Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I got heaps mate, somewhere between 50 and 100 liters worth...
They're yours
How many liters of growbed you got ?

Cheers! I'll probably only need about 20-30L. I'll be round with my growbed next week

Looks great for an IBC setup, i gather the extensions on your timber frame are for sliding the growbed back n forth? Be interesting to see how long your produce lasts with pigsy around tho



_____________________
I was once young and stupid, i'm not so young now

Hehe, it took me a second to get that

No the timber needs to be trimmed back. When I screwed it on I had no idea how far back the growbed would be positioned so I just left it till it was all set up.

So don't trim them back then.

Think of sliding the growbed back to just before the tipping point so you can get to your fish and pump and do regular maintenance. Then sliding it back over the tank to keep the sun from hitting the water creating algea.

Don't like the "arms" sticking out? Use them to hang a few plants in baskets, or some mini strawberry towers hanging underneath.

Then you can say "Yep, planned it that way".

Of course, it may be too heavy to move now that you have all that gravel in there...

Yeah way too heavy. Must be somewhere around the 600-700kg mark.
Also the part that needs to slide is the boxpipe supports over the wooden rails. Lots of friction and that would ruin all the paint, scrape it into the fishtank etc..
You would need a hand winch to move it.
Imagine if you slide it back too far and it fell over.... that would very much suck

Some latest pics...



Still have to make a framed/hinged lid for the shadecloth

Fishtank


Gudgeon / future barra food
note the clothes washing bag stopping fishes getting into the pump.
Have had 2 fish deaths so far... I guess thats normal.
Adding extra ammonia every day so maybe they don't like it

Looks good SuperVeg

Thanks scotty.

Also dug up some worms today to add to the fish tank. Don't want to buy composting worms, and waiting for a possible handful from a mate.
Hopefully the natives will get along with them if I get them..

I am currently raising some seeds in some trays, and due to my impatience ripped out a very new and delicate tomato (heirloom Roma) seedling and carefully placed it in the gravel. Great results already !

Other seedlings same age/size at the time


Tomato seedling in growbed for 3-4 days


As you can see the seedling in the GB has a third leaf and looks much more developed!
I think just having such a constant water supply is such an advantage..

Awesome work man. I had some lettuce that i bought to go into mine. Well long story short, i got delayed by a day before they got in and may have not been watered

So they were nearly dead. I put them in and within a few hours they were back to their spritely selfs. in less than a week they have started growing new leaves and going crazy. Same deal i think, just having more water than they can use. And lots on nitrates

Major issues.. I knew I shouldn't have used shitty old pine as the main support for the growbed.... DUH !!
Probably could have braced and screwed it on better. Either way it has to be fixed now


I can either just try and brace it with some more timber, or get my welder neighbour to help replace the timber supports with steel ones, welded to the cage or something..



Its the long timbers you see going across the photo. They are screwed with woodscrews through each vertical of the FT cage. The screw on the far left has snapped off.

In hindsight I should have left the horizontal part of the cage on the bottom FT side instead of the GB side. The growbed is nice and strong but it would have been much less hassle leaving on the FT to support the growbed...

Yep, been there and made that mistake before. The splashing water made my timber bow over time, replaced it with some 50mm box. I did leave the base on mine for extra strength thou. I just removed the frame that the forklift goes into from the base pan.