Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi Dave
Nice salad bar your got happening there
LB

DD, salads and you're just coming out of winter - this AP thing really has something going for it.......love the set up

Yep, the system last year was only running for three months and had great growth in that time, so I'm very excited to have one running longer to produce more vegetables. Last system the peppers and tomatoes didn't have time to ripen, so here's hoping to get some out of this one!

Salads every day for lunch now.

Tonight I opened up the sump and it looked almost empty. I thought there is no way that is from evaporation, and noticed that one of the siphons was trickling. I am pretty sure all four siphons stopped draining due to biofilm slowing down the flow to the beds; the sump was low because all four beds were full. This has been a gradual thing - the other day I heard a different sound from one of the siphons and it seemed to be having trouble starting. Anyway, I pulled each tube and blew through the hoses, a lot of gunk came out and they flow enough now to start the siphons reliably again.

I will be adding the old pull and blow chunks through the tubes routine to the weekly maintenance.

The fish were still hungry tonight, but several were really moving their mouths fast, which makes me think that the DO levels had been affected due to there being no water circulation out of the tank. I have a bubbler in there, but it doesn't accomplish a lot. The water temp also appeared to be colder than usual, I think this was also because the water was not being circulated around the tank as much as usual.

I have added this experience to the AP data bank in my noggin. This will probably affect future designs.

Oh and one fish had jumped out of the tank and dried out on the garbage bags. Not sure when it jumped, but maybe it was while the no siphon thing was going on, maybe today or yesterday.

bad luck about the jumper dave

still good thing you found him before he got too ripe huh

CHeers
Pete

Hi Pete, he(?) was all dried out all preserved-like.

Planning for the greenhouse if I ever get one. The grow beds are quickly filling up with plants and I'll be scrambling in the small space soon - the tomatoes already need some taming.

I plan to try the counterflow heat exchanger thing to avoid losing heat to the outside when exchanging water (Re: DIY Heat Pump for AP thread). The current thinking is that I am not going to try lifting the water upstairs and running it through the heat exchanger in the same step, because matching the cold and warm pump flows would be too tricky that way. So now the plan is the pump the water up in the greenhouse into a "warm sump". The pipes and warm sump would be well insulated. The greenhouse water would be circulating around back to a "cold sump". When the warm sump is full a float switch would turn on the heat exchanger pumps in both sumps. These would be the same model pump to try to get the flows as close to equal as possible.

The heat exchanger itself would be made out of nested PVC pipes. The pipe would go around the perimeter of the greenhouse once or maybe twice if necessary to have enough length. Then the warmed water would go into a drain to the house and the cooled water would go into the cold sump. I would need three pumps and some float switches to do it.

Updated picture of the salad bar. The tomatoes have gone nuts. I am going to switch over to the sodium bulb tomorrow to encourage fruiting. The grow light accepts the MH bulb or the HPS bulb. A lot of the lettuce will be pulled out and be replaced with broccoli and strawberries. Haven't tried growing AP broccoli before but it's my favorite vegetable by far.

Lush. Those toms look very healthy but pretty slim. What type are they?

DD that reflective material, is that what they call air-cell?

Thinking of using something like that to wrap my new fish tank for insulation

Les I 've used a fair bit of air cell and I've come to the conlcusion that IMO its not as good as they cliam it is in the promos and stuff. Espeacially considering what it costs/m2.

Its really easy to work with so thats a bonus but I've heard that it reallys on its foil covering for a large portion of its effectiveness. That means that when its installed it needs an air gap either side of it and if it gets dirty then its insulating ability goes down.

I wasn't too worried until jaymie posted the price of bubble wrap the other day $0.85/m2 vs $16/m2 for aircell. To be fair the aircell would be much tougher plastic and probably fire retardent and all that but I'm still feeling a little ripped off.

Thanks SC, certainly able to replace a lot of bubble wrap and still come out ahead

Yep, air cell definately needs an airgap, IMHO, would be ineffective as an insulation for tanks.

DD, apparently young broccoli seedlings are very good for you as well and are good in a salad
That system is looking good

I just put a couple broccoli plants and a couple cabbage plants into the AP system when I put some out in the dirt garden. They've transitioned to life without dirt OK, and are starting to put out new growth.

I too just planted brocoli, cabbage and cauliflower, interesting to see how they go