Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Nope
get them online only
I got some from 2 places
uniseal.com.au (email the guy as the site is down)
or
aussieglobe.com - comes from america

Thanks jayendra,
appreciate your help.

Looking great.
Don't forget to paint the outsides or cover.

Yeah, I'm thinking I'll use a cover of some sort rather than paint, the deal with the missus was it had to look the part (not industrial) so best I come up with something appropriate or I'll get my arse kicked.

Hey that was my brief also
I used miniorb and caped with decking - have a look at my thread 'warragul J' in my sig

jayendra, your system looks really good, showed the missus and she likes it, I like the wooden capping on top as well. I think I will do something similar.

I've started to build a Bio-filter at work, I'm using 316 Stainless Steel for the body and the perforated removable "cup" which holds the pea gravel and some polyester fiber matting. The matting is on top as a final filter before the water goes to the floating raft beds. The cup and the center tube are a single unit so when I need to clean the filter I can take out everything as a whole. The volume is roughly 45 - 50 liters but if that isn't big enough I might have a problem as I don't have a lot of space. I will clad the filter after I fix it into position, not sure if I'm going to put a lid on it yet.

Still working on the biofilter, I've made all the parts now just need to assemble them. I did some of the plumbing today from the slow to the growbeds and I think it should work alright, I started plumbing fron the siphons to the sumps but now I'm thinking of putting another sump tank under the three media filled growbeds and piping across to the other two sumps which will give me about 1200 to 1500ltrs total for all three sumps. Anyway I've taken some happy snaps...

Looking great!
why did you make the outlet from your fish tank so low?

Hi jayendra, probably a mistake but the logic was to try to get the slo outlet pipework completely full with the tank water to achieve a better pressure / water flow for the gravel filled beds being fed by that slo,I plan on putting a second slo to a bio filter to the other beds which will be floating rafts and that slo will be around six inches higher. At a later date if I find it was a mistake I will raise the slo to the same height as the other one. The low slo has a riser pipe on top of a Tee which goes to the top of the tank so no fish can get into it.

So you did it for suction.
I also have 40mm pipe work x3 SLO's at top of tank
8000lph pump
The water level gets close to the top of the T's - at this level.


If you have enough flow into the tank from your pump and the SLO holes at the bottom aren't too large then you will achieve what you've spoken about - but will suck really hard - fish get caught in it?

What flow do you have?

I'm using a 1500ltr / hour pump, not connected yet and I'm thinking it's going to be too small, what size do you reckon it should be?

Well at that amount you fish tank level will probably stay at the level of your outlet.

I'm not an expert on growbed and LPH pumps but I think it has to be turned over in 1 hour.
So say you had 2000 ltrs of growbeds - then you would need a 2000lph pump? - ask someone else or read up on this though. (maybe its the fish tank volume per hour...)

I think you should move this thread to the 'members system threads' you'll get more responses there.

I have a similar sized pump, and I'm having some problems with blockages.

My problem is that I have the flow divided into three. The result is there isn't a lot of flow through each outlet. There is also no pressure, because the other outlets allow the water to keep flowing if one gets even slightly obstructed.

I run 25mm black poly pipe to the grow beds, so no doubt that's part of the issue.

Also, I've seen people controlling their flow using a PVC elbow rather than a tap. No glue on the elbow means you can just move the outlet higher or lower to control flow. I suspect it might work better than a tap if you see any blockage problems down the track. (make sure the entire elbow is over the growbed to collect drips)

Having said all that, I think with those nice big pipes will serve well.

Having said all that bit as well, it's always nice to have a spare pump lying around, so if you do buy a new pump, the old one will still be a good bit of insurance.

Me also - seems okay atm but yes the flow does get restricted occasionally




Me - in my sig - greenhouse system - works a treat.