Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Like the Olive Barrel idea Muzza - would like to see how you plumb them when they're done. Might set one or two up for invasive plants like mint, laksa and lemongrass

Hi Matt, slow progress on Olive drums. Have been digging in the 90mm pipe work today between showers, something like 30m worth. Bunnings have done well out of me again with about $300 spent on pipe fittings etc. Weather doesn't look like improving any time soon. Hopefully tie the 90mm pipes into system tomorrow and have water flowing through the drums.

I tried lemon grass recently and it didn't like it ,maybe when it warms up

Filled the last growbed and have planted with Corn,Cos, Beetroot's, Capsicums, Jalapenos.

I've been adding a coffee mug full of lime ever second day just to maintain my PH at around 6.4 (1 cup raises it 0.2ppm) . Must have mist a day as It was 6 just then so I added 2 cups. Was hoping the 1.2 cubic meters of blue metal in the last grow bed was going to raise it.


Supply pipes installed



Drain Lines installed

Gee, that looks like good diggin there Muzz. That would take 2 weeks in Kal.

I don't think blue metal does much to affect pH unless you get it from a yard with lots of limestone dust blowing around.

If you are having to add that much lime daily, you might want to also add something to raise the potassium levels a bit if any of your plants are showing signs to potassium deficiency. (bronzing of lower leaves, sometimes looks a little like iron deficiency but on the lower instead of new leaves but with more brown/bronze instead of just yellow.) I have trouble with it showing up bad on my basil if I am using just my well water to keep the pH up since that is just calcium carbonate with no potassium to help.

Charlie, my block is all sand. Once you get through the half meter of top soil its all yellow sand for about seven meters. So Yep..easy diggin here.

Cheers TCLynx, I did notice the last lot of choi had a few signs of deficiency but its now about four weeks old and looking very healthy. Other than that all the plants appear fantastic. I'll track some potassium down and give it a go. I'm a bit worried about the amount of lime I'm having to add to stop my falling PH, at this rate I'll need to set up and automatic feeder with lime in it. I did add 36kg of shell grit to try and buffer the PH but made no difference.

Is there a rule of thumb for the quantity of shell grit added to the size of the system/load???

Cheers Muzza

Is there a rule of thumb for the quantity of shell grit added to the size of the system/load???

I don't think so because it is going to be greatly affected by the source water. If your source water has NO hardness then you need lots more buffering to keep the pH from constantly falling.

Is the shell grit in a bag? Can you stir it up a bit? If using pure rain water as your source water, you might even consider doing some buffering to that before even using it. I know some people who wound up soaking a block of marl in the system to get enough hardness to keep the tilapia from loosing their scales when they switched from using tap water to using pure rain water.

I live on a ridge and while I was able to top up using just rain water for about a month in July here, I usually don't seem to get that much rain and I'm back to using more well water now so my pH stays up with the amount of calcium carbonate in my well water.

I found unless the shell grit was being agitated it would not do much buffering - I've had a sock full hanging over the side for ages and it does very little - I put about 1/10th the amount in the sock in a basket under the GB return and it shifted the ph in a few days.

My shell grit sits on the bottom of the moving be bio filter, below the air diffusers. So its settled there doing nothing. Some thing else to look into...

Connected extension into the system today. Another 15m of 90mm in the ground. Worked out my 90mm supply line is now about 40m in length. Plumbed up drums and tested. Due to the 20mm equalizing pipes between the drums I'm unable to get a huge flow as they are very restrictive. I Should have gone with 25mm but was a lot more expensive. Anyway I'm able to get 3L/min through each of the 3 drums in series so I'll just have to see how that goes. The inlet has a elbow turned horizontal to create a swirl and the outlet has a elbow facing down with an extension pipe to draw from the bottom. I imagine I'll find sediment settled on the bottom after a while.

When I cut into the supply line I was amazed at the amount of fish waste in there. So I added a 90mm vertical inspection, its tall at the moment but will be cut down to ground level and then adapted to 100mm with a O-ring lid. The idea being that I can shove a suction pipe down to the very bottom and pump out the waste.







I might have to do some pruning in my fish pond tomorrow as the Kikuyu is taking over. I'm sure the shrimp don't mind

Looks good mate. Just trying to understand how its going to work, so water enters first barrel and swirls then exits to next and then next etc and then returns down the 90mm and back to sump? Have I got that right? And the media is just in the top section with a reservoir underneath?

Cheers

Bit of a drawing would be appreciated, thanks

That's pretty much it Charlie, pipes are glued up to the valve and the rest are just push together in case I want to change things around. Drain height is set externally on last drum which just overflows back down 90mm drain pipes that return to the fish pond.

Didn't want to have a valve on each drum simply because of cost. Also I want to be able to remove top half with blue metal in it for cleaning at the end of the season.

I estimate each drum to hold about 100L so with 3L/Hour flow through them its getting turned over nearly twice per hour.

I think I'll just take another photo tomorrow for you CCBear, it will be quicker. Better still, a video. I'm going away for the weekend with the misses so I might find time to have a play on Sketchup.
But I do need to disappear for a while to go buy the 100mmx100mm x 30m wire mesh for the Trellis. I'm sure she wont mind

Enjoy yourself and have fun, cheers

I cleaned my brush filter on Friday before going away for the weekend and was amazed at the amount of tiny little bloodworms in the waste. They wouldn't have been 4-5mm but there was hundreds of them. I also gave the shell grit a good stir and sure enough the PH shot up to 7.6ppm.

Managed to get all the drums filled with blue metal and I planted Cheery Tomatoes, Mighty Red Tomatoes, Lebanese Cucumber and Butternut Pumpkins. I also planted 50 odd corn seeds, Queensland Blue Pumpkins, Rock Melons and Zucchini in a tray.

Got home this arvo and banged up wire for the trellis, added another 25kg of salt to the system and checked the PH which had dropped back to 6.6ppm in two days. I bought a 25kg bag of Potassium Bicarbonate on Friday from Elders so I added a cup full to raise PH. I'll wait and see what it reads in the morning then go again.

Hopefully we'll have fine weather next time I'm home so I can paint the trellis. 6m Wicking bed plumbing all in and ready to go.

Tomatoes have shot up in new pots and look very dark, strong and healthy. I've transplanted the pumkins, rock melons and zucchini's I seeded 3 weeks ago into the remaining pots. Some of the cucumbers and butternuts I planted last break look very sad and deficient of some thing.





Over the last three weeks we've added about five coffee mugs of potassium bi-carbonate and I can't say I see any change in the plants other than the tomatoes. The only iron I have ever added into my system has been 500grams of Manutec iron sulphate and that was done over the past 18months. So I sat down and watched the Agrotech videos on iron this morning. Then rang Duralite and ordered 1kg of the DTFA @11%.

I worked out I need to add 286grams every three weeks. Calculated at 11%Fe at the 2mg/L for my 16,000L system. No wonder my plants look sad. So if that makes a difference I guess I'll be ordering a 25kg bag next.

The only other thing that has been added into my system is approx 250grams of Manutec trace elements also over 18months. And the occasional foliage spray of Manutec Zinc& Manganese.

Baby Spinach


Cauliflower


I'd better go and harvest some more Trout