Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi everyone, The info I need is probably here somewhere but have not come across it yet.

Just made a 1 barrel system as a trial run. My 2 questions are:

1. how much light do the fish need? Do they get some benefit from a little sun or doesn't matter? How about very dark?

2. Queensland sun is quite harsh in our summers. The barrel system would be in full sun for 1/2 day. I'm concerned about the tank getting too hot, I can make a shadecloth screen to ward of the heat. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

One of my main reasons for changing to AQ is the saving on water would be absolutely fantastic. Living in an arid country does have drawbacks.

And I must say, "what a great site this is congratulations"

your fish need enough light to determine night and daytime and to see their food

you will probably want to shade your plants as much as you want to shade your tank

Thanks for your input. Easy answer to understand, I need light to eat too

And yes about plant shade I already grow a lot of our veggies so I appreciate the sun aspect.

Thanks again

My fish tank permanently has a 90% shade cloth cover over it.

Sometimes your plants will need some protection from the sun too.

Some of my fish is in 100% sun (garden pond)

the rest (mainly trout) is in 100% shade


Only observation is that to much sun can causes algea blooms that can reduce oxygen

how many litres is your barrel/system?

I had a wine barrel which had maybe 170l of water in it.

In summer it got up to abot 33deg in the water even with a shade cloth over teh whole thing...

Most fish will be dead by then

Although i had a bad setup which has been fixed, last year i managed to get over 5000l of water to 29deg around mid december unintentionally, heat can be a hard thing to keep out if you arent well prepared for it.

Well my ibc will be under permanent shade in summer while in winter will be getting the sun as it gets lower.

I won't be keeping the barrel going for long, it is more of a practice thing. So now I have built a swirl filter and a radial flow filter and just been playing with different ideas.

Having trouble sourcing 25mil top hat grommets, I seem to have the barrel levels coming into line thanks to some great info from people on this site, and I have learned from that. So now the ibc is full of water and cycling with the help of the filters I had in the barrel.

So my ammonia is around 4ppm nitrite of the scale and nitrates about 20. Ph is getting more manageable and is around 7.6. Using a capful of Charlie Crap every day.
Who knows may get some fish very soon.

Is it safe to use silver perch out of a local creek? I haven't given the fish a lot of thought yet but I'm not far away from the fish farm near Beenliegh.

Thanks again for help and ideas

If your ammonia level is 4+... then stop adding any more Charlie Carp.... you'll just inhibit and lengthen the cycling process...

And no... until your as yet undeveloped nitrite spike peaks and drops below 1... then you should not add fish...

As far as introducing "wild" fish into the system.... you need to consider several main factors...

Will you be able to move them on to a pellet feed, or can you sustain them with levels of "live" feed....

And what sort of risk might you run.. as to the introduction of parasites....

Thanks for your input RupertofOZ Thats a yes on the nitrites I will wait till they go right down. And as far as catching fish from the creek I will give that a miss too. I am very pleased with the progress so far, this is a fascinating way to grow food thats for sure.

Also started a few small wicking systems going. They certainly make sense when water is a very valuable thing. So many good ideas in these forums, information you can't really buy because it comes from hands on people.

My son is very interested too but he is very cagey. He's going to let dad figure it all out and then I can help him set up. What a great son lol. I don't mind helping him he does 12 hour days 5 days a week.

Thanks again for you help

25mm grommets on line, just do a google search. Have not been able to find any here either. Cheers

25mm top hat grommets.... should be able to pick them up at most hydro stores...

Or order them in.... (lots of other stuff as well)... http://www.wetearth.com.au/TopHatGrommets

Wow $19 delivery for 10 grommets lol no thanks. wow thats steep and ridiculous. But I do thank you for the website, its very good.

But I maybe I have an answer, one of my qualities is pondering problems. These pondering sessions can sometimes be long and drawn out. Some times years.

Here is what I came up with for a quick fix. for a 25mm top hat grommet

Pic 1 we all know what these are just the rubber cistern to bowl rubber fitting::

Pic 2 cut the bulk of the outside grommet off

Pic 3 I used an 1 1/2 inch spade bit and it worked pretty good.


The 25mm pipe is a little loose but the size of the hole makes it a pretty neat fit. You could also silicone the outer ring to the outside of your tank.

The last pic is out of focus but you get the idea. Hope this is a help to a few people.

What exactly are you trying to do Peter?

Gave up trying to find 25mm TH grommets. Found my own. Looked at http://www.wetearth.com.au/TopHatGrommets 91cents for a grommet $19 for delivery of 10.

So I just found my own solution.