Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Well done on the barrels! Awesome! Now come and make some for me!

Great idea!

Some tricks for the wood effect. First paint the whole barrel in a light color, and let it dry, then paint it a dark color and wipe it off so the dark color fills the wood grain crevices molded into the plastic. Another option is to paint the barrel the dark color, and "dry brush" the lighter color. They also make a wood grain tool for foux finishes, but because the barrel has a texture already it is best to just go with it.

Thank you... please hold your applause till we have fish.


The barrels will be on the front of the house near the dirt garden we added potting soil to last week. The RFF will have a spout that can be drained there via hose. So before we start drilling through walls we are going to repaint the front and do some touch up work to fix it up a bit.

Meanwhile directly on the other side of the wall is the FT and everything else. We will have more room near the FT and GBs in the back if we can locate the filters out of sight... groovy!

I should say... Until we have healthy fish. I bet even dead fish will produce at least some vegetables, but we can do better then that.

Also in the back we are starting to plumb the indexing valve stuff around the GBs. There are 7 pipes connected to that thing! 1 input (2"/51mm) and 6 output (1.25"/32mm). There is no mounting bracket so it is held in place by the pipes which will need to be firmly secured. It is a bit more bulky then I had hoped for.

We are going to attempt to set it up without glue or brackets on too many pipes enough to photograph it. And maybe a "pre-glue" water testing video if the sun shines on us today.

I would highly advise using some small stainless screws to secure your pipes into their fixtures. Just a small set screw is all you need to keep them from vibrating apart and this also allows you to make future changes without having to toss out connectors. The vibration and movement of the pipes is something I would be very suspicious might happen because of the indexing valve. The stopping/starting will certainly cause the pipes to shift if even a little. Over time they will want to come apart.

I think someone mentioned that earlier, for the moment I'm letting it drip a bit. I will have video of it soon. My first testing made me realize I need to slow the draining down a bit before I can show a working example.

Meanwhile in the front yard we have painting going on.


I could hear her singing "Perfect Circle" from the back yard. Its funny when people wearing headphones sing louder then they realize.



And in the back a "White Ibis" was teasing the dog while I cut PVC for the indexing valve.

And that is a grapefruit in the very near foreground on that last photo.

Sorry my photos are always dark because shooting photos is the last thing I do before putting the toys away. I will care more about lighting once there is something worth looking at... like VEG and FISH!

I acquired some Leca clay media to test with on one bed to properly estimate a few things like timer, number of bags required to fill a bed, and displacement of water volume in the sump when filling with media verses initial testing with only water.



So here we go a single 40 liter bag is about to be poured in....

This is only the first bag!

I realized two things right away! A) Leca floats and B) I used "foam core" pvc for my media guards which make them almost buoyant enough to float, but with the help of floating leca all around it, the media guard along with my media float to the top of my ibc!


So a ton of thoughts in my mind about this....

-Should I rebuild all my media guards with normal pvc that doesn't try to float.

-Does clay media eventually not float as much?

-If this is normal I should cut my overflow pipe much lower so media can float on top without spilling over the IBC edge.

-Do some people find a method to attach or weight down their media guards? (I have plenty of liner to make something)

-Maybe it doesn't float as much with plants? Maybe more so due to down force of the plants nearby?

-Was it the brand? "Plant it" or "plant !T" with the ! upside down on the logo

Anyway the first thing I did was to add a cover on my media guards so that any floating clay media could not fall into the top.



I then tried adding lots more clay media to see if things work any differently with very little difference, and the increased amount of (floating) clay seemed to grip and lift the media guard even better.

Not quite sure where to start but I'm prepared to replace the media guards, shorten the overflow stems, and hope for the best unless you guys and girls have a better solution to any of this?

So with a few searches on good old BYAP, I quickly verified the answer is cut the drain pipe shorter. To me this also means stack the clay higher so I'm trying a bit of both to find a happy place.

As for the media guard (I used foam core trying to save money) wanting to float around right now I have a brick on top to hold it down. Once the media floating issue is resolved I will look at how much it moves to see if its even an issue still. I suspect I should just change this before I repeat this mistake with the other 5 GBs.

The weighted media guard method sounds sloppy, heavier rocks near the media guard might be ok though? One member mentioned that rocks can be added after the clay media and will still separate like oil on water after a bit of time. Coach Chris, saw one of your posts somewhere mentioning this is a great way to save a few $$ on clay by using rocks in the bottom layer. I may drive around town with some vinegar and see what I can find.

About the addition of plants in a bed with floating clay issues, other members had photos showing the plants actually moving towards the middle of the GB over many flood and drains.

And supposedly the clay media does float less after time.

As for the brand, I read a few things about variation by brands related to PH but I think most posts claiming that some brands float more then others were eventually resolved by cutting the drain pipe and were not brand specific from what I personally concluded.

Don't fret... there will be fish.

Once the LECA gets waterlogged, floating should not be a problem. I have decided that I want to get a 3d printer, just so I can print media guards out of ABS. Not that I WILL get a 3d printer. I just decided that that is why I want one... What am I saying, in a few years, we all will have one. At the rate they have been dropping in price, they will be like ink jet printers. Plus the media is already cheaper than inkjet cartridges.

Or you could print the lower half of an AR15 just to make a point? Why? "You simply should" says the developer.




Then... we could target shoot my old hollow core PVC oops media guards.

I seriously need to start over with these media guards. I do not like the ripple on the bottom of my GBs forcing them to lean and tilt. It is becoming the picky aspect of my system and I foresee a headache with the slightest tip causing media to leak under the bottom edge. I'm seriously considering making something using some liner material on the base to keep the media out.

Just make sure the guard is big enough to reach your hand in to pull out the media.

It needs to be about 6"/15.25cm to really get in there to get the small rocks that did slip under the media guard. I can even pull it out of the bulkhead fitting without disturbing the bed, its just not flush to the surface of the GB

I think I need to fashion some type of giant washer out of my liner material. Or maybe a plastic lid with a hole cut just to hold the media guard in place and/or level to keep media from slipping under the ripples and into the drain area.