't had much luck, any info or links would be great,
also do all partners look like this when the word aquaponics is mentioned, not really a question just an observation
any help on AP matters appreciated, will post pics soon, that might help

The plants were probably suffering an iron deficiency due to the pH.... now it's back to 7.2.... the deficiency has been mitigated...


Only when the system is new... once it kicks into full production... and they begin eating the results... then the expression changes...

At least until you give it to them for being so doubtful.....

thanks Rupert definitely need some testing gear

can't wait for that day

Ring the BYAP shop... they'll post you an API Master Test Kit...

Hi again got the testing equipment from BYAP and did the tests but I am having problems working out where to from here
ph 7.6
ammonia .25ppm
nitrite 2ppm
nitrate 80ppm
not sure what all this means any ideas would be greatly appreciated,

All looks pretty good. .25 ammonia isn't to bad. Reduce feed if you want to reduce it. Going by your nitrate level you could do with some more plants or the ph level is stopping plants from accessing it (doubtful and requires some one with more knowledge than I to comment).

Got any more up to date pictures?

Double post. Removed.