Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Not sure where you might get black cinder in your area but here it is commonly used at nurseries and for landscaping. It is also commonly used as a soil amendment as the porous nature of the cinder provides a fantastic habitat for bacteria which is great for your soil. Black cinder has been used for years here in Hawaii as a grow media in aquaponics. It does have a PH lowering affect so that is something to keep in mind.

Thanks.

The pile of cinder is getting smaller while the pile of silt is getting larger. What do you guys do with the left over silt? I suppose I could save it for amending the soil in my planned raised beds.


Two beds filled. Only the one next to the FT is left and I plan to tackle that one tomorrow. I just hope I have enough cinder left. I think it's going to be close.


I have a few plants in the far left bed. Mostly beans I started from seed. I also chucked in some green onions my wife had left over from the kitchen.

Finally... all three GB's are full! As it turns out, I had enough cinder. I even have just a little left over. I'm sure I could screen another wheel barrel load out of the silt if I really wanted to. Now to do a little fine tuning on the plumbing and start dressing it up a bit.

All grow beds are full of cinder, the pile of silt has been cleared from the driveway and I've installed a few sacrificial seedlings to the cycling process. The siphons are working well. The center bed seems to be the fastest of the three although I haven't timed any of them yet. It is really quite impressive when they kick in and surprising how quickly a bed can drain. The water is still murky and I can tell I have a layer of dirt on the bottom of the sump but that is to be expected with all the rock that was used. All in all, everything seems good.





I picked up a 4oz bottle of Organic Digester from a local feed store and added the whole thing. I figured it would get things going. I also picked up a 1 liter bottle of EM1 but haven't added any yet. And I also picked up a 18oz bottle of Organix Rx Sea-Kelp 100. I added 1 cap full of that yesterday. Any and all help regarding additives would be GREATLY appreciated as I'm lost when it comes to this stuff.

I've tested the water a few times. PH is quite high, at least 8+ and I'm able to keep ammonia at about .25ppm to .5ppm with a couple of sessions of peeponics daily.

Anyway, that is how things are sitting at the moment. I suppose all there is to do now is just monitor and wait. I'll busy myself as nicks and nacks here and there making the system a little more aesthetic. Thanks for all the help and support along the way. This journey is far from over, it's only just begun.

Looks fantastic!

Looks nice!

I am really worried about the small footprint of your blocks.. You have hundreds of pounds resting on them.
With that weight your growbeds will settle, and not even.
Especially with the rains you guys get.

You should really rethink your footing for the beds, before you continue. It could ruin all your effort, just one good rain. I even don't think just a paver will do, it will break under the massive weight of the beds.
You need at least a 4 inch 4x4 feet concret pad to rest each support for the beds on.
Just think about how much water pushed up your sump.

I appreciate your concern. I have double pavers underneath each footing resting side by side which creates a 16" square footprint. If I need to reconfigure... well... I'll just have to wait and see if that becomes a necessity. If it does happen... you can be first in line to say, "told ya so."

It should be noted that in my area we get an average of 71.12" of rainfall annually. The ground here is very adept at drainage. As long as there is no lateral space for the earth to move it pretty much just stays put. It's a gamble but I'm putting my money on Hawaiian soil to hold.

No told ya.
Its not the drainage, but that the ground with that massive weight will settle. Its not 100% compacted. But the weight of the GB, which is massive and the small footprint of the blogs, will start that compacting.
71 inches I am, wow, I wish we would get 1/3 of that. I jumped up and down and run around naked, scaring dogs and horses,no neighbors near by, when we had 4.5 in a week. First since middle of May.
But we can get 10 feet of snow.

Well, like I said, I ain't takin' it apart now. We'll just have to take what comes.

I just timed the flood/drain cycles of my GB's.

Bed 1
Flood - 24:56
Drain - 4:19
Total - 29:15

Bed 2
Flood - 12:35
Drain - 4:05
Total - 16:39

Bed 3
Flood - 19:34
Drain - 4:58
Total - 24:36

As you can see, Bed 2 is the clear winner when it comes to turnaround time. I was wondering if I should reduce the flow just a bit to Bed 2 to allow Beds 1 and 3 to catch up or should I just leave it and see how it performs with plants?

If the siphons are all working, leave it alone.

There is no set rule for flood and drain times, all yours will work just fine.

It'll give you a chance to do some comparisons between growth!

I'd still be worried as well but the fact that you have the two pavers side by side will make it easier to fix. If you didn't then the open hollow bricks that you are using would have just nailed themselves in to the ground.

To a certain extent modern builders or engineers go a little over board with footings and spec massive amounts of steel and concrete but that is because steel and concrete are massively cheap relative to the massive cost of fixing a problem.

Modern house footings have a huge amount of concrete in the their footings If you compare with the footings of ancient buildings which where often just built straight onto the ground on in the case of Victorian era bricks buildings the wall footings are simply of a triangular cross section about double to tripple the width of the double bricks walls. Admittledly they could get away with this more easily because lime mortars are more flexible than cement mortars and hence less likely to crack if the footing does shift.

The single layer of pavers you have used may have been better doubled or even trippled to prevent them cracking but even if they do crack you won't have the major problem that you would have had without them.

There is a very good chance that any problems you will be able to fix with shims and while it may not look the best it won't be a disaster.

Thanks Stuart. I plan on adding a skirt around the bottom so any necessary shims won't be visible anyway.