Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

lol no worries DunderOZ, i worked as a computer tech for 15 odd years.. and been playing around with them for closer to 30 years... and started using the internet back in the mid 90's..... and im still learning. (god.... im old lol)

glad you updated your sig with your link to your system......... that reminds me of someting..... **adds link to this thread in my sig**

so its been a while, was waiting for the change to pick up 2 more IBC's. i have setup 1 1000L FT, an around 400L (useable) sump and my around 300L grow bed. nothing is plumbed yet thats to come in the next week or 2 with any luck. once its plumbed then i can get some media and get everything happening.

i still have another 300L GB and 400L sump sitting waiting for me to get to them. and also my other 1000FT to cut open.



one of my boys decided he wants to see what all the excitement was about.

Looking good Dan

That's a big fury fish you've got there!!

How did you clean out the glue?

haha thats the little known "Hugo Fish", native to my back yard only. i actually intentionally kept my sump that low so the dogs will have as much fresh fishy water as they like outside. i used to have a fishtank inside at a level they could get to and they LOVED the water in it. apparently it tastes even better than toilet bowl water... another of there favourites. they give me the worst look sometimes when i go to the loo "WHAT THE HELL DID YOU JUST DO TO MY DRINKING WATER!!!!"

as for the glue, i got out what was easy/really thick and left the rest. one of my other dogs took a liking to some of the bits of glue that were on hte ground and took to eating it while i was cleaning and he hasnt grown another head or anything yet, so cant be to bad for you . pat did say that the glue was non toxic and people often use them for livestock watering and stuff.

cant wait to get some gravel in there. i think ive decided to run it constant flood. after reading some other stuff on here. i like the idea of it not transferring or losing heat through the gravel as much as flood and drain. or maybe like http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=6616 this guys systems which only flood and drains about 1/4 of the grow bed leaving the rest in constant flood. id like to keep some draining cycle to help prevent any dead spots in the beds.

Their crap must be extra sticky bro
Reminds me of a Cheech and Chong movie. The dog ate their stash

so, i made a thingy today. i wanted the oxygen depleted water that would be at the bottom of the tank pushed back up to the surface where it can get more oxygen again. i have one of these very low power power heads (around 4 watts) and wanted to have a way of sitting it on the bottom of the tank and blowing water upwards. this is what i came up with. a couple of bits of stainless steel welding wire bent up to make legs. this is the result hard to see with my crappy fonetography, but it was shooting the water up about 10cm higher than the water level there. you can also just make out my 3 little goldfish i have at the bottom of the pic.

today i also moved the sump/growbed i had on the concrete into the dirt and set up my other sump/gb to where the first one was. Barkly taking a drink of the lovely green water.... Barkly is the son of Hugo above. i also had a visit from this little guy. i told him to come back with all his friends in a few months when i have plenty of bugs all over my plants for him to eat im not sure he really believed i was going to be growing stuff, so he flew off laughing at me.. damn bugs.
tomorrow i hope to grab some plumbing bits and begin plumbing.

anyone got any idea where i can go to buy plumbing stuff at reasonable (meaning cheap) prices. ill be keeping away from the horrid big B as much as possible.

also, which size bulkheads/plumbing would people suggest? im thinking 1 inch drain from growbed to sump, 1" from sump back to FT, and maybe 2" from FT back to GB?

That will certainly get your water moving. Looks like a lot of water movement for 4 watts. Nice one!

To get the water from bottom to top in my system - I hang a 800 mm long,50 mm pipe. I place the air stones about 100 mm down the pipe.

As the air stones are not far from the surface, not much air pressure is lost. The water from the bottom is lifted up the pipe and aerated.

That way, I also get away with only using a 4 watt air pump. When the air stones are placed right down the bottom of the tank, you need a lot of pressure to get the air out, and a larger pump.

ugh! just came in from shovelling, washing and dumping into my GB the better part of 600kg of scoria. think im going to be seeing/washing scoria in my sleep. i have water circulating from the sump into the grow bed and back flood and drain for now to get it started cycling and to clear out the last of the dust. ive still not plumbed the FT in. that might be a tomorrowday job.... if i can still move. instead its probably going to be a "sitting on the couch in my ass feeling sore" day.

looks like you have extra considerations when dealing with water loss besides evaporation and uptake from plants

Sorry to hear about your ass bro. What else have you been up to?

Well done on trying to clean all that scoria. Did the dogs help out?

What type of fish will you be getting?

cheers Dunder. these pumps are only $10 delivered and move a lot of water. im also thinking that i could stick them at the bottom of a piece of PVC sort of like you do with air lifts which may make them work even better. i wanted to check them out before i spent money on getting air pumps and what ever.

my ass has always been broken as long as i can remember, its gotta hole and a big crack.......

i showed them the shovel, how to wash the scoria and the pic below and went back inside confident that they understood the job at hand. 3 hours later when i went back outside to check on them expecting the job to be all but finished i was sadly disappointed..... im going to have to have words with them about them putting a little more effort with this AP stuff. if they cant shovel and clean 600kg of scoria in 2 hours how am i ever going to be able to trust them with feeding and cleaning fish when the time comes?

trout, which is why i want to hurry up and get everything in place. trout season is almost upon us. i do also want to try some silvers and maron eventually. and then barra in the warmer months. well... thats the plan anyway. one step at a time first tho.

maybe next time i should hire a foreman to oversee operations....

yea luckily the dogs dont usually drink a lot, tho that may change when they get the taste for trouty water ill have to be sure to keep saving the rainwater which is what ive been filling the system up with so far.

Maybe you could place a bowl of water out for them