Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I'm kind of shocked to hear that you don't have chloramines in your water. We almost filled your entire FT with the old pond water if I remember right. So, your sump volume plus maybe 25% of your FT was chlorinated water. But I think all the chlorine was gone by the time you got your fish. If you had chloramines, that would be an easy culprit. I've got to guess it was stress (temp swings) and inadequate bacteria since your old pond didn't have very many fish.

Oh, so now you're saying that my bacteria is "inadequate" ?? At least I have some... JK.

I tested the water again for ammonia when I got home. 0.0, as it was for the last 3 days. Perhaps my ammonia spike is behind me. The bluegils are not eating anything. The water temp is only about 60°F now in the mornings, since I don't have the Tilapia anymore, I am not bothering to cover it at night. I am also running circulation full time. I have tried to feed them koi pellets (floating) catfish food (sinking) and some torn up lunchmeat (some interest, but now just rotting in the pond, must get it out.) I need the bsf to get rolling !!! Hopefully I don't have to resort to digging up earthworms.

ON veggies, I have four tomatoes that I had bought at Southwest fertilizer in Bellaire. They are all doing great. Lots of flowers. Some have fallen off, dunno if that's part of the normal process, or it that's bad. I started peppers, and cucumbers from flats, as well as three kinds of lettuce. The peppers and cukes look great. Some of the lettuce probably went in too early and got roasted and fell over. I did seed some spinach directly into the hydroton, and I am pleasantly surprised that its got a good germination rate.

I am battling a slow/no siphon in the round black grow bed that I have. It was my first and has too few holes drilled into the strainer, I am afraid. I may have to drill some more with it in place. that'll be a pisser.

Also, it looks like I'll need a better debris guard for my pump inlet.

My updations... I am working to tie in the rainwater catchment system to my gutters. I have done all the hard parts, what left is easy, but I need more PVC fittings. I washed some hydroton and filled my strawberry pot. I am going to grow herbs and stuff in it. I made an additional tie in to my fish tank to supply the strawberry pot with water. I am banking on trickle down to keep it all moist. Who knows.

I also diverted one of my 8 connections from the terd swirler to fill my lettuce raft bed.

I redid my pump outlet piping and have a ton more flow. I had to reset all my valves to be able to keep up as originally, the FT started overflowing. I also drilled a bunch more holes near the bottom of the SLO. This fixed the problem.

Here are my pics after cleaning up a bit. Oh, and I have 6 tomatos starting. Coool....

Happy Birthday, Joto!

Mojitos at the Red Onion for lunch today? Or Snappletinis with the Old Lady by the FT tonight?

I was trying to talk her into dinner last night outside, but she said NO-Go till I get all y construction crap picked up. Too much work at the time.

I have since tied in my water collection system, so its operational, just need rain. I also brought my strawberry pot online and also cut some nice styrofoam to fit into my lettuce raft tank. SO,... I guess that I can just about start picking up all my tools.

Oh, and yes, Happy Birthday to me.... Thanks...

Does the Rain barrel supply line tie into an autofill valve? Or are you just manually topping up?

Another big weekend for the AP system in my backyard. I dug the line and tied the supply into the house roof gutter. Now, I just need rain. I have some 1/4" air line that I ran from the tank outlet to the pond, but I have just put a valve on the end of that line for now. It will get a float valve at some point.

I have 12 tomatos on one plant, and it has passed up the biggest plant that only has about 10 on it. My pepper is coming along. About 30% of my lettuce has withered, but when they have'nt died, they have thrived. I have a tray of micorgreens that I started indoors. I bought them out a day or two ago. They have now gone into my lechuga (lettuce in Spanish) raft section. It takes a side stream off the terd swirler and overflows into the sump. We mulched all the flowerbeds around it and its looking very nice. I took a break and set up my hammock in the backyard. I fell asleep in the hammock listening to the riffle riffle of the water. Nice.

The fish seem to be happy enough. The ICK looks gone, they are eating enthusiastically, and none have croaked in a while.

Rick

Here is a shot down the side yard that shows the water collection piping. The main inlet line is a vertical 3" dia pipe inside a 4" dia pvc pipe. The gutter downspout points into the 3". The 3" dia line goes down to a transition from 3" to 1.5" dia spa flex. It turns out at the tee fitting above the grass. The 1.5" is buried and emerges at the left side of the pic and runs towards the camera and ties into the tank.

When the tank fills to its max height, the 3" should begin to overflow into the 4" around it. That water will run past the tee fitting and go down the normal sewer pipe.

At the bottom of the tank are essentially 4 connections.

1. a 2" connection to the bottom of the tank with a 2" PVC ball valve for isolation.
2. a 1.5" line that runs to the feed line from the gutter.
3. a connection for a garden hose with its own shutoff valve.
4. a 1/4" airline tubing connection that will autolevel the sump in the future.

Here is a pic from yesterday that has my whole yeard cleaned up. Its quite nice looking now and I am really thrilled with it. The hanging tan pot with the blue lid is my BSF colony. I am hanging it from the arbor support to keep fire ants from getting into it. I had an adult BSF cruising around there last Sunday. Hopefully the colony comes online in a big way.

Here is a shot of my strawberry pot progress. It is fed directly from the side of the FT, about an inch or so below the normal liquid level. I have tried all kinds of tactics, but any small holes or tubes like to plug quite quickly. I have direct seeded carrots, basil, parsel, and oregano into it. The small purple plants are some basil from my bro-in-law.

The sweeping bend is an electrical conduit fitting that should have far less pressure drop than a tight 90° fitting. The green bed has two cukes and some lettuce, and also a Zinia plant.

The lechuga raft has a bunch of rockwool plugs cut into some salvage styrofoam. Its fed by the black tubing from the right edge of the pic, via the tee fitting with the yellow threads on it.

THe round planter has a tomato and some direct sown spinach plants in it. They are doing great.

Did you make that BSF pot? Got piccies?

Yeah, I made that BSF pot. I wanted a nicer looking on than a 5 gallon plastic bucket. I have no actual proof that it works yet, so I have not yet posted much about it. Its a nice looking, double walled plastic plant pot from Lowe's. It cost around $17. There is a matching plate that goes under it, tht could serve as a lid, but it cost about what the pot did, which just seemed wrong.

It has a large port in the side for them to crawl out of. It has another port in the base of it as a drain. I used some filterfloss stuff as a filter in the bottom of it. I used some plastic grating and zip ties to anchor it to the bottom. The zip ties loop around the grating thing and squeezes it down on to the filter media, as they are also looped thru the bottom. There is a hidden lip near the top edge. I drilled a ton of ventilation holes into it. I think its a good entry point for Mrs. BSF. I found that a blue garbage can lid fit perfectly. As I wanted to keep ants out of it, I hung it with a wire suspension so its hanging from my arbor, and does no touch the ground. I have yet to harvest anyone, but hope to soon.

Richard

The swweeping bend looks nice but check the pipe specs most electrical pipe here in aus has lead in it