Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi BYAP neighbours,

After peeking over your back fence, checking out your systems for the last couple of years I thought it was high time to do the neighbourly thing and introduce myself.

I have been wanting to do AP for a few years. This year the time was right; not sure why as I have no real gardening experience or skills but am now really looking forward to learning (and sharing with my kids) an appreciation of propagation and food production.

After much planning (fortunately no real budgeting, otherwise I may have never started) I'm now well and truly committed/obsessed.

I probably should have just started with a 1 IBC set up and felt my way from there but I have a habit of going to the extremes. So without removing the kids already small backyard I've managed to build as big a system as I can squeeze on my block (so far).

It's built of 4 IBC's, comprising 1 fish tank , 4 grow beds and a buried sump.

I have now almost finished the structure and basic pipe work for the GB's and ST and I'm hoping to be in a position to start planting by next weekend.

Sorry I didn't take a lot of pics of the initial build as I'm not a social media user and I never planned on going public with my AP affliction, but you lot seem like an understanding bunch so I'll take the leap and look forward to sharing the journey with you.

Thank you everyone who contributes for all your very valuable information/experiences and to BYAP for this amazing forum/community you have created.

Kind regards

Aidan

So you finally decided to "come out of the grow-bed"!


The next step is to overcome the fear of social media and post pictures.


Welcome to the forum

Welcome to the forum mate, looking forward to seeing your pics!


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Nice one Aiden.. Though you really do need to take some pics, even just for your own memories. Nothing nicer than seeing it set up, and then watching the growth take off in a new system..

Thanks guys, tried to get some up last night but having resizing difficulty on the iPhone.
I've downloaded the 'simple resize' app.
Will try searching again and find something else.
I have a few keen to get up here.
Thanks

If you download Tapatalk on your iPhone from the App Store, you can use the app to upload the photos from your phone. It automatically formats the pics to suit the forum. :easy:


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Thanks heaps Matthew, that's a great help.
Super easy.
For future search users; resize / re-size photos / photo iphone use tapatalk app.

Hope these pics below work.
These are a couple I took over the last 2 weeks.


The growbeds washed, cut an ready.




GB's and ST under construction


The first shovel load, 2.5m3 to go.


This is Elsie, my #1 gardener and #3 daughter.




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No problem mate, photos look great! Your System is coming along nicely. Awesome Job!


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Great that worked, now I'm away.

It's still very much under construction and testing, but this is the basics of my system.
Nothing is glued at this stage as I am still testing everything, so please feel free to question, comment and advise.

I've got a 4500 Aqua Pro dirty water pump (from BYAP in Jandakot) in the buried sump, I'm hoping its big enough, but won't know for sure til I connect the FT.



The sump currently pumps out in 25mm where it will soon travel 5M to the FT, right now is has a nifty little bypass setup on the right of the above picture.
This has (and will in the future) enabled me to isolate the FT.
The planned return from the FT / SLO is the 50mm pipe.
The 50mm then splits into 2x 25mm towards growbeds then up to the GB inlets in 15mm.

The GBs are IBCs cut vertical to give maximum surface area and volume. I have doubted myself on this move many times but hopefully it pays off.








This bulging of what was the base of the IBC was not in the plan that was in my head. But I've supported it better now and it looks the goods.

The 4 GBs have bell siphons which are made from 25mm tank outlets. They have sealed really nicely, and have taken well to a bit of flex and movement during construction. These tank outlets also have a small drain hole drilled into the base, after mucking around with the size of hole I've settled on 4mm as smaller got blocked easily, hope this keeps mostly clear.

I'm still experimenting with the 25mm standpipe, works well with 25x32mm reducer/nipple on top but seems to work fine also just as 25mm pipe (at least til I find more nipples).
The strainer has 3mm drop saw lines cut into it, up to about 1/3 the way up.


50mm bell, 25mm standpipe, 100mm strainer, 4mm drain hole.

The strawberry pipes were an idea that worked easy in my head but they have provided some challenge. It's a 100mm closed flood and drain circuit. Inlet comes in at the front with the GB's then travels around both sides to the back to the drain. After a lot of thinking and costing how I was going to drain these things I had an epiphany; siphon.
Was initially thinking loop but have gone with the same bell set up as the GBs.
It's going to take some tweaking once I have the levels and the flow worked out and the gravel in there but it works most the time at the moment.


The inlet will be on the right in the middle. The bell siphon is in the opposite position in the middle on the left.


This is an example of the standpipe in the 100mm pipe.


Took some working out. It's only 15mm tank outlet which I have some concern about but the flat base of the outlet doesn't like sitting in the round base of a pipe. I trimmed the sides off the base of the tank outlet almost flush with the nut and left the washer whole, to better accommodate the connection.

I next need to put another 1/3 metre of gavel in to top them up. I'll then finish off flushing out the gravel sand/dirt (even though I hand washed every shovel of dirt in a couple if worm farm screens). Then I'll flush out the brown water, mop and sweep out the sump by hand (already done this once to get all the plastic shaving out after construction).

I'll refill the sump with 900lt of scheme water.
Then I think I can start cycling and planting.
I plan to do a Fishless cycle starting with my yellow filled coke bottle from today (no photos sorry).

Still a bit unsure about the next bit, maybe you could advise if I'm on track, thank you.....

I plan to cycle just with the sump, the growbeds and the strawberry pipes (no fish tank) I will be using pee for ammonia and Seasol for the plants (seeds & seedlings) that I will put in.

Do I need to dechlorinate the water before cycling if I have no fish?

This coming weekend, I plan to put a bucket of creek water from our farm in the system to help kick it along. Caught some healthy looking Marron there a couple of weeks ago. Farm is in Waroona near the dam, should be pretty pure (looks clean, I drink it). Would this be of benefit?

Once cycled I plan to incorporate and blend the fishtank water (without fish) a bit at a time with the rest if the system. Do you see any problems with this?

Once we are cycled I plan to keep Koi in the FT maybe marron in the sump. Originally had passion for Barra and trout but I know the girls will start naming their soon to be pet fishes. And right now Koi seem like they would be a pretty trouble free fish/ammonia source.

Thanks to all for reading and all your past information to help me get to this point. I'll start a build thread soon, but just wanted to introduce myself and the RIVERGRLS set up.

Thank you.
Aidan










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All looking Aidan, I'd try running with Koi and when it's all settled down you can add your other fish in with the koi.

Learn the ropes with the koi and that way you wont be disappointing any of the kids with fish losses.

I would make your SLO out of 90mm and then reduce it to 50mm outside the fish tank.

Best of luck

Really tidy looking setup mate. Nice job.
I'm wondering why you wouldn't cycle with the whole system. What's the upside you see in leaving the FT's out of the initial cycling?
Cheers, T

Thanks a lot joblow and Tallman, good questions/comments thank you and they are both sorta related.

The fish tank is clean and sorta ready to go but...

I was undecided about the SLO size, I read a lot of recommendations for 90mm but to do that I need a 90mm tank fitting which have been hard to find, I've found one out at Midland Tank Supplies which is a fair hike and its pricey (near $100). Where as the 50mm tank outlet is $17 and the size recommended as suitable by the ladies at BYAP.
So part of what I have done so far with the pipe work sizes is a 3/4 test to see if the pump and pipe sizes will get the flow I need. I'm still not confident it will as the fish tank inlet hight will have another ~10-20cm of head height on the existing growbed inlets.
If I have a 90mm SLO will it create more pressure or does it just reduce the chance of fishtank over flow?? I don't quiet understand the physics of it...

The other main reason the tank will take me longer is that I plan to put a fish viewing window in for the kids.
I know its way heaps more work and large risk of failure but I've seen it done pretty neat and never been one to take the easy road.

Thank you guys , hope that makes more sense now why I want to cycle without the fishtank, and get started with planting straight away. I'd love your advice to see if my reasoning makes sense to those experienced.

Much appreciated.
Aidan



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Adian you still use your 50mm tank outlet with a 90mm to 50mm reducer.

Or you could buy a 5$ 90mm uniseal
Looking good by the way.

This might help clarify my thoughts at the moment. The head to the fishtank is 10cm higher than these current outlets.


This is the type of flow rate I have at the moment,


its similar on the other side.

Thanks a lot.







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