Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

what about a drip into a weighted bucket that tips when it is up to 8L

Same here VB, I really like to see the fish I must admit. I really enjoyed seeing yours the other week and also GD's fish at the meet.....very satisfying.
I have been having a lot of trouble with alge in my tanks, these stinking hot 37 deg days #@%^
so I hooked up an pretty good bio-filter I have here, it is complete with built in UV light. The manufacturers claim that the UV light causes the alge to clump together on the way through and therefore it is easy to filter out. Well I can tell you the results are astonishing, alge all gone in 48 hours.
The manufacturer says no damage will be done to benificial bacteria etc by the UV light, but I am a bit worried about that, what do others think ?

Murray, how many litres (space?) would you estimate 5kg of coco peat would expand too?


Also, do you think the grow bed depth of 300mm deep is ideal because 1) it houses the bacteria well 2) it give suficient space for plant to consume nutes. As opposed to say 500mm deep beds = less plant growing space for gb total volume. The reason I ask is it that if it would work, I could have a very deep grow bed of gravel medium as primary filter (say 700mm deep) with maybe some rushes growing in it, then in sequence maybe once a day water shallow g/beds of coco peat to absorb much of the nutrients in the filter water. This water could then drain either to earth vegy garden or, intensively filtered post gb and returned to fish tank.

The main DO would be provided via large filtered bed. Thoughts?

Regards,

Sam

Sam - is that a question to Muzz or can anybody answer :-)

Muzz - Dunno whether the UV thing will damage bacteria - or anything else in our delecate ecosystem that is AP, but I do know a few things:

1. The fact that you have had the algae bloom would indicate that you have nutes in your system again - what does your testing show and have you got more fish or less plants now?

2. Algae will take out DO and also affect PH - so be careful of that.

3. 2 days with Panda fabric over the fish tank had the same effect for me (ie killed the free floating type of algae.

Murray i dont think you need worry about the UV light killing your bacteria. We used a system of 3 tanks all going through the one Bio Filter with a UV light in line. Initially we didnt use the light as the globe had gone and they are quite expensive to replace. When we did finally replace it there was no effect on the bio filter/bacteria at all. We used the UV to destroy any bugs that were coming in from our 'top up' water as it was from a dam.
Looks like this time you can trust what the manufacturer says, now thats a rarity!

Sorry , VB re-read, intended for everyone though. Murray can have first dibs if he wants, seein' it his thread

No need to be embarrassed mate - I just have a habit of jumping in and answering questions asked to Muzz cause he's not here as much as me and I know his system pretty well. I figured the second lot of questiuons were for anybody. BTW - people shouldn't be skitish here thinking they are going to be banned or something. Please believe that this site is not like that, you need to do something pretty bad for that to happen.

Anyway - to your questions:

1. 300mm is considerred ideal due to it being a depth which should protect the bacteria from drying out or gettign too hot as the system chuggs along. Optimum planting depth is going to depend on plants. For instance, if you want to grow a fruit tree - like some are starting to do here including me, you would probably want to have a container that is deeper than that, both to house the large root ball and provide sufficient support.

2. There is not reason why you couldn't run the bigger container as you bio-filter, but why not grow something usefull in it wanyway - like a fruit tree. In terms of nutrient removal - I think that relying on your coco-peat beds which are waterred once only will be a mistake. The fact is that only a small amount of your overall system volume would be going here to have it's nutrients removed. If on the other hands your rushes are removing the nutes through a flood and drain or continuous flow type method, then you would be okay. Problem is that dependent on the size of your 70cm deep container, you may not be holding that great a volume of media or have that great a surface area and therefore may not support enough bacteria and enough plant to convert and then use the nutes - other than to run a very small number of fish.

Can you tell us the size of the 70cm deep container you are talking about and how many fish you intend to have.

25-50 eatable size fish and 25 fingers to start (he's hoping). Container old galv water tank 70cm deep 1.5m dia

Sam

edit: not intending to hijack muzz, primarily interested in the coco peat

Too easy campesi. Gal water tank is approx 1260 litres in volume. Why grow rushes in there - grow edible stuff. If my calculations are correct the surface area of the grow bed will be approx 4.7 square metres. IMHO that is enough surface area to remove the nutes for 50 fish, if the bed and fish tank are well managed

BTW - may need to line the gal tank with soemthing. I don't think the fishies do well in gal. The modern ones like Joels have a special coating when manufactured.

good point VB, plan to coat it with a potable bitumen sealer, like my fish tank.

Sam

Do you have your own thread Atsis - I can split out these later posts and just leave Murray your question about the peat.

yes, sounds good! its here http://backyardaquaponics.com/forum/vie ... c&start=15

you 'member the urinations?

Asitis, One 5 kg block expands to 60 litres when soaked in water.
Thanks for answering that VB, you did a better job that I could on that one. VB What is Panda cloth ?

Muzza

Thanks Troutman,

I am just astonished at how effective this Bio-filter is - it is just amazing.
I now have it hooked up to my 600 ltr tank which has about 150 ltrs in it and 50 + MURRAY COD !!!!!!!!!!! that I managed to get my grubby little hands on. (actually I got 109 and have lost 3, but with my track record I am saying 50 plus as the count)
They are very small 25mm long, but they behave altogether different to Jades and Silvers. They remain very still most of the time, but when they move they move at lightning speed, whereas Jades are waddling about the tank all the time.
I cannot see them taking any of the small Grobest pellets I am giving them, but with this amazing bio-fiter on the main tank for the last 3 days the ammonia levels in the MC tank have risen, so I guess that indicates they are eating something ! Yes / no ?
I have hooked the bio filter up again to the MC tank (MC is short for Murray Cod - that is a new acronym on this forum.....MC) so I will be able to check on the Ammonia again in a day or two to see what is happening. Fantastic test kit I have VB !!!
Is there anyone else keeping MC , I would like to get some care tips...
Muzza