Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I believe they call this connection type "BSP". usually a 1 inch BSP - you can get the connectors from irrigation stores.

Nice stands!

Thanks Gemmell. I got the connectors I needed from a general fittings supplier; it was a cut lunch-drive from home to buy them and as usual, I didn't find out there is a local supplier not 5 minutes away from home until later!

Yes, the stands look good. I hope they perform as well as they look.




Scott

So what did you end up buying to join the two together?
I am going to be doing it shortly as well.

Sorry whisper, I don't understand the question? Are you asking how I ended up joining standard PVC fittings to the IBC?



Scott

Yes I was wondering what fittings you have used to attach to the IBC?
Did you manage to find something that will screw onto the thread?
Or are you using some sort of compression fitting?

I bought my fittings from Couplers in Malaga, although I learned that Hose Fittings Plus (aka Hose Mania) in Canning Vale also stock similar items. There may be others?

I have one threaded part which fits the IBC (Schutz S60 x 6 x 2 FBSP Adaptor, $11.50) and a second part which has a standard plumbing-PVC thread screws into this (2 x 1 1/2 Poly Reducing Bush, $3.35). I then employ a "standard" PVC 50mm threaded coupling from there... tomorrow I might be able to provide some pics for you (depending on what time I get home from work)


HTH anyway.



Scott

Excellent thanks for that.
Hose Mania is just down the road from work.
I will pop in and have a look tomorrow.
Cheers

I have been delayed by injuries, sickness and work.... cest la vie.

Anyway, for those interested, I "finished" the upgrade a little while ago. (As if anything in AP is ever truly finished. Always room for tinkering!)

Before:



After:




The polystyrene cover over the FT is just temporary, as is the umbrella providing some shade whilst the weather is hot here. Planted/transplanted: silverbeet, celery, celery-leaf, spring onions, leeks, tomatoes (varieties), strawberries, lettuce (varieties).

After this season, the apple tree will be (re)moved, I intend covering the GBs and FT in a hoop house.

I still have 6 trout left over from mid-year. The water temp has been as high as 28 (currently 20, air temp 26) and they are still feeding hard. Depending on the weather between now and then, I intend taking them out for Xmas Eve; I (hopefully) have access to some larger barra which will be my summer harvest until I can get more trout in next year.




Scott

Over the weekend, I ran into Faye at a hardware store. We had a quick chat about the state of play with my AP system and the fact I had just removed the last of my trout after the prolonged heat that befell Perth in the previous weeks. Faye suggested I post some more piccies as it had been a while since my last update.





For those interested: my trout survived water temperatures up to 30°C. At temps above 26°C the trout did not feed at all and therefore did not really grow. When finally harvested, the fish had lost some of their "condition", the flesh was soft and almost mushy when cooked: they were far below the quality of the fish harvested earlier, whilst they were sprightly and actively feeding. Keeping fish for longer was an interesting experiment, but when next I get trout in my system, they will be harvested well before they start to heat up.

At the moment I have five large goldies supporting my system. I am still deciding on whether to grab a few dozen silvers from GP to help keep things ticking along until the weather cools down again and I can get my hands on more trout. Failing anything else, I can always add hummonia until autumn.

The day after chatting with Faye, my pump Chernobyl-ed. This fountain pump was about five years old, salvaged from a friend's place and had never missed a beat in all that time. This pump was the back-up pump for another that failed a long time ago, but I never bothered to get another reserve pump, so I had to buy a new pump and have ordered some spare parts for the pump which will now become the backup. The new pump is only 4000lph vs the old 4800lph, but only draws 65W vs the old 90+W; an acceptable trade-off.

Good to see that you followed orders Bunson, and thankyou for the promptness of your post hehehe
It all looks soo good and neat.

Yep... chugging along jusgt nicely Bunson...

It's been a while since I have been here, as we spent 2011 travelling around Europe (5 months in London and 7 months on the move in a motorhome).

Our tenant looked after the system for a few months, then harvested the fish and left the system "fallow" for the remainder of the period (got home to find the pump was still on its timer, the air pump was still running, no plants and no fish! What a waste of electricity! Cest la vie.)

Anyway, SWMBO is going away for a little while and has "suggested" (as only women can suggest, i.e. order) that I reinvigorate the AP system. We popped into BYAP and ran into Faye who answered some more questions for us; eventually SWMBO "decided" we will buy some new parts and salvage some from the existing system, to create the next chapter in our AP story.


Stay tuned for more.


Scott

It's been about three weeks since I installed our new smaller system. It's a simple one bed system with a 1000L FT, running flood and drain, 15on/45off. On the day I set this up, I scattered a variety of seeds (lettuces, silverbeet, kale, basil) and started the system cycling process with 40mL Charlie Carp in 400L of bore water. During the rip-out of some of my dirt garden, I saved a cherry tomato plant and shoved it into the system, and took some of the cuttings from the same plant and shoved them in as well; surprisingly, all are doing quite well. Last week I threw in a couple of floating pots with mints and cresses.

During the hot weeks (40C+) the system loses/uses about 50L per day of water and gets topped up semi-automatically once per week from the bore (I am hoping to fully automate this soon?)

As soon as the weather cools down and I get my paperwork in order, I shall be ordering trout, but until then I will just keep plodding along dosing with Charlie Carp.

Anyway, pics speak louder than words:


Fully cycled?




Scott

You look to be about 4-5 bags of hydroton short in that bed

Sorry Richard - didn't see your reply. I held over one bag of clay until things settled in and a few root balls formed. Eventually only needed to add one and one half bags to top up to right level (excess half bag is for floating pots and some "spare" for when things thin out).


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SWMBO has said we are going to pull out the citrus grove (read, I am going to do this) and replace/replant them in another spot in the garden, so I have the space and her blessings to upsize a little bit (all I need now is the $$$). Will be adding a second GB as sometime after the digging etc is done?!