Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

today I retrived a back up pump from another washing machine (plentiful supply) at the local rubbish tip (mitre 11) and moved my system on to a palet, which I also found at the tip.. I have reconfigured the setup as to gain shade for the FT,,,

The misses is at work, so I started to play. I did some plumbing; I added a bypass for the water, before I was reducing the flow by blocking the water with some sponge inside the hose. I used the high pressure hose from a washing machine and pushed it into the drain hose and then added a hose clamp so I could adjust the amount of water leaking on to the grow bed. Now the pump is working almost at full capacity and aerating the FT.
I have half the water in the system (10L/15mins) cycling through the GB every hour.
I also replaced the gal mesh with plastic mesh.

FAILURE. my leak stoped leaking, really stressed out the lettus, have to find a more convient way of flow control, eg buy ball valve, $$$. not happy at all with my drainage on the white GB, want to dismantal and make same as blue GB, with PVC gard next to outlet so gravle does no impead flow.

will I ever finish????

fresh water shrimp are fussy little critters. If you touch them they die.

but... if you pick them up only by their antennae and drop them into well aerated water, you might be surprised. Really... dont touch them even for a second. I have no idea why, and generally prefer science to voodoo, but I found that when pulling small freshwater shrimp from the murray river for bait, if you touched them they would die within minutes. If you lifted them by their antennae, as long as their water was good, you could keep them for ever.

forever? Wow!!!

Thanks Bullwinkle. I will try next time I go to the river.
and wow shrimps can live forever

Today I Found my golden carp floating on his side and looking very sad, I changed half the water, now he has started to swim around...he had a fight with the pump yesterday and lost some of his tail fin...to much suction

I also had problem with drainage in the top GB...I used chux cloth to stop the gravel and thought it would let enough water though, not much drainage at all just driping...so I cut some pvc to suite, washed the smelly gravle and put the GB back together, now the water flows freely from the drain and I have taps on the drains to control the flow...hmm thinking about loop siphons

this is the PVC fitting I cut to fit the drum and alow drainage from GB

My fish is floating now should I take him out? or will the system use him? thinking about cycling on pee for now, when will I know that my system has cycled,(I have no test kit)...hmm note to ones self fish dont like suction and too much ammonia

Mate sorry about your fish, but YES, taking him out and finding a nice burial ground, so a little plant could grow off of him would probably be the best idea.

Fishless cycling is always a big plus, to get the system matured, and even after that, they work great growing fishless, with added ammonia

and a test kit is almost as important accessery as a pump!

She will come round soon. Then you wont have a system and will have to make her one bigger.

my system crashed last week, almost every thing died, maybe too much ammonia (i peed straight into the system), or the salt I used had some anti caking agent in it that might have done some damage...
any way I have flushed the system and I am adding small amounts (20ml per day) of ammonia every day,,,
is it even possible to cycle with out test equ???

I'm rather new to AP myself, JW, but my guess would be that it is very difficult without the test kit. About the only other way I could think of might be to use some plants, not just seeds, as a way to "test" if the conversion is occurring. Even that would only be a VERY vague way of testing. Again, JUST my not so experienced guess!!

As I read your post about washing off the gravel, I must admit I cringed! You may have accidentally sabotaged your system by washing away the bacteria that would have already grown in the system. Without them, your system won't be cleaning the water for the fish nor the plants and everything could die. Yet again, just my guess!

Human urine has no ammonia in it, it has urea which is quiet a bit different. I'd be surprised if the same bacteria, nitrosamonous, were able to convert the urea to the nitrites.

Hi again. I think I may have cycled... Two weeks ago I planted bok choy and a raddish that my wife pulled out of the garden and added a capful of seasol, they are now looking strong and I have heaps of algae in the tank. I am getting a good flow through the gravle and the pump is working well.

Also my wife is getting a little more interested in my system now I have had plants live for more than a week.