Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Columnmn,

You have a funtastic project going on......I only got through the 1st page, but it's time for this old Okie to get
to bed. I will be back and read each page and look at your great pictures.....KbarL

Where did you get the yellow cherries from? They look nice

Sent from my GT-I9505G using Tapatalk

It's a ebay job. I think these ones:
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/TOMATO-SEEDS ... 662&_uhb=1

PM me your address, I'll send you some seeds.

Well, I can put my book marker here now...I've gotten this far so far......

I'm impressed with your set-up, and even more-so with your rapid response
to problems.....All the bees in your garden are not in the beds...One of them has
a shovel, and a bag of cement, a welder and ....I think you get the idea....

Good work and good luck....May you reap many tasty rewards.....Leon

My wife has said on several occasions that my fish tank area looks like crap.

So I was hoping for some opinions on my tank redesign.

I've been thinking it out in my head, trying to make it efficient as possible, need the least cleaning, least work, and not giving the fishies anywhere to hide behind pond liner.

It'll be made out of ferrocrete, with bottom drains, and everything levelling towards the bottom. With landscaping rocks hiding most of the concrete work above water.

I'm trying to make the RFF larger, so it'll be more effective. I figured the larger the RFF, the slower the flow, and the more time for solids to settle on the bottom. In the RFF, I was going to build in a pump at the tapered bottom, with a pipe picking up the crap that settles.

I was going to make it so I can either pipe the crap back into the sump tank (once I've turned off the DWC beds, so the grave gets all the crud), or into a bucket if the nitrites/ammonia are high. So plan on having a little switch that can control it.

All the return water will go through the waterfall, and look all pretty.

Anything I should add, or something you don't think will work before I get to work on it?

I wouldn't mind seeing your crappy fish tank.
I have seen others on this site working with ferrocrete and some of the work was pretty cool. It is pretty permanent so don't mess it up!

is that using an air pump ?
Or venturi from the water pump?

I think I can manage it. I'll start below the surface, so if it looks crappy, then I'm not too worried. Plus it's underground, so as long as the top looks pretty, the wife will be happy. I'm also hoping any landscaping rocks will hide any uglyness.

My current tank:


No venturi, and no built in air systems. I'm hoping the waterfall (which is just the syphon return line, so pretty fast) will give plenty of aeration.

Cool thanks Col. Yeah I think if it was underground and you use landscaping rock you could probably build something that looks really nice.

It's looking daggier at the moment. I've got a RFF barrel at the end, followed by a settling tank. She wants it pretty.

Is that frame and mesh on top of your tank galvanized?

Yup, but it doesn't come into contact with any water, so I figure it's fine.

Not a massive update, but I thought I might show off a massive tomato I pulled out today. I can't remember the type it was, I went a little crazy sprinkling seeds around, and I didn't label anything. But it tasted quite nice on my pizza tonight.


I'm quite proud of the big guy! I'm experimenting collecting seeds with the fermenting method, so I'll see how it goes. Anybody wants some seeds PM me

that yellow one looks like broad ripple yellow current - a mighty hardy tomato.

Did you scoop the seeds into a jar and put water in then shake and put lid on?

The yellow currant one I knew, its just the other two I wasn't sure about.

And yup, just without the water. Into a jar, let it sit for 3 days, and rinse all the juice away, then let them dry out. I'd been using the paper towel method (just spread the seeds across the paper, but the seeds stick to the paper, and it's annoying to separate them).

I'm curious about how it works.