Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

+1

Expanded clay is great to work with.

I've never had any issues.

When you are out working in the greenhouse, do you normally have that light shining on the grow bed the way it was in some earlier pictures? Even if it isn't a super bright light, it could warm the water going through that grow bed more than you might expect.

Nope. When I have to turn the light on, I'm pretty much done for the day. It's usually just on long enough for me to put things away for the night. The one little puddle of light just isn't enough to work by.

Today was my sixth of six days at work. Tomorrow maybe I can get the rest of the gravel out of the back of my truck that I've been driving around with for a week. (Then, naturally, it will snow, and I will wish it was back in there for traction.)

Hubs brought me a water sample to test. I'll try to post numbers before I pass out for the night!

Yep, that's the kind I used to be. It's been a very long time since I did anything with it, though...I ended up mostly in the computer/software industry, so my electronics knowledge is like thirty*cough* years old. I'm hoping to resurrect some of it, though. To that end, I got myself an Arduino board recently, but I haven't gotten very far with it yet, what with all the moving and working and greenhouse-building.

At any rate, I've subscribed and will follow along and see if any electronics memories come surging to the surface of my brain as I read.

I'm calling the nitrate level 15 because I can't see any difference between the colors for 10 and 20 ppm on my test kit card. Looks like I definitely did a number on it with that cup of ammonia, but it seems like it's working its way down! Hoping to get some more gravel in tomorrow and...hmmm. Put together the second grow bed? Plumb in the fish tank? I dunno. I haven't even had time to think about it for so long, I don't know where to start!

Some people have had success in washing gravel by putting a fire hose onto it when it's in their trailer (or in your case truck)

I have built my system twice, each time with the best of intentions to wash the gravel.... then about 3 shovelfulls into washing it, I just dump the rest into the growbed. For my last growbed, I hosed it down between wheelbarrow loads and left the drain to run off into the garden... then when the water ran fairly clear I plumbed it into the sump

It's been getting rained on for a week...not quite the same as a fire hose, but it might be cleaner than it was.

You'll be disappointed.

Yep. It's none too clean. And I about froze myself to death trying to wash it, so I decided I'll just wash it in situ and rig a filter to catch the crud. And if that doesn't work, I'll change the water. It's just too darn cold to be outside soaking wet!

Today's progress:

-> Installed a SLO and a bypass back to the sump in the fish tank (the pump volume is too much for the system, at least with just the one grow bed)

-> Finished filling grow bed #1 (I still have gravel in my truck. I am hoping for snow so people will just think I'm being smart.)

-> Plumbed in the second sump (it was connected by a pipe about 1/3 from the top of the two tanks, just for emergency overflow space, but I added vertical pipes to create a siphon so now they'll fill and drain together)

-> Built my first bell siphon and got it working

-> Filled the fish tank

-> Watched for a few fill/drain cycles and adjusted the water volume so there's enough to keep the pump from going dry but not enough to overflow the sumps when the grow bed drains

-> Timed the fill/drain cycle (10 minutes to fill and 2 minutes to drain)

-> Cleaned up my workbench and organized stuff so I have some space to work again

And at that point I was too cold to think any more, so I called it a day and came inside for hot cocoa and grandbaby snuggles.

I brought in another water sample to test, to see what the new numbers are with all the dilution, but my hands only just now got warm enough to type...I'll do the testing when I stop shivering!

I'm glad I'm not the only one!

Am I the only one who thought to put water in the wheel barrow first? It was a breeze, fill wheel barrow with water, shovel in gravel, dump out water, roll to growbed, shovel gravel into growbed, repeat.

Congratulations on your siphon!

Yea but your used to digging for buried treasure Ron...

True that...