Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I was thinking of moving all my channel cat fingerlings to my pool tank this week and i thought of this thread... I am not sure they will poke a hole in the liner.. definately not when they are small but the large fish do have some sharp pokers and they would probably only cause damage when you are trying to catch them.. maybe more risk than i am willing to take but dont sweat one little old catfish right now.

Those damn decimal points. That sounds more like it. If you shoveled 33 yards in a weekend, you know you did some work. 3.3 yards isn't a picnic. You have a huge FT, your going to need a lot of either Gb space or combination Gb and DWC to account for the full stocking capacity of the system. Still, always better to be bigger, then smaller. Go big, or go home.

Very nice! Is that Hydrocorn media?

JimV, yes the top top few inches, above the gravel, is Hydrocorn. It really is a pain in the ass. And expensive. I doubt I am getting any benefit from it except it looks cool. I am getting plant depth because of it though. Hydrocorn floats, and my young plants do not have roots that extend into the gravel. So when the beds fill, the little plants end up getting tossed around. Not good. Lots of rotten leaves, lost plants, etc. I'm thinking about expansion and might consider using just gravel.

I was flooding every one hour, but I think this was to often. Not enough dry time for the roots. So I increased the time between floods to 1.5 hours. Still might be to much.

I've also started a bunch of new seedlings in the house for the beds and floating rafts. And these will be started Rockwool media plugs and transferred later. I'm hoping to have better results with this batch then the store bought small plants I've ended up killing most of. My thinking is that I'll be starting these plants in a hydro environment and I'll be able to transplant them into the Hydrocorn in the Rockwool plug so it will be less of a shock.

Drop your stand pipe down a bit in the 1 bed. You don't want the water level to the top of the media...look for 1-1.5" below the top. Otherwise you'll end up with algae on top and possibly rotted stems/fungus. be careful when transplanting and you should try seeding directly in the beds. Then you may need to raise the water a bit or hand water a few times a day to keep the seeds from drying out. I've had much better luck just spreading seeds in the beds. Cheaper too.

If I drop the stand pipe down, the hydrocorn will fall or be sucked down into it. Do I put a filter over the top of the stand pipe?

yah, if that what logistically it takes.

your water should only flood to 1-2" below the surface of the gravel and should never be higher than the gravel... it will increase evaporation, and molds,fungus,algae will grow on your media.. it's not ideal.

Thanks bcotton. So in this drawing, which is what I have going, would you say the water should flood to about 5 or 6? I've been flooding to level 1 and it's not good. Will the gravel wick the water up and into the hydrocorn?

are the numbers to scale in inches?

we are looking at about a 4.

My expanded shale wicks a little but i dont know about all gravel.

The numbers are close to scale. The gravel section is like 12 to 15 inches, and then about 2 to 3 inches of hydrocorn on top of the gravel.

I'll adjust my levels tonight, which is a required pain. It seems like each beds has unique incoming and outgoing water amounts. And adjusting one effects the others. lol. I even put incoming and outgoing valves on each bed to make adjusting easier, and its still lame. Plus I have to wait 15 minutes or so between testing to drain the last batch...

Speaking of which, does my flood timing every 1.5 hours sound about right? And as mentioned, it takes about 15-20 minutes to drain.

THANKS!

I haven't looked back through this thread but it doesn't sound like there is a media guard surrounding the standpipe. Most people use a large diameter PVC pipe with holes drilled in it to keep the media from falling down the standpipe. It helps to be able to reach down inside the media guard to clean out roots - 4" diameter pipe looks pretty common for this. Search for media guard and you'll see some examples.

Thought I would stop in and give an update. System is still running strong. Fish are doing great, with no deaths to my sunfish, catfish or three bass, that I know of. I no longer have gold fish which I had at the beginning, so I think they were consumed.

Most of my fish have nearly doubled in size. Here is a short video I took a few weeks ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54cO9IwXvDQ

pH is always high. I splash acid in about every day to keep it down.

Having no luck growing things. The leaves often just fall off. Corn seems to be doing ok though. Heading to the plant section now to seek advice.

Lastly, I'm thinking about either moving to either large IBC totes, or maybe a newer pool. I have a little leak that I have no way to fix, and I don't like the built in skimmer. It's to low in the wall, so I can't get the water level where I want.

Might save you the trip since I haven't seen a post there yet. I watched your video and the fish look like they're doing well. Two things you should change if you can -

1. Switch from flake food to commercial pellets (32 - 40% protein, I use one toward the higher end of this). The commercial pellets are designed for fish growth while the flake foods are typically for maintenance. This will give your plants more food to work with.

2. Reduce the algae growth, it takes up nutrients that would go to the plants and makes it tough to see if you have any dead fish or other problems in the Fish tank.

It would still be good to post some plant pics over there. Might be a couple of other things get caught that way.

Cheers

Figured I would post an update. Downsized the pool to about 1,500 gallons as the old pool, at 3 years old, had a few leaks that I couldn't patch. We are in a drought locally, and I didn't want to waste water. It was fun moving all the fish that I had not seen in months. Even found the gold fish that I had not seen, figured they were all eaten. No sign of the three bass I started with. Think they may have jumped out and ended up as chicken food. My sunfish and catfish were all sorts of sizes. Some nearly triple in size than others. And those barbs on the catfish easily get caught in my fish net. That was a pain.

When I started the build, I threw in about a dozen crawdads. I now have three huge ones. Guess they battled it out down there. I also put in a large poly-wog for fun. This was about three months ago. Well, the poly-wog is still the exact same. It has not turned into a frog. Not sure what is up with that. I did read one species can take 8 months to turn into a frog. Maybe I have that one.

Still having next to no luck growing anything in my grow beds. A few small corn stalks is the best I have managed. The new pool has a much lower pH, so I'm hoping for better luck. I had planted a bunch more corn seeds last weekend and saw this morning that a rodent dug them out of the grow beds and ate a bunch. Arghhh...

Last week I had my first fish deaths. My largest comets, 5 to 6 inch long, and my three largest catfish all were floating. I think I may have lowered the pH to much or something. It was really odd that only the largest fish I had died. No idea. I did splash some muriatic acid in the day prior, maybe a cup or so, thinking the pH was going to be high like it normally, but when I tested the water after the death is was as low as the test could read. That was on Monday, and the rest of the fish are eating and looking well four days later.

Besides having no luck with the veggies, I'm still enjoying the hobby. Cheers.

on the hottest days of summer i sometimes lose some of my biggest bluegill, not sure if it's the heat or low DO caused by heat. Havent lost any this year but the summer has been mild and my outdoor bluegill are YOY