Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Nanniode Aquaponics, Thanks I look forward to seeing the school project

Rickles, thanks if I remember on the weekend I will take some photos of how I marked the guard out. It is really easy.

Yeah.. one student is my second son, 9-year-old, who is taking your system for his project.. his science teacher approved it. Second one is a 15-year-old student who is so excited to get it made. So, hopefully we will have 2 systems running your model and I will let you know with pictures, if possible.

Week 1 update

The auto siphon was working great but after 4 days it started having problems breaking the siphon and was constantly draining the bed. I am grateful I planted seedlings and hadn't planted in my barrel yet as the clay was bone dry for the top 75mm. The siphon was going to get a make over anyway as my wife wasn't fond of the toilet flushing sound every 15mins. I have lowered the outlet pipe so it is just above the water and opened the cutouts on the bottom of the siphon pipe and the system has been running fault free for 4 days. I suspect the reason for the siphon failing was possibly the pump freeing up after running in and the flow rate increasing slightly, so it could have resolved it by adjusting the inlet tap but I wanted to make it quieter anyway.

I took the kids for a shell collecting mission on the weekend and brought home a bucket full of shells which I placed in the bottom of the barrel to create a place for baby guppies to hide and to have the ph safety net buffer, apparently the ph won't go below 7 with shells in the system and should actually sit at about 7.4

The seedlings started sprouting on day 6, I planted about 10 seeds and have 3 seedlings.

How big do the seedlings need to be before I move them into the grow bed?

Seems like you have quite a few adaptors getting it in and out. My best advice is to keep it simple. I found one reducer at the top to make a funnel, then straight through the base, and one elbow at the bottom, but if it works the way you have done it, it doesn't matter.

You need to wait till there are a few proper leaves at the top. I normally go for three.

Yeah the bulkhead fitting that goes through the base of the grow bed is for 20mm pipe. I found that I couldn't get the small amount of water in my grow bed too cycle any longer than 6mins with 20mm pipe so I down sized to 15mm. The hang up now is the extra reducer fittings coming off either side of the bulkhead, otherwise it would be similar to what you described. Thank you for the advice on the lettuce I can't wait to see them grow in the system.

I forgot to mention that I added about 20 more guppies to the barrel on the weekend. A few of the females were heavily pregnant and I think the population will boom in the bigger tank.

Hello Daniel!! What a nice build! I'm gonna build my own in just a month or so but have a question, is it easy to do your first bellsiphon? I have a really hard time to get all the pipe-fitting and pipes to sweden for a affordable price so i want to make it right the first time, which maybe be a bit hard, any advices?

Hi gs242,
Thankyou, it wasn't at all hard to get the bell siphon to work but has taken some time to get it cycling every 15 mins. Mostly because you are waiting 15 minutes every time to see how it is starting and stopping. I started with 20mm pipe but I couldn't get the siphon to start unless the pump was flowing at a cycle rate of 6mins, I reduced th pipe either side of the grow bed to 15mm and boom 15mins. I will make a full list of fittings with drill hole and cutout sizes and post it here maybe by the weekend. The list will be as I plan to make future systems so the bulkhead fitting will be 15mm eliminating the unnecessary reducers.

Hi gs242, These are all the parts that make up the plumbing of my system minus the unnecessary reducers I have in my current system, all my future builds will be as listed.

The lists are compiled in assembly order from the top fitting down to the bottom fitting so they can be used as an installation guide.

I will try to do a bit of a build guide for the auto siphon and guard in a week or so or when I make the next unit, in the mean time the barrel build guide can be found here http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/systems/barrel-systems/ibarrel-aquaponic-system-1/

Oh that's nice! is it easy for you to get get pipes and fittings to a nice price? In Sweden it's impossible to buy the stuff, at least in a hardware shop and really hard to find at Swedish web-shops as well! Does anybody have any nice website were you can buy everything to a good price and get it delivered pretty cheap, and does anybody know if it's possible to use the straight pvc-electrical-pipes that often are in the sizes 16mm, 20mm, 25mm and 32mm or does it not fit at all? it's just a bit expensive in my opinion that if a fitting in US cost around 2 bucks the same piece in sweden costs around 20 bucks plus delivery.
So anybody know where i can buy my stuff? especially the tank/bulk-fitting

Hi gs242, The electrical pvc is measured on to outside diameter and the plumbing pressure pipe is measured on the inside diameter, they have different wall thickness's so unfortunately they are not interchangeable. The most expensive part is the fittings anyway not the pipe. We are lucky in Australia the fittings on average cost $1-2 each and a metre of pipe costs the same. The most expensive fitting is the ball valve. I will have a look for online fittings later I imagine your best bet will be a US site but the shipping to Sweden will sting.

Here in the US, the PVC electrical conduit pipe is actually the same size as the regular PVC drinking water pipe and fittings but many people question if there is something added to the electrical conduit (UV inhibitors or fire retardants) that might render it unsafe for use in a food system.

You are probably best off looking for a plumbing supply store there to get a better price on pipe and fittings and only special ordering the hard to find fittings like bulkheads or uniseals.

Looks like USPS priority mail international flat rate envelope shipping from the US to Sweden starts just under $25 USD

Week 2 update.
The seedlings haven't grown much, I gave them some water from the AP system. I got tired of waiting for the lettuce so I moved a strawberry plant from a dirt pot into the grow bed, after 2 days it seems to be adapting very well for an already established plant. I have the addition of 10 or more baby guppies in the barrel so I guess got the shells just in time.

Looks like your seedlings aren't getting enought light, so they are growing like trees to find the light.

My most recent batch were planted in full sunlight, and look like seedlings purchased from the store. Snails haven't got to them yet!

Thanks for your reply, do you think they can handle direct Queensland sunlight or should I make a shadecloth cover if I move them outside?