Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Installed the free fiberglass fish pond and concreted some coffee rocks in to make a waterfall. Even chucked a park bench in and a half barrel for a coffee table. Its my new retreat, just hope the chook's don't mind sharing it with me.

Looks like a retreat Muzza I can see why you have to share with the chooks.

Looking good Muz
How are the new additions ?
What are your water temps like now you've included the "ponds" in your set-up ?


Cheers

Hey, the Trout and Silver Perch that Troutman dropped off this morning are all tucked up in bed. Trout fed nicely today, great to see their antics again. Very enjoyable.

It did warm up to 30 deg here today and the water temp got to 21 deg. I don't think there's much of a difference in temps with the ponds connect as there pretty well shaded.

Think I'm pretty well fully stocked now, maybe there's room for a few Red Fin in the pond. Just a couple

Dam you Muzz, Ive got another 3 weeks to wait for my trout. Mind you my FT temp is still around 24deg.

Stressing out about my trout System temp got up to 23.5' yesterday. Although it wasn't to bad during the day we did have a high minimum the previous night which held my tank temps up. They are back to 19' this morning with an overnight 15'

So I went to try out the chiller I was given. Replaced the split lines, filled up it's cooling tank and plugged it in. After 45 mins the chiller tank temp went down from 20 deg to 4 deg (approx 50L). Connected a pump to the cooling lines and tried to run fish tank water through them. Nothing. Seems it would need to be a high pressure circuit as all the stainless tubing is only 6mm. So now it needs to be Muzzarized. Plan on gutting out the stainless tubing and replacing it with 20mm annealed copper tubing wound in a coil. By my calculation I should be able to fit a coil with a total length of 12m of tubing, which should be able to handle a decent flow from a small pump and give enough time for the temperature exchange.

Any thoughts people ? Is there a better way?

Cheers

Had a few warm days down here of late but I think we are past most of it now

I don't know if any-one actually has run with copper in their system , but is generally frowned upon in recirculating systems.
Fish + copper =

Hey Matthew, I'm off to work on Monday so just being cautious. I never gave the copper - fish thing a thought. Thanks for pointing that out. It turns out there is 4 seperate coils in the chiller which were in series's. After a quick trip to Capel's hardware store and $3.60 later they are all now in parallel and I'm getting 5.5L/min out of it. I have tuned it back a bit to 4.5L/min so not to work my pump so hard and currently running trials. Recording temps etc.

We're are you Matthew? Be good to catch up some time

Cheers Muz

Can never be to cautious , glad you got it sorted.

I don't know about the copper thing , I've seen alsorts in fishtanks that should result in fish deaths, one day when Animals Australia not looking I'm going to try it out but see above . On the farm the well water is naturally slightly acidic and copper wet pacs , hot water tanks etc have lasted 30+ years, so how much copper would dissolve

Elsewhere you were asking about extra filtration , check-out earthan groups (ducking website , there is a few different ideas and vid's on simple radial flow filters and such

We're 1/2 way between Busselton and Margeret River , send a pm if you want to catch up at some stage

Cheers

Blocks of ice mate, big blocks of ice.

wow so jealous!!!

What a great setup you have created Muz, With your chiller you say you have a tank that gets down to 4deg, why not drop a small pump into it and pump out to the system then an overflow setup to replentish the chilled water.

Cheers Guys, ran the chiller for a while today experimenting with it. With the fish tank temp going in at 20 deg to the chiller the water coming out was 15 deg at 4.5L/min. Your right Chainsaw, you could do away with the coils and have a simple overflow system. In actual fact it already has a stand pipe arrangement so as not to overflow the tank. There is also a agitator in there to stop it icing up which would may become redundant if the pump flow would cause enough turbulence. The more I think about this idea the more I like it. Good work Chainsaw.

It will get packed away for a few months and then I'll set it up with a tank in the shed. Thinking maybe 2000L at this stage. Probably put some more control on it, 2nd thermostat or modify whats in there already to run it in a standby mode with out the cooling fans running. Now do I get IBC's or a round tank, maybe one with a conical bottom. Keeping in mind it may have 400mm long Trout in there.

I want a window like you did for your parents IceManDude, excellent work!!!

Clean my brush filters tomorrow, then off to work for 2 weeks

Good news is when I get back we're dragging the boat up to Carnarvon for a few days. Hopefully get my girls into some serious fish.

I have a Cherry Tomato that is on steroids (actually Nitrates) , its getting close to 8ft tall and still producing heaps. The grow bed is blocked up with solids and the water sits on the surface as does a lot of its roots. I'm just waiting for it to slow down so I can clean out the bed. Something is also eating the Cherry Tomato's, there's a few green and ripe ones on the bed that have been half chewed on.

I've also noticed my new beds are showing signs of blocking up. Best start improving my filtration

Wow that is really kicking butt Muzz, very impressed.