Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi all,
After 3 months of trial and error I have finally reached a starting point. I will dot point my progress so far:

- Bought 2 x 500Ltr bins for tanks, 2 x 280Ltr pond liners for grow beds, 1 x 3000l/p/h pump, 19mm plumbing bits, wood for grow bed stand.
- Design and build dual grow bed stand
- Connect all the aforementioned bits together
- Attempt Bell Housing style of auto siphon using 50mm stand and 90mm bell
- This attempt failed.
- Sealed 50mm hole in grow bed
- Re attempted auto siphon with 40mm stand and 65mm bell. Kinda worked but needed some 'tweeking'
- Found that the tanks 1 and 2 were not equalising quickly enough for continuous operation. Flooding occurred - water was lost
- System shelved pending investigation and redesign.
- 2 weeks pass
- Outcome: 19mm plumbing deemed insufficient - upped the ante to 32mm plumbing. more buying and more plugged holes.
- 3 weeks later with limited playtime I managed to piece it all together, get the auto siphon working nicely and there was no more equalising problems between tanks.
- But alas it wasn't that easy. If 2 grow beds were filled that would leave very little water left in either tank. Damn, I need more water storage. So tank #3 was purchased along with more plumbing to connect it.
- It's been another 3 weeks but at last I can say that the system is working well and at last I am now ready to proceed.
System specs (so far)
1350 Ltr water in 3 interconnected tanks. 2 grow beds each 280Ltrs,
1 x 3000l/p/h pump. Auto siphon drainage (bell housing)
As for the workings, Tank 1 (under the grow beds) houses the pump, tanks 2 and 3 will have the fish. GB 2 currently drains to Tank 2 and GB 1 will drain to tank 3 when commissioned.
Now to clean the gravel and then get some fish. Currently have a few feeder fish in there. I figure if they survive I must be doing something right. Only reading taken so far is ph = 7.4

Quietly - good to see another Queenslander here. Congratulations on your efforts to date.

I see some possible issues with your design. Combined the 2 pond liners will hold between 750kg and a tonne of weight (water and gravel). I wonder if the stand you have built will support this weight - and also from the pic there does not appear to be any support under the liners. There seems to be some sagging already - and I expect that at the time you just had water (no gravel) in them. What are they made from - poly or f'glass?

Also - if you have done all your testing of autosiphons without gravel in the bed - you might find that things change a bit once running with the gravel - nothing you can't make adjustments for though.

And one last one - I'd be concerned even with 32mm pipe being the equalising plumbing. biofilm will reduce the flow over time. Also - a caught fish would be enough to ruin your system.

Again - congratulations on getting this far.

Hi Quietly, Great stuff. I would concur with VB on those things. I had a 32mm pipe joining my 2 tanks, and a fish got stuck in there and rotted, made a mess when the tanks didn't equalise and one overflowed. I ended up using an over the top syphion made from 90mm pipe. It works a treat.

Hi VB and Monya,
Thanks for the replies. I was aware when I built the stand of what would be needed and as yet Haven't put in any of the strengthening I had originally drawn up. I thought I was going a bit over the top. Maybe I wasn't. Anyway it is easily rectified.
The GB's are poly and the sagging to date has been a concern. Once again I can amend the stand to reduce the sagging quite a lot. But the support will be important to ensure the beds don't split.
The 32mm plumbing not being enough because of biofilm is something I will need to watch closely.
The movement between tanks of anything but water has been on the think list and I will probably look to a course grill/mesh for the short term. (just the feeder fish so far) until I get other issues sorted out.
VB - I expect a few changes in the auto siphon cycle when gravel is added but I'm rapped that for now I've learnt enough to be able to adapt as the changes are needed.

Quietly, looks nice.
What are all the wires/lines hanging down from the roof gutters?

Jaymie misses nothing

Welome Q
Some drama... but that is just part of being baptised into Ap
I like what your system looks like

Look like air lines to me

THose lids will come in handy if you are under water restrictions - should help cut down at least a little on water loss...

My guesses one is a temp sensor, the other was used to support the drain pipe untill the wood block was added.
Welcome to the madness Q. What type of return muffler is that? Looks to be providing plenty of aireation.

I hadn't noticed the close-up shot

I go along with the other comments made so far, nice work, maybe a little more support for the growbeds.. Watch out for your thermometer, it looks exactly like the one I used to use in my system, hanging the external sensor into the water.. It doesn't give accurate readings in the water, at least mine didn't.. I was getting reading that my water temps were so hot during summer that my fish should have been cooking, I panicked and tried to cover the surface of newly planted growbeds to keep the sun off them, and swapped some water out of the system..

I bought another floating glass thermometer and found that my water was about 10 degrees colder that what the electronic one had said.. There was something dodgey about using the sensor in water, out of the water temp readings were fine, but not in the water..

Q, nice set up....if you could increase the gradient on the auto siphon piping, this would help in making them more efficient, either:
a) have the outflow going into tank 1
b)removing the wooden block and resting the pipe on FT2 lip

by having a long horizontal outlet pipe, reduces the water flow speed

Hi all,
firstly some replies
- Jamie - the wires from the guttering are S/Steel wires which will support the shade cloth covering when that is done in the next few weeks. The system is on the western side of the house and this area was to be a fernery. NOT ANY MORE!!
- Aquamad - The lids on these bins are a really snug fit. Yes it keeps in the water but the ventilation is very poor so I'm working on raising the lids say 50mm off the tank and get the best compromise.
- EB - The thermometer had only been there an hour and probably isn't all that accurate anyway as it is about 11-12 years old. Just wan't to get a ball park reading to start with. It read 25.5. I have more accurate temp readers and will use those when needed.
- EKB - I actually started with the outflow to tank 1 and it was awesome. But with the fish in tank 1 I would not be able to get to them very easily, hence the idea of fish in tank 2 and outflow to tank 2. I am presuming the DO is more benefical to the fish if it occurs in the same tank. The wooden block was used due to earlier problems with getting the siphon to start without overflowing the growbed (long story that). The siphon setup will no doubt change a lot as I progress over the next few weeks.
- Monya - Did your original 32mm connections work OK prior to the fish incident?

Progress update:
The GB stand will have added reinforcements and fortification finished by next weekend. This will include a solution to the sagging bases on the GB's.
The little feeder fish have already eaten all of the mossie lavae in tanks 1 & 2 so I have caught some and put them in tank 3 to eat that lot.

Quietly, the 32 mm connectors are too small. They block up with biofilm pretty quickly. My flow was slowing right down prior to the fish incident. I would really recommend 50mm plus. The best time to do it is now before you get fully underway.

Mon, do you say that for just return lines?? and/or interconnection between tanks????

What about pump to growbed.... I've been setting up to use 19mm...
Do you think I'll have problems??