Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Those will do easy

Made a bit of progress on the weekend - had to go to work to get a break from the weekend!



I ordered some uniseals on Monday - they should arrive tomorrow so next weekend is already planned, but then I have work commitments for the 3 weekends after that

What are the uniseals for?

For getting the plumbing thru the tank and grow bed walls.

You don't need to plumb through the walls of the grow beds... just plumb over the lip into the growbeds... from a pump in the fish tank... either timer activated with an overflow standpipe... or continous with siphons...

Drain, whether by standpipe/timer, or siphon... through a standard 40mm plug & waste.. through the bottom... cut with a hole saw.... back to a sump...

Either setup a second float activated pump to return the water back to the fish tank

Or if you setup as a ""Chift Pist/Chop" system... using the pump in the sump to pump back to the fish tank... then you'll have to cut a hole in the fish tank for the SLO...

Have a look in the BYAP Install thread(s).... you'll see plenty of examples of how the BYAP kits are normally set up.... and there's videos both on YouTube and the BYAP site showing the complete installation process...

Or talk to Joel... and he'll send you the DVD...

My day job is getting in the way of my aquaponics time! I have managed to get some work done during the evening last week and today despite working 16 hours yesterday.



The SLO consists of 90mm pipe with 5mm wide cuts made every 50mm. I have thrown the off cuts in to provide the 5 gold fish somewhere to hide - they are doing a reasonable job of reducing the number of mosquito lavae in there.



The SLO travels up the side of the tank, into a T Piece (with a grate on it), through the side via a uniseal and along the fence. The smaller pipe to the side has been blocked off.



I have ordered 4 x 220L tubs which will be interconnected to become the sump. They should be available sometime during the week.

Still to do:

* finish off piping/plumbing,

* order and wash media before putting into the growbeds,

* select a suitable pump,

* fill with water,

* add plants to growbeds,

* patiently wait for it to cycle,

* patiently wait for fish to arrive,

* sit back and enjoy.

all starting to come together arbe looking great mate

Excellent work Arbe...... Here I was just looking for an example of a SLO to post elsewhere, and yours looks like a bloody ripper..

Have you got some really big holes in the bottom of that horizontal pipe?

I have used a 5mm thick grinding disc on my angle grinder to cut holes along the bottom of the pipe. They are spaced 50mm apart (well 45mm apart now there is a 5mm hole).

I have an off cut at home. Will get a pic and post it tonight.

Here is a picture of the off cut from my SLO. Each slot is 5mm long and are spaced 50mm apart (centre to centre).



EB - are they going to be OK or are they too big and going to suck up fingerlings?

They should be just fine Arbe...

Had a busy weekend. Spent 10 hours at work, but still managed to get a fair bit done to my system.


Plumbed the growbeds into the 90mm overflow using a 40mm uniseal --> a 40mm to 25mm reducer --> a 25mm ball valve. I didn't want to put the elbow in there, but at the time, given the space I have it is the only way I could see to connect it and keep the ball valve. Now looking back I could have just connected the outlet from the overflow pipe into one of the long runs rather than the corner.

Chalk it up as a lesson learned (another one of many during the builing of this system).


I copied the BYAP design for the growbed loops. I have drilled 6mm holes but think I will up that to 8mm.

Also installed 20mm standpipes into each growbeds, again using a uniseal and made a bell from 90mm pipe and lid. So far testing of the siphon has been good. The first test failed, but once I drilled 3 x the amount of holes in the bottom of the bell it worked.


My 220L plastic tubs arrived last week. So far I have connected two of them together with some 90mm pipe using uniseals. I have had to order some more so I can connect the remaining 2 tubs giving me about 880L of sump.

I also purchased a pump but didn't have enough 40mm pipe to reach the tank from the sump so I haven't installed it yet. That is a job for next weekend along with washing media and putting it in the growbeds.

Along with the extra 90mm uniseals I have ordered some more 40mm ones. I will be incorporating the two blue 200L drums you can see in one of the pictures. These will be for extra filtration. Not sure if I will plant something in them as they will sit in the path of the Air Conditioner and when it is in use puts out a fair force of hot or cold air which plants may not like.

Nice work looks like you have gone mad for the uniseals, never seen so many in one system before how do you find them?

That is one of the sweetest looking SLOs I have ever seen and I will be stealing the design for my expansion, hope it is not copyrighted

With the small FT out let that you have blanked off you could create a small FT overflow which diverts water back to your sump to prevent the FT over flowing if you find that your pump fills the FT faster than your SLO can drain it. This may be the case if you are using auto siphons as you may need to choke back the inflow to the GBs to get the siphons working properly. I have had this problem with my system in the past and in the future I will have a bigger sump and use the timer/stand pipe method with a float activated pump in the sump as a back up in case of timer failure.

Here is a diagram of the over flow return



I have found that with the CHIFT PIST system using valves at the beds to reduce GB inflow because of the autosiphons the water in the main pipe from the SLO can at times move very slowly causing the solid fish waste to settle to the bottom and from time to time create blockages especially when the fish mass increases. To over come this I would suggest three things

1. Use the timer stand pipe method so you do a rapid fill and slow drain so that the water always flows quickly and prevent blockages.

2. Use one of those blue barrels to build an inline swirl filter just after the SLO exits the FT to trap/reduce the solids before they get to the distribution pipes (you will need two more 90mm uniseals )

3. Where each individual GB branches off the main 90mm distribution pipe have the uniseal/reducer exiting the main pipe at the bottom not the side, so that more of the solid waste is flushed into the GB pipe where they will be easier to clean rather than settle to the bottom of the 90mm pipe.

The smaller uniseals are a dream to work with. They are pretty cheap - apart from the holesaws.

Getting the pipe through the 90mm ones it a bit harder, but lots of hot water and detergent does the trick.

Thanks for the comment on the SLO. Lets hope it works. So far testing has only been with the garden hose stuck down it.

I love your suggestion about the small outlet which I have blocked off. That is going in on the weekend.

arbe how much was the uniseals?