Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Yup, mine get a few hours of free range every day. Caught a grasshopper today about 2 1/2-3" long. Called all the girls over and tossed it in the middle. Fastest one got it and they all chased her around for about 5 minutes. They're dumber than a puddle of mud when you want them to do something, but entertaining just the same other times.
Unfortunately, one started crowing the other day, so his days are numbered.

Ah, the wonders of AP. The green onions that I transplanted yesterday seem very happy. I moved them in the afternoon and when I went to feed the fish this morning, visible new growth.


The dark green shoots is overnight growth. They absolutely were not there yesterday when I moved them. Some of the old stalks were droopy so they got cut and went in this morning's omelet.

The brown ones come from our Rhode Island Red and the lighter ones (they almost look pink in the sunlight) came from our Barred Rock. Waiting for our Ameracauna of the same age to start laying.

The Ameracauna are soo cute with their kinda fluffy feathered faces. We had several until whatever pack it was got all but one chicken.

Time for us to get more chickens I think.

Been busy for a couple months. Had the opportunity to do some volunteer work on a building project that has used up all of my free time.
The LEAP system has survived fairly well. Still not spectacular growth, but I hope to get some more fish in the system come springtime. I scattered some romaine and swiss chard seeds and am getting some nice growth. Also getting hot peppers still despite the cold weather.

Getting 3 or 4 eggs a day from our 4 laying hens and waiting for a couple more to get old enough to start laying.
And now, I'll try to catch up on some threads.

Found somebody selling 4 IBCs on craigslist for $50. They have held vegetable oil for the last 5 years. Went to check them out and the cages are rather beat up but, hey, $50! They are the flimsy cages anyhow with very little horizontal bracing and they swell when I filled the tanks up with soapy water. So, I guess I'll just make 8 grow beds out of the tanks and scrap the cages for $. Those would make a nice mixed gravel bed/ floating raft system in conjunction with the big 500 gallon tank I got before. Be alot of digging to get it down to a reasonable height though. Oh, the possibilities!

Interesting side note on the vegetable oil storage. The guy I got them from said he runs his old diesel truck on straight vegetable oil. He only has to cut it with diesel in cold weather. Never knew that was possible.

The people that bought my big system arrived in a fish and chip shop smelling 4WD that ran on cooking oil.

Delicious.

I knew of biodiesel, but always assumed it had to be a blend. Didn't know that some engines can run straight oil. Back when I was still working on cars for a living, someone brought their VW into the shop and they had added the B-I-O from a Cabrio emblem to the D-I-E-S-E-L on their car so it looked like a factory BIODIESEL emblem. Almost as good as my cousin turning his Mitsu Mirage into a Rage. Digression...digression...

Hey Jimbo,

Mate, i am going to give one of your airlifts a shot,

Did you end up trying the design with a 'Y' piece to 45deg to horizontal?

Or did you stick with the 'T' piece straight to horizontal?

I.e the two sketched attached.

If you did, did you find a difference?

Thanks very much

Regards

Porter

Porter, definitely go with the tee. The 45 setup lets the bubbles out without doing their job all the way (if that makes sense-its late here).
I used 1 1/4" pipe and tee and then the horizontal pipe is 2" siliconed over the the tee. Less resistance than 1 1/4" for the horizontal.
Hope this helps.

Beauty Mate, Thanks for that, the 'T' it is.

Did you end up using all 4 air inlets without stones? just straight air hose into the Bell a the bottom?

Regards

Porter

Yes on open airlines. Smaller bubbles are supposed to move more water, but the airstones were too restrictive as far as allowing the volume of air through. Notable difference in water flow and you don't have the maintenance issue of regularly cleaning the airstones.

Thanks Jimbo, much appreciated,

Regards to you
Porter

Oh hey Jimbo, did you find preference in Bell depth?
for example, did the airlift work better the deeper the bell/air inlet was submerged?
i only want to pump up 100mm tops, but i have only 900mm depth to use, and i am unsure if that will be deep enough to build up the lift velocity of the air bubbles?

Thanks again,

Submergence definitely matters. The deeper the better until the pressure overcomes the air pump. The one I use maxes at about 4' and mine run a few inches short of that. 100mm (approx 4") is probably more head than this airlift will move. More than about 40mm is gonna seriously lose flow. I'm actually working on my system now to reduce the head even more. Pictures later.