Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi guys, since my intro I've scratched my head and modded my initial design.

I have 4 tanks and 4 growbeds, 1 tank under each
i have two tanks slightly above the other 2, and each set of 2 joined by syphon. the top two overflow into the bottom 2 and i pump from the the bottom to all four grow beds. So it's effectively 2 FT and 2ST.


I have a battery backup system (car charger, battery, inverter into the slave input of an Auto transfer switch, mains into the master of the ATS).


My 5500L pump is on for 15 minutes every hour, and my air pump is on constantly.

I'm cycling it up now on humonia/seasol/fish emulsion and should be getting fish off troutman next month :-)

I ran into on small prob in testing, the upper syphon wasn't quick enough to move the water from one of the upper tanks to the other during flood, so I've added 2 more.

I'll have some more images later on today, hopefully it should make my system design clear.

I am planning to have silver perch in one FT and trout/barra in the other, my question to the fluid dynamics gurus out there is this ... will stockings over the end of my syphon slow my flow rate by much? will I need to go to bigger syphons?

I suppose i can experiment with it a bit and see how I go, as my system is still fishless.

Everything looks great. Your ATS looks huge, what are the details on it?

yeah, the ATS was overkill, rated to 30 amps from memory, I'll dig around later for the spec sheet

Switching capacity: 20Amps
Frequency: 50/60Hz (selectable)
Input voltage: 190 - 240VAC
Trip level master -> slave: <180VAC
Trip level slave -> master: <188VAC
Switching time: <10ms
Continuous power stability interval: 30 secs
Dimensions: 240 x 130 x 95mm
Weight: 1.5kg

http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=MS5300

way over-spec'ed for what i'm using it for, but hey, i'm pretty sure that it'll cope if i need to put more draw on it (like my freezer if the power goes out for a while).

my digital camera is dead at 3 years old
went to take some pics last night and it won't power up (and it's not the battery). I have 2 functional film cameras (one is 20 years old and the other is 30), now i just need to convince my wife that it's a good idea to set up a darkroom. I wasn't really impressed by digital photography anyway ... oh well, there's my next challenge.

sometimes slower is better.

woohoo, i got some yabbies.
there's live yabbies at the Gosnells markets for $25 a kg today, first time I've seen them. I grabbed $30 worth to get my system ticking over till I get fishies. Nitrites are a little high ATM, but i added a bit of salt so hoping they will ride it out. Water is well oxygenated, and SFA ammonia in there so fingers crossed.

Nice, good to see yabbies available again, I know some people have found them hard to get lately.

$25 a kg!!

Jeez, I need to start bagging these boys up and shipping them off.

Ha, had no idea you could go out and buy live yabbies at a market.

Now I can tell the missus we can finally move the 50kg out of her meat freezer

Let me know anytime Joel if you want 10-20kg sent your way.

I was contemplating using bluemetal as my growbed media but ended up using quartz. pH has settled on 7.2 (down from 8 out of the tap) while I'm cycling my system up so I don't think I have a problem with limestone mixed in with the quartz. I haven't seen anyone else using quartz as a medium, so I'll keep track of my system and if anyone wants I can send them the spreadsheet I'm using to track my water chemistry.

Nitrites starting to come down, Ammonia already at zero, and nitrates over 160 ATM. Leafy green plant growth is exceptional ..Water temps seem to be staying under 24 consistently. Rainbow trout here I come!

If you want a filter over the ends of your siphons i have found the best thing is to get a fish net from an aquarium shop and just cut out the material. I found this didnt slow down my NHO flow, but a stocking almost stopped it.

awesome, thanks for the tip.

my chickens are devastating the growbeds. Does anyone know of any polytunnels or such that would fit over a BYAP growbed?

How about a couple of 2.1m+ stakes and some shade cloth to wrap it?