Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I was trying to have the patience to hold off on starting the thread on my system until after EB book had arrived but I can't help myself. So here goes.

I'm only interested in this entire venture if I can do it in a "organic" and "sustainable" way (in the tree huggin hippy sense). For me that basically means having a sense off security and or control over what I feed my cweetures and following on what i eat. Do I care that some of the materials are made from petrochemicals, nope. Do I care that I'll be using electricity to power my pumps definitely not. Do I care that my food is fresh, tasty and healthy, absolutely.

At this point all I have is a mass of variables but the total system (the AP bits and the other bits (worm farm etc)) must provide me and cweetures with food.

I live in Fernhill Victoria near Mt Macedon and it gets pretty cold and wet for a fair portion of the year (just not lately). For this reason I think I'll be resticted to cold water species such as trout, salmon, river blackfish, and possibly a local species of galaxid which I havn't yet identified, for most of the year. I might be able to grow out some ofthe warmer water species if I can push their growth fast enough from spring to autum.

So on to my first fish holding recepticle...

Stuart.

go on.............

Good to see you using what will work for your area!

I'll let ya know how the tandanus tandanus go over the winter as far as feeding...............

Here it is

That picture coudl have been better. Anyway just kidding. Thats over 5megL of water there. To use that AP I would need over 1500 hectares of grow beds. Since I don't have the land for that I will have to start smaller.

Serioulsy though, that is one of the sources of water I have. Despite the dorught the spring is still flowing, although it is no longer keeping up with evaporation.

I'm pretty sure that because I've got access to natural water full of all sorts of organic stuff that my system should cycle relatively quickly. I believe most AP's are using "dead" tap water?

Stuart.

Truthfully here is one of the potential water containers that I should be able to comandeer.

Currently this is the house water tank but we have a new tank that is being installed on top of the hill behind the house. I don't know what the metal is but there is a fair bit of rust inside it not that this seems to effect the water quality too badly. It does a bit because the dam water tastes sweeter for want of a better word. Athough entirely accurate in case anyone gets the wrong idea over my use of the word dam a better descroption would be....

Crystal clear spring water that is perculated through rich volcanic soils until it surfaces at the meeting with an impermeable subsoil. From whence it flows down a short gully through fern shaded riverlets into a clear deep lake eventually spilling over a causeway and down the valley on its way to the Campaspe and thence the Murry.

By the way when I say deep I can't remember if it is 32' of 42'.

The possible Idea that I have had to use this tank is as a "sump". Probably not the most technically correct term since it would be at the top of the system (resevior?) but the idea I had was to have a small sump with a submersible pump where all the water flows back to. Have it pump to this tank and then be released via a series of control valves through the system.

Here is a picture of the most likely site for my first system.

The area is this side of the fence in the background to the right of the walnut tree and stock yards on the left.

Note the small shed to store "stuff" in and the fall to the right which is about 2.5 to 5 degrees.

There are other possible sites I could use but this one had the gentlest even fall (without being flat), with plenty of access, close to power, space for the green house (6mx36.5m), etc.

Any thoughts,

Stuart.

Last post for tonight.

The other thing that I have picked up that I should mention is a pool liner. I think its most likely use will be as a tank of grow bed partially/fully dug intot the ground.

Like your definition of "smaller" Stuart...

Blink

After much pricing and searching out various tank options I've come to the conclusion that the cheapest tank/grow bed that I'm going to get is one made from pondliner.

Using the best, most expensive pond liner (Dupont Xavan $16m2) this design works out at less than 5 cents per liter if I make the tank run the entire width of the green house (6m). The best other option I looked at in a comparable size came out at around 15cents per litre.

Seems to me to be the best option. The only other option I may be tempted by would be using dead fridges. Theoretically these are free so a 200L fridge would come in at 0 cents per litre. To top that off they are also insulated and self supporting (dont need to dig a hole). However a tank fitting costs around $10 dollar and that bring the cost to around $0.05/L and then theres the individual pipes and elbows etc to plumb them in which takes the $/L north rather quickly. On top of that I have heard people swear about the difficulties in getting multiple grow beds to fill and drain on que.

Any one care to prove me wrong?

If it would work I'd love to use the pond liner for the tank and the fridges for the grow beds but not if it is going to be more expensive and a hassle keeping them all working.

Stuart

Ps the idea behind the brick piers is not retaining walls (the water pressure should stop the sides collapsing) but rather to support a supper structure that would support a series of NFT gutters giving more growing space and shading the fish tank at the same time.

Stuart... do you qualify as a rural supplier or whatever?

Just use autosiphons then it doesn't matter if there are variations in the filling rates.

PS - I got a sample of Xavan. Looks like good stuff but it is pretty expensive. $16 per square metre is the bulk buy price. If you want to use it for grow-beds - once the cost of the stucture to hold it is built in - it doesn't work out too cheaply. I will probaly use it all the same - just gotta do some more planning to see what I want to achieve.

Rup If you mean primary producer then yes we do qualify. Why do you ask?

VB I may change this but:

One fish tank......6x2x.9m.....10000L......8x4m liner.........32m2
grow bed............4.5x1.3x.3..1755L........5.2x2m Liner.....10.4m2
6 grow beds.......4.5x1.3x.3...10530L......5.2x2m liners....62.4m2

Total 104m2

Now I can either find another use for an extra 96m2 (give me 5 seconds) or pay $17/m2 instead

Totoal capacity is 20530L @ $17/m2 that works out at rougly $0.08/L. Oops

Ok how did I do that? Oh yes now I remember $0.04/L figure was for the 100000L water storage on top of the hill which was of course why I was going to get it at the bulk price.

As to the sub structure. I plan to have my substructure to be insulated holes in the ground with a wooden frame around the top to attach the liner to. The insulation I would have to buy/scrounge anyway so it dosn't figure in the tank cost but it is a lot easier to install than around a comercial tank. The wood for the frame I can scrounge because I've been given permission to knock over a few dead to semi dead sheds in the area.

There are a lot of other cheap ways that you could make up a substructure. Old doors, tin, fence pailings or something else could be used for the sides and reinforced with some 2x4 on the sides top and bottom. I've often driven through suburbia and seen wooden fences either collapsed or almost so. even if the pailings are completly dead (usually only the bottoms are) generally some of the structural timber is ok and could be used for reinforcing. Plus as long as it hasn't been painted it makes for great fire wood.

Attached is a stack of junk that I'll get round to cleaning up at some point.
I am not as good a scrounger as F&F but I do ok.

Stuart

Can somewon link stuart to the site the hydro site that eb visited in or near perth that one with the beds made out of roofing sheats