Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi Doug,

What I referred to as a stopcock is a small tap or valve. I use one to regulate the flow to my bio-filters.

I discovered that the flow to my bio-filters had slowed to a dribble, so I dismantled the plumbing until I confirmed that the little tap had become partially blocked. When I removed the tap, I could see that it had a sort of strainer inside of it (which trapped the fish poop) which restricted the flow.

The problem was made worse by the fact that I had been feeding Soldier Fly larvae - too many - and they had wound up in the pipework.

I changed the tap for one which had no such strainer and which provided an uninterrupted flow - problem fixed.

Gary

I bought some more small taps today. As it turned out, they also had strainers in them but I punched them out easily with a screwdriver.

Since I remedied the partial blockages and stopped feeding, the tank water is like crystal......and the bio-filters are going hammer and tong.

The ammonia has dropped from 2.0 to 0,25 and the nitrites have fallen from 2.0 to 0. My fish got a light feed of pellets and a few BSF larvae.

I looked in my compost bin......and there's more BSF larvae in there again already. It's time to fabricate a set up where they walk up the ramp and harvest themselves.......my kind of fly larvae.

Tiny tomatoes have appeared on the largest of my tomato plants and one of my capsicums has set tiny fruit, too.

A couple of days ago, I cleaned the sediment out of my bio-filters. Within a few hours, the sediment had begun to bulk.....it's so fine that it floats on top of the water as it (the water) warms up in the sun.

I poured the sediment into my satellite pots.....most of which contain fruiting plants. I'm hoping that it will provide a nice little tonic.

It will be interesting Gary to see how many of the tiny capsicums are actually set. Mine gave me a bum steer. Sometimes they set little fruit which proceed to drop off a couple of days later. I thought I had 12 at one point, wheras I really onjly had about 6. I don't remove any solids. All vacuumed solids go straight into my growbeds.

Monya, that is interesting. You vacuum your fish tank with the solids going directly into the grow beds. I do not have a running system and I have been concerned about how to handle solids from vacuuming the tank. This forum sure is useful. How long have you been doing this? A year yet? and how many pounds of fish in how many litres of water? Just trying to get a handle on concentrations. Thanks. Of course you have flood and drain gravel beds? How big are the beds?

I am planning a 100 gallon stock tank used as an upflow bio/solids filter before the growbeds. I was hoping it would not clog too quickly. I am doing deep flow beds (not flood and drain.

Hi Stu,



We have probably been less successful growing capsicums than any other plant we've attempted. They either fail to fruit or the fruit drops off before it matures.......or it rots before it matures. For this reason, my expectations are not great.

All of the solids in my tank end up in our small gravel growbed or the bio-filter. We remove any sediment from the bio-filters by tilting them and draining the sediment into a bucket which we then apply directly to our satellite pots.

I'd like to trial a bio-filter filled with shadecloth, and a handful of worms, to see what effect it has on the accumulation of fish poop that becomes very evident once you have big fish in a small tank.

Here's some fish pix that I snapped through the top of my duckweed feeder.

.....and some more pix.

nice looking beasts there Gary

While I was taking happy snaps, I thought I'd show you my fish mortuary. It's located in the freezer in my shed which also serves as the storage for my BSF larvae.

These are the grim remains of all of the fish that I've lost.

I can't believe how fast those Jades grow. Your fish are one months older than mine, I can't imagine mine looking like that in a month.

What are your temps GD?

Gary - I see you have a new addition. How did the biggest one die? Was it a result of the ammonia spike?

My fish arrived on 22nd August 2006.....and they were all about the same size as the smallest ones in the photo.....about 65mm....with a handful that were up to 100mm long.

The smallest fish were casualties of the trip from Childers to Brisbane.

About a week later, the second biggest fish somersalted out of the tank and expired......about 110mm.

I lost the largest one on 3rd December 2006....160mm....cause unknown.

My fish are currently 250mm to 300mm.......they have grown in leaps and bounds since the beginning of December.

Throughout summer, my water temperature has ranged from23 - 27 degrees C. My tank is inside my shed.

That duckweed feeder is an awesome idea... good work.

Have you or anyone tried gluing perspex/acrylic to the bottom of a bucket and using it to see underwater? Kids stuff yes, but you could get some awesome deep water photos of the fish.

Hi Tim,

I find that the glare off the water is much less of a problem just using the duckweed feeder......and it would be better still with your suggestion.

I referred to the duckweed feeder in an earlier post (several months ago). It came into being when I put a heap of duckweed (with quite long roots) directly into my fish tank and then spent the next several hours picking it out of my pump. This arrangement stops the duckweed from wandering off......and the fish just help themselves when they want.

Gary

Good idea Gary....