Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Okay well,here I am again closer to the completion.Lobster tubs are still not used though.I may just turn them in to extra tanks that will just fill and drain back to the main pond with fish in them.But for now I'll just leave them be.
I wound up getting 2 bath tubs for free and plumbed them to the same drain back to the pond,but they are each there own system so to speak.
I have a 3 tiered waterfall above the pond and on the side of the waterfall is the tubs.I was playing with it today and I just used some hoses I had laying around and just started siphons to fill the tubs.Not very accurate but the one fills in roughly 18 minutes and drains in 2 minutes then fills back up.I'm using bell siphons for the draining.The lower tub filled in all different time frames and even different levels.Only thing I can think of is it's because I didn't drill a hole like I did in the higher system at the bottom of the stand pipe of the bell siphon.Curious if anyone else has had this problem???
I was also curious if anyone has ever used plastic egg crate (light diffusers~that look like a screen almost but are made of plastic) to save money on hydroton? I am thinking if I take some pvc and make "legs" with it about 4-5" off the bottom of the tub with egg crate on top and then layer the hydroton on top I would use only about 3 bags per tub instead of 5 bags a tub.So if anyone has tried to do anything similar to this I'd appreciate the input.

more pic's ~

more pics

Okay well,this sucks but some how I managed to either lose or delete all my pictures of my updates. It's now dark and raining outside so not sure if I'll go take more at the moment.ARG!!!!

Okay,ran out in the rain for a few seconds to snap shots.Pretty pissed I lost these pics.I took pic's of all the plumbing and how I boxed it all out and made it look nice in a step by step format to help others in their AP journey but sorry no luck.

more~

So that's about it for now.I'll have to take some better pics when it's day time and not raining so I can describe stuff a bit better.Hope ya's enjoy what I got so far.

So at first when I got home with the bath tubs and unloaded them,the wife, was pretty mad.Thinking I was making our yard look like "white trash". I understood the point but never the less I had a vision.As you can now see for yourselves "what bath tubs?" is more fitting. I was pretty impressed how good it looks.As you can see I used a bunch of crap wood I had laying around as well to frame out these tubs and it definitely looked like crap.But last year I was at Home Depot and bought an entire truck load of cut pieces of wood for $1 yup ~ a buck! so it's been used in many projects and now was almost all used up in this project.
Tomorrow I am off to get the hydroton in the morning so I should have some more updates then.

looks great tfj what fish are you going to get ?
and with your water level so high in your tank how are you going to stop them from jumping out

There's been Koi and goldfish in there for about a year now.I have only lost 2 from jumping.I had a net over it but it kinda took away from the appeal of it...so I am thinking of maybe surrounding it all in big boulders or not sure yet??? I also lost a few to raccoons or opossums I believe as well. But I hate covering it so I gotta come up with a solution.
I wanted to finish it all up and figure that in with the landscaping around it.Maybe a combination of wood and plants? I didn't want to actually have to stand over the top of it just to see the pond and fish.Was looking for a more natural look but I may have to go back to the netting again unfortunately since I lost one of my favorite Koi about a week ago.
I am also trying to get some tilapia or barramundi or perch from one of my fish suppliers now.I should know soon enough.Not so easy to find in the states
also~the water level isn't normally as high as the pics but its been raining for pretty much a month straight now.

Looks sweet if you use black bird netting and you do it neat and tight you'll hardly be able to see it

That's the netting I did have on I think?It wasn't that bad but still not natural.But if it could have been tighter and neater than I had it I would probably agree it would look a lot better.
On another note, I did get my hydroton today and totally screwed up.I forgot to glue in the media guard and when I filled it for a test run it pushed the guard up and hydroton went in to the drain pipes when it was siphoning out.Not sure how much still but I know its a lot.I can see it coming back up the drain pipe and out the other end as well but there's so many elbows on the system I am afraid it's really full.Now I gotta figure out how to get the rest out I kept spraying a hose through it but it didn't really work which suprised me also since it's 1.5" pipe. Not to mention in a pipe that big there must be a ton of it in the pipes for it to clog so bad it came back in to the grow beds.I may have to cap it all tomorrow and see if I can somehow pull it through with a shop vac.It was also a total bitch to get the remaining water out of the growbeds and clear away round balls of clay from washing and rolling back down while I was trying to use an epoxy resin to secure the guards.I'll know tomorrow if I succeeded in fixing my error.Really sucks to feel like you're ready to actually make this all work "today" and then forgetting something small but important like that. ARG~

Just sit something heavy on the media guard (like a brick ) that will hold it in place until the clay settles down. I left the brick on for a couple of weeks & all was fine. Should be no need to glue the media guard in place.

that's a crazy fish pond! where did you find it? do you plan on adding more growbeds at any point?

thanks working good now but I still siliconed it as well
bought the original "pond" from Agway.It's a stock tank for cows to drink from that the farmers leave out in the fields etc.approx.1400 gallons.

On another note~I did a ton of work to the pond and the AP and I planted it as well.In 2 weeks I have strawberries and asst.hot peppers growing.Totally impressed. My spinach does well but once they get larger leaves they die and then the small leaves grow in place really green etc.Not too sure why that is?Only issue other than that is during the filling cycle my plants sometimes float and fall over.I took plastic plant cups and cut the bottoms out of 2 of them then flipped the cups in opposite directions and pushed them into each other to keep the plants in place.It's working but I am sure there's a better way than that to anchor the plants somehow from floating and falling over or burried in the hydroton.Any suggestions would be appreciated???