Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Whoops. Meant to add a different photo there. Sorry Wavey.

Anyway, the water has cleared up nicely since taking that first photo. 12 Bream from Golden Ponds are in there at the moment, and are feeding very well. They're a lot bolder when feeding than Wavey's fish - much more likely to come to the surface to grab their food.

The system consists of two circular tanks, (I think) a 500L FT, and a maybe 300L GB (for now). The GB has pea gravel in it, with a layer of Hydroton on top (to make it easier on Mum's hands).

We set up an auto siphon, which worked quite well. I'd like to fiddle with it a bit more tomorrow to get it to drain a bit deeper. At the moment it leaves maybe 10-20mm of water in the bottom due to the height of the bulkhead fitting on the base of the tank. I'm thinking a bigger diameter standpipe would clear the fitting and let us drain a bit deeper.

Will try and get some more up to date photos tomorrow.

forget to wash the clay ?

Some slightly newer photos.

We did wash it!

Maybe not as well as we could have, but definitely got a lot of dust off it.

Don't seat it too much about the drain level... as long as the system is turning over regularly... the new water with each flood will mix with any that's left from the previous...

Yeah, we figured that, so weren't overly stressed.

I'm thinking that a slightly bigger diameter base to the standpipe would sort it out. Also want to get it flooding slightly higher as well.

Will post some test results tomorrow, but from what I hear they're good already.

Hey Curly, just found your thread on a search - you still got a system running or what?

Heh, two years later, I've moved into a new place!

There's a lot of potential for a new system (or two) - am enjoying mulling over the possibilities!

Not a big post-er ay curly?

Well, I've had nothing to contribute...

That is all about to change as soon as I find some spare time.

Yeah Nice Curly..... No excuses now, you had your small system, now time to move up with a much bigger one....

Curly, feel free to come some day and check out mine for inspiration!

Heh, slight delay. But cheers for the invite, I'll give you a bell sometime.

Now, does anyone have any advice on building a tank out of bricks. I had a chat to a brickie today and the plan is to build a fish tank out of limestone style bricks to match the existing garden bed around the house. Dimensions will be about 3m x 1m x 800mm deep.

Was planning on lining the tank rather than rendering and coating it internally as I figured that would be safer in case my brickwork isn't up to scratch. Should I bother with pouring a slab, or just secure the bottom course as best I can? brickie mate recommended I avoid using steel mesh in a foundation.

The bricks I'm planning to use are the approx 100mm deep ones, would one level of those be strong enough to hold the weight of water, given that they're solid core, so have less to grip the brick below with (if that makes sense).

Idea is that this will be a chift pist system, so I'll need to sort out a neat way to run the overflow down to the grow bed...

Suggestions greatly appreciated...

Of course a few pictures tell a thousand words...

I have two IBCs and a large hole in the back garden to match! Good times!

Just need one more IBC for GBs and we're sorted.