Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Great idea on the screwdriver. I had a real problem cleaning my roots out of guard.

No head to speak of with the pump in the sump tank, it pumped 200 gallons (757 lites) in 11 minutes which I calculated as: 11 min / 60 min (.18) X 60min X 200 gallons (757 liters) = 2200 gallons (8328 liters) per hour??? I think, it was late, and I remember I finally repeated this result, but something was odd, I was weary too. This is the rating of the Laguna.

Thank you all. The hole in the media guards sounds perfect. Unfortunately, the first GB leaked like a sieve, so I quit on that plumbing project until I can get either more resin, or cheaper pond paint to put another coat or two.

We hit 2000 gallons in our indoor trout pond at about 2 AM. Yeah I know, damn late for us to be up! Nell did wake me more than once. The water level this morning is about 3/4s up the fish viewing window. It was a huge relief to see the window completely dry this morning. Worrying about the seal on that window has made me sleep uneasy on many occasions. I mean who else has done something like this?

Thanks Coach, not an original idea, something somebody else passed on in this forum, possibly Jayendra.


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I like the light in there, I wish I'd done something similar myself when I built the tank

And I had a feeling about the leaking GB, my first one leaked the same, had to use more resin and cloth to fix it. The pond liner paint would do the same thing though (resin is stronger though).

Thanks Colum Black-Byron. I'm torn between pond paint and more resin. I believe after reviewing all the facts more resin is in order. At issue is the shipping is high from USCompsites. They say we shouldn't try the thick epoxy as it will not penetrate the cloth, so I'm ordering the EPOX-635315 (2 Gallon resin 85oz hardener) http://www.uscomposites.com/epoxy.html Figuring it took one gallon to get the first two coats (one under the cloth one above the cloth) on four GBs. Arg! Plus I still need to build the DWC GB over the sump tank.
9085 liters, stopped before excess pressure reaches SLO. So far with the water just 3 inches - 76 mm above the SLO it flows as good as expected. This week while I wait for the second batch of epoxy resin to arrive I'll plumb the bio-filter and figure out something smaller for a strainer or RFF before the bio-filter.



I certainly is pleasing to see the pond full, but we've got to do something about mosquito larva in the pond, I suppose they came from the ST as it has been full for a few weeks.

here a couple more pictures of the pond yesterday

Just throw in a few mozzie dunks until you get fish.

Got it Coach thank you for the quick response

No worries. Trying to respond to the a to gun critics on my post regarding gun control. I now know the third item that you should discuss unless you want to get in heated arguments. Add gun control to religion and politics.

Looking good Brian, can't wait to see it up and running.

I don't know what's around you, but the best buy I made on epoxy resin was through gumtree (aussie craigslist). Super cheap for a huge drum of it, it was out of date, so you needed a little more resin, but works fantastically. Normal resin is expensive as hell.

I'm still waiting for confirmation of shipping for the resin. So that one is hopefully dealt with. I should look at Craigslist more often. At issue for us is Albuquerque is 150 mi 243 km or more away, and that is where the good stuff is. Unfortunately, at our age the main reason we go to the city is for hospital events.
The Lights Colum are from Amazon via deep in the heart of China.

I ordered another one some months back which came with a remote but no waterproof cord or transformer Useless. These have the transformer, but I have not figured out where the IR receiver is. Every once in a while the remote works, but it's rare. I'll keep fiddling around with them, for instance it seems like if I leave them unplugged for a more than a few minutes, I can change the settings after they come back on, but even that is not consistent. These lights are very cool, quite satisfies the tech-geek I am. I'll have to go on Amazon's reviews page and see if someone figured out a fix, or maybe I let them stay whatever color they are for a while

Tomorrow I'll head over to the recycle place and see if they have any HDPE 30 gal (114 liter) barrels. I'm awake, because we went to bed at 9:00 PM, in fact been awake since 4:00 AM mostly thinking about my SLO filtration system. The first barrel I bought costs way too much, and it is really too large. I want a RFF before the bio-filter. I think the big barrel is going to be the bio-filter, it is 200 liters (52 gals). I'm thinking SLO enters the bottom of bio-filter into a section of shade cloth, somehow separate from a top layer of bio-balls or some other media. I have a small collection of bio-balls Possibly have at least one air stone in that tank?

So it is before the bio-filter upon which I've been pondering most waking moments. Of course I would love a drum filter with solids sent to a MT. However my system is close to completion or at least the beginning of completion. This is that stage in a project were we find out if all those ideas and plans I had last year, have any merit or are impossible to deploy.

I'm in simplify mode, which is why I'm thinking a 30 gal barrel before the bio-filter, for a a swirl Filter or RFF. They look pretty simple. I still want to do a mineralization tank , and with the flow I saw with the SLO only a few centimeters below the surface I am hopeful my vision way back when I put the SLO in the rock wall below the water line is going to work for pushing solids through the various barrels I want to have back behind the pond. So, Brian, three barrels? Yes and I think I can fit them especially if I stick with the 30 gal barrels. Or I can use the one big one for starters, and plan on some way to lift the bio-balls out so I can get to the shade cloth for cleaning.

Like I said I got up at 4:00 AM.
Here are a few of the things I did.




This is the 110 gallon tank I'll move the fish to while I drill the hole in the aquarium.
Ken Garrison wrote "Hi, Brian:

Plains killifish (Fundulus zebrinus) are native to the creeks of northeastern NM. They are a top-feeder who eat mosquito larvae. There are some in the Gallinas drainage around Las Vegas. In the past, I dip-netted dozens of them in creeks up here. I kept some alive for eight years in a 35-gallon aquarium here. The last one died this past Spring... it must have been at least 10 years old, since all were adults when I netted them.

Get native fish. Don't get non-native imports, which devastate native species. Unfortunately, people have released non-native top-feeding minnows around Las Vegas and Albuquerque and Las Cruces... the lower Pecos... and in many areas those non-natives have taken over large portionbs of the Pecos and Rio Grande.

Rick Abreu in Las Vegas knows the killifish and has kept them in aquaria in the past.

Have you put extra honey supers up on the bees for July/August?

All the Best!
Ken"
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Howdy Ken. Yes, I've heard of killifish, but no never got around to getting them. Have you any pictures of what they look like? I recently bought a net with a telescoping handle for catching fry.
I put new supers on when I last wrote to you. Did you not get that reply? We've got a bounty of flowering plants in our fields. The clovers are everywhere. I look at our fields completely differently now. I won't let anyone mow, hehe. those flowers are honey baby. I wish I had time to identify the large variety of plants which came up in droves this year. Good to hear from ya.
Brian

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Did a little work in the garden after doing the dishes
Now it's about time to get ready for work. I do feel good.
Brian Rodgers

Had a emergency with the wife last night. getting old ain't for wienies.
Took her to a foot specialists this morning (Wednesday) after she fell late last night. Got X-Rays, yup, she broke her toe. She isn't even recovered from dual hand surgery, arg. That took up most of the day, besides a fresh dose of pain she didn't need right now, I guess she's okay. I didn't feel well either today. Now I suppose we're both got some kind of bug which has the awful effect of making the host lose balance. Maybe I'll fall off a ladder tomorrow and break my fool neck. I can't even imagine what life here would be like if we were both sick at the same time. Luckily, we take great care of each other and I don't feel too bad, just a little dizzy.

After a nap, which UPS interrupted with Mosquito Dunks, I got up and tried to do stuff
While in town I went by the recycle place to see if they had any HDPE (heavy plastic) small barrels, nope. While Nell was in the last doctors office drew up a design for my filtration system for the pond, minus the extra barrel I didn't find.

While in town I remembered this powder coated powder drum which has been in the yard for twenty years. I will bring the SLO from the pond wall into the top or bottom. I haven't found out which way to do it yet. This first barrel with be either a swirl or RFF filter I really don't know the difference yet. It will have a clean out drain in the bottom where the can, because of abuse over the years, has sort of a cone bottom. In this layout the bottom drain should be high enough to get a bucket with a silk cloth strainer on top under the drain.

What I'll be researching in the next few days is how to plumb the RFF or whatever it is. For the brown 200 liter barrel I'll have the inflow in the bottom via a slotted PVC pipe running across like Joeblow shows us. above the inflow will be a shade-cloth filter, with a bubbler stone and a large basket for bio-media creating what I believe is a MBBF on top, which I can easily lift out to clean the shade-cloth media. Sorry about the runonsentence.

I fiddled about with air-stones because I didn't feel well enough for instance to drill the aquarium glass.

I'm also uncertain how to make the temporary tank compatible with the Koi and Comets. I have a bubbler in there. When I feel better I'll move some of the aquarium water into the black tank on the floor. Maybe I'll run the Fluvial external filtration system on the black tank intermittently to get some of the bio-filter action going on this new tank. Like I said I don't feel like I'm thinking all that clearly today. So all the stuff which requires my brain to at least fire on half its cylinders will need to wait for this weekend.

researching filters here.
here are a couple which caught my eye:

Stuart's

I'm leaning toward the simpler one. I'll always be ready to mod.
a couple more from SoCalAP


There must be hundreds more here, but this gives me ideas. It looks like the inflow and outflow bulkheads are close to each other, but the flow is blocked in different ways. Mainly I needed to know where to drill the holes for the bulkheads. The clean-out holes are self-evident.