Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

hmm.. good to know. I stopped feeding the fish and marron when the 'crash' happened. They all seem ok so far. ammonia was sitting at 0.5ppm today when i did a test. I have been taking my water readings from the water coming out of my FT and into my GB's. Plants may be sucking it all up. they have had a serious growth spurt but i guessed that was the week or so that my nitrate readings were really high?

We shall see... only time will tell.

So i have decided that while my system has decided a re-boot is in order, that i would re-locate it and add some upgrades at the same time.

GB space has now doubled to 12 half blue barrels, pipework (although not shown in these photos) has been upgraded from silicone joints to bulkhead fittings.

Fish and marron all seem happy with their new plot in the garden.

More pics

Looking good, nice and tidy.
Well done.

Thanks skeggley. still a lot to do to make it look presentable but at least it is running ;P

Hi Timbo, I'm in the throws off a similar system running marron
keen to know what your stock levels are and how they affect the total setup, for me I may forget the plants side of things for now and concentrate on the marron, but limited as to how may fish you can grow out at a time,

Hi PistAsAFart,

I have 6 marron in the sump tank (600Lt) and 40 Silver Perch and 3 Tanadus Cat Fish in the fish tank (1000Lt). I am running two 80w pumps to get a total water changeover of approx 4000Lt per hour. Have had the system running for approx 4mths and so far all are happy. Have only had the marron in for a little while but the only real difference made was that i had to cycle my system again when i added them because i accidentally used a standard silicone when i made their hidey holes... At least i think that is why i had to cycle again.

Where abouts in SA are you? Great shop out near Northgate that are also playing with marron in their AP system.

It's been a while since my last update so thought i would throw up some photos and notes of how the system is coming along.

I finally managed to get the thing running as a stand alone solar install. Ended up with 3x 240W panels and 16x 12v batteries hooked up in series/parallel so i had 8x 24v cells.

Installed a radial flow filter that constantly runs between my fish tank and sump tank. Not ideal i know but it was the only way i could add it without re-designing the system again.

Also added 5 Tandanus Catfish to the system (3 of which died in the first few days - not happy Jan!!) to try and combat my algae issue.

Algae in fish tank starting to spread to the sump tank. I think the marron are eating it out of the sump though which is a bonus.

Should i be worried about the algae or is it OK to have in the system?