Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I've never said that to a Girl either.

Progress as of yesterday.
I finished putting the racks on the slab and processing the barrels and put them in the rack. I bought more Pvc Pipe and finished the plumbing. I got out my spider valve, a 6 holer and blocked off 4 ports and plumbed up the barrels and set it off the pumping and fixing the leaks. Got all drains and overflows in the drain lines. No water leaking at the moment. I went to the sand filter place and got a load of gravel and filled 11 barrels with the gravel. I just washed it in the truck with a hose and shoveled it in the beds. After all Cat Fish live in muddy river water any way. Yesterday was fish day and would be a while before they come again so I went for some more fish. I bought 50 more 4" cats and 50 more 1" Blue Gills. They should start making some ammonia now. My reading show that they are not hardly producing any or it is getting used up faster than it looks by the few plants I have that are still alive after the salt fiasco. That makes a hundred cats and a hundred Blue Gills. If it ever stops raining I will get my big pond dug and will have a place for some of the fish when they get bigger.

Here are some pics of the garden now.

Here is the rest of the plants pics

Really? That line worked a charm for me back in the day

200 fish for 4800l gb is about right, inwouldnt add any more till it is cycled

I wouldn't go past 120 fish with a new system...

After hauling all that gravel and washing it in the back of my pickup I put it in the barrels. I now have plants in most of the barrels also. When I got finished shoveling I took a picture standing in the back of the truck to see the whole layout better.

Here is a better shot of the Strawberries in the old garden setup.

The hoop bender came today so I shall see if I can make a hoop as big as I need to cover my setup.

Man that's a lot of barrels. System looks good.

Don can you show a pic of your stand pipes? Is there no outta guard?

wow! you seem to be having a ball with this don, love ya work!!

Zman. The photo is from earlier in my thread. It is also not really a stand pipe. But here goes explain.
The idea is from another system my cousin built and wanted two things, 1 to see how deep the water was in the barrels so he just put a pipe in the gravel to see that and 2 then he put in another one to protect the drain from gravel and to be able to use the shop vac to clean it out if need be.
In the bottom of the barrel for a drain I drilled a 7/8" hole and threaded it with a 3/4" pipe thread. I screwed a 90 degree street ell to slip fitting in all the way so it sticks up a bit inside the barrel to help keep the stand pipe in the right place to protect the drain hole. At The bottom I just drilled 8 1/4" holes for water to run through. On the inlet supply line I have caps with 1/4" holes and on the drain I have caps with 1/4" holes. Supply has more pressure than drain so the beds fill up. They fill up in less than 15 min to the overflow on the end of the barrels. The barrels all hit the overflow every time the pump cycles. I just have to keep a watch on the caps to make sure they are not plugged up. I have had caps plugged on the supply side so no water flows in from fish food, fish parts, wood chips, and gravel. I have had drains plugged up and the barrels overflow through the bung holes and drip into the drain gutter so no real problems with plugging up there. I really don't loose water that way. I worried about it for a long time till it happened and the water hit the drain gutter any way.

Charlie. Need lots of barrels to produce lots of goodies.

CC. That is a lot of gravel shoveling also.

Hi Don, Just had a look over the first few pages. So pretty much its just a 1 inch pipe with a few holes on the bottom that utilises the overflow if it gets clogged?

I think the Ap is working in spite of me and my messing around in it. I have a tomato that is about golf ball size on one of the plants and flowers on several others. My cauliflower is heading out and the dirt garden which was planted first is not even flowering. My brockley is flowering and the dirt garden is just getting going but not even flowers yet.

Nice one Don.... I reckon you win the competition for the most barrels used. It's almost like the mini barrel version of Obo's IBC system.

I hope those standpipe things don't come back to bite you with lots of root mass.. But hey you have to try these things, see how they go.