Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

curious did your trap work

The trap worked excellently once. After that all I caught was crabs.

After that I discovered I was not actually allowed to fish for alien fish with a trap in a river in South Africa...so I stopped...

Good news Guys. My greenhouse system is up and running again. 10 half barrels replace the previous 5, however I only have 5 online at the moment. There is also a swirl filter solids separator and plans to include a line of vertical towers and an NFT channel or two and a single raft bed in an upright half barrel. Just how much AP can I squash into a 5x2 meter space??

Let the cycling begin!

I am also going to be challenging the arduino control, and add a solar water heater on the roof. Will be monitoring tank, roof and greenhouse temps and controlling the vent fan and pump for the solar. Any existing codes out there that can deal with this for me? Still taking baby steps with the programming stuff. Finding it challenging to say the least.

will snap a whole lot of pics and post asap.

More barrels!

Some pics of the new system coming together in the greenhouse.

Hi all. Wow! been a while since I posted here. Both the greenhouse and the big system are still running But I am thinking of doing a little modification to the big system.

Thinking to shut down the system for the first time since it was started in order to:

Find and fix the leaks.... I am losing water at a really chronic rate.

Change and move the sump tanks... Frogs and rodents and also just sand and other rubbish can get in there too easily. The other day I fished out a drowned field mouse... Yuk!

I want to also change to a CHOP system of running the beds and water moving to the fish tank. Or a sort of combination of CHOP and SHIFT PIST if you like. Basically pump from sump to beds and tank but have the fish tank overflow via a swirl filter to the gravel bed and back to the sump as apposed going directly to the sump again.

Change the pump to a more efficient in sump pump to eliminate the pescy non return valve that fails from time to time when bits of stuff jam it up.

Add on another 4 cubes of gravel to increase fish production capacity.

Give the beds a good cleaning out and wash or rinse the gravel. Some of the beds are pretty badly silted up and a bit gunky after the last few years.

I will keep you all informed of the progress as it happens...

Enjoyed the update Brian, good to hear from you .

IO have made some progress with removing the now rotten deck from the sump. There is about an inch and a half of silt in there. Also amazingly enough quite a few surviving mosquito fish That I had no clue about.

I then tried to make a sort of vacuum for the sump by attaching some lengths of pool cleaning pipe to the pump uptake... Tried sucking up the sand. It did not work and now the pump is stuck.

So now the system is officially shut down! It was a good innings I think.

So now my plan is as follows. Take gravel from one bed and wash it and use it to complete the greenhouse system. Seal that bed up nicely. Then wash gravel from next bed and put into sealed bed. continue until all beds are cleaned and resealed.

Find a new sump... Preferably septic tank... or build one

Find a good in sump pump.....

G'day Brian

I have been reading through your thread and have enjoyed it immensely.
I learned a bit along the way as well.

As I read through a lot of the old system threads you find ,so often, people just stop posting. No reasons, that I can see, and rarely is there any explanation, They just stop,.....,, and leave the readers hanging in limbo,

Anyway, you're still posting and I'll keep reading to follow your AP journey.

Good luck with the system changes.

hey buddy,

I'm planning a new CHOP 2 upgrade too, the feedback I got was to take the approach you outlined, i.e. have a filter between the FT and ST, which was something I had already planned. Will keep from sludge going anaerobic in the ST and keep from clogging GBs.

Good luck!!

Thanks Abdul! Yes the CHOP 2 certainly is looking more and more appealing.

After cleaning out my sump I discovered that the plastic tank that I used which had previously been repaired had busted a leak on the repair. So It has been chopped out leaving me with no sump at all. Just a big old hole in the ground .

Considering running constant flood and using a much smaller sump Like an IBC or two which is option 1 or splashing out on a new rotomoulded septic tank for a sump which is option 2.

Calling the rotomoulder now to get a price.

I really like the idea of a really clean sealed sump that frogs and mice etc cannot get into. This was a big problem for me in the past. This will probably call for the septic tank me thinks. I have a vision of a sump that h
just has a nice neat manhole sticking up out of the sand. This would also be in a different place from the current sump position to open up that space for more grow beds... more filtration.... more fish stocking potential! !!!

Yea the ability to compartmentalize in CHOP 2 is certainly very attractive. adds more complexity and plumbing doubtless but I feel it is a good balance.

Well maybe you can take advantage of a brainwave that i am working into my new ST as an expansion tool.

Have a small ST, just make sure the water is nice and filtered so no solids get in. Run a 4" or 6" PVC insulated pipe out of that. Run it all around the wall and run it back on itself. run a couple of air stones down to the ends just to get some water movement and prevent dead water. Should give you a whole chunk of ST volume without taking up any GB space! The insulated pipe will insure it doesn't get too hot/cold due to the weather.

Well the old sump is removed.... now I have a big hole in the ground with an ibc plonked in there for a sump. System running again for now....