Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I have had saltwater fish. They are more expensive, more finicky, and if anything goes wrong, you have to replace $100 in fish, not $20. On the flip side, they are vibrant, and having a few invertebrates (anemoneas, etc) is pretty cool, but it's a real pain when you have $20 anemonea food....

seeing an elegance coral nearly double in size in 4 months or so and garb food and pass it to one of its many "mouths" is pretty cool though But a BIG YES on the 5 fold price and maintenance issue

Thanks for the advice, I think I may stay tropical fresh. I did read the Merchandiser (free classified paper) yesterday and saw two listings for 55 gallon aquaria! Might call the one that is $100 for glass, stand, and fish.

I don't know if it was the Pepsi I had around 3PM yesterday (can't sleep if I have caffeine after 10AM), but I have several ideas I want to lay out here today. Stay tuned please.

I have been scheming about larger tanks in the basement, and I am thinking it may be possible to modify the shelving into a 4x4x3 or so tank, using the long side of the shelves, some plywood, foam of course, and pond liner, and maybe shipping straps to help hold the pressure. I might experiment with this when I get a new shelving unit.

Here is another thing, my drain is a pipe that sits close to the bottom at the center of the tank. Thinking about AA's DWC stuff got me thinking that this could be used like an undergravel filter. The water instead of being pulled is pushed by the weight of the water being pumped in from the top, so that has me thinking that it might not be necessary to have a raised floor but rather just fill the bottom with a layer of sand with gravel on top. Since the theory is that the drain pipe can have sand in it and not affect the drainage, I think you could add an air line like AM did for his air lift experiment and make the vertical part of the drain into a fluidized bed filter on its way out the drain. You could add an adapter to make the diameter larger at the top to make sure the sand doesn't escape with the water.

One way would be to just make a hill around the pipe, or go ahead and make a grid of pipes and bury them under the layer of sand (or maybe fine gravel).

BTW, I have been using an Aeropress for my morning coffee - it is like a syringe that pushes the coffee out using air pressure. I think of the drain here like that - the water is forced out by the weight of the additional water added, rather than through suction like a typical under-gravel filter.

The other thing I thought about last night was nesting concentric tanks. Since I am assuming an equal volume sump from now on to keep the tank level constant, I am thinking one arrangement that might be neat would be to have say a 6' diameter tank in the center inside an 8' diameter tank. The drain from the fish tank would leak out to the "moat" surrounding the 6' center tank. If a barrier were put in the moat, water could then flow like a stream around the perimeter. I imagine then that the moat could be divided in to sectors for breeders, nursery, fry, fingerlings, and purging. You could float rafts for lettuce, etc. as it goes along. At the end I am thinking of a pump to satellite pots of fruiting plants like tomatoes and towers for strawberries (assuming the nitrates are less at the end of the moat and so better for fruiting plants). Then the usual siphons back into the fish tank. There might be room for duckweed and azolla floating around too.

No more caffeine for you!

(I like the concentric tank idea. Kinda cool.)

those tanks are the bomb

Another thought with the radial separation of tanks...
If you were to take a large tank, then build netted radial dividers, you could start with fingerlings in a section, and as they grow, move the dividers. Then when you harvest them, restock that section with fingerlings. That way you would be able to keep the different sizes seperate, and when you wanted to net them out, just shrink the section, and there's no place for them to run!

Yep, I didn't show this but it would be handy to use tubs or baskets that could be moved/removed as needed. Some sectors could be divided by spillways or with their heights half screen half opaque, so that if the water tried to get pumped all out then the fish wouldn't be able to go dry. I was thinking that the pumps would be in a tub of their own, so that they couldn't drain the rest of the moat if something went really wrong.

I want to have a nice circular tank for the big fish to swim in in a circular pattern if possible.

I am planing at the moment to keep any fry in my sump in their own little basket thing.

circular idea is cool

Here's a Sketchup stock tank model to play with:
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/ ... b148b56937

Busy day today.

First we had waffles for breakfast. Then we went to That Fish Place in Lancaster, PA. ( http://www.thatpetplace.com/pet/product ... oryKey=245 ) It is about 1 1/2 hours from us. Saw many big aquariums. They have an open pond where you can pet rays and a few other fish. I bought a 400W heater and some test kits. After I had wondered aloud "I thought they had fish here" because it is a big pet store, I saw the fish room. A big room of freshwater fish, a bigger room of salt water fish, and a plant room. It was like going to the zoo.

My wife wants to try saltwater. I am game, but this will be her deal mostly. We got a 30 gallon hex aquarium, which I know is too small, but whatever. We will try and learn with it. We also got a 20 gallon for warm fresh water fish. I am going to sacrifice the 30 gallon in the garage which we haven't used yet for the new freshwater system, we'll put the existing fish in the new 20, and I'll use the 10 for whatever in the AP system.

Since we decided to try saltwater and we hadn't bought anything else we need at That Fish Place, we went to PetCo and I got some sea salt, yay. The same hex aquarium we bought at That Fish Place was $80 more expensive at PetCo, only 20 miles away. We talked to a guy in the aisle who happened to be Bob the Critter Man, who gave us some good advice on saltwater because he had had one back in the day. He turned us on to a store called Tony's Tropical Fish which was nearby and who will give us good info and personal service. He then removed a skink and some Australian reptile from his vest and let us pet them. He was headed for a birthday party gig apparently. http://www.bobscritters.org

This weekend I am trying to get several things accomplished. My pH is still too low (below 6.2) and the KH is too low, and I have been adding crushed oyster shells to try to remedy that before I get the tilapia from Janet. I wanted to raise the growbed shelf so I can get to/see the fish easier. The lettuce and marigold sprouts are really stretching so I need more light. I may buy one of the fluorex ones from the artificial lighting thread since they are more in my price range than the MH fixtures. I also want to get the relective foam mounted more securely. I am bubbling water tonight and am going to start changing some out to help the nitrates get lower since I don't have any plants. Oh yeah, my system is cycled as of a couple of days ago, ammonia and nitrites are under control.

So, I started moving the growbeds around to get them up higher on the higher shelving, and while I was doing this I punctured one of them! I should have emptied the gravel out instead of worrying about the crappy little sprouts in there. This is the one time I have been glad that my grow beds come from WalMart, because for $10 and a side trip on a beer and pizza run I had a new grow bed. Things are finally hooked back up and running again tonight.

I timed my siphons, the one grow bed had a 2 minute 10 second drain and about 4 minute flood. I am wondering if this ratio 2:1 would work for people trying to get their siphons working; like, time how long it takes for water to drain the bed, and use a pump flow that will fill it in twice the time it takes to drain?

Coral aquarium, has been going for more than six years.

Buttikoferi and these cool zebra spaceship-looking things.

Sounds like you are having a great time DD, Bob must be a crack up, "hey wanna see my reptile?" LOL