Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi folks,

I've been haunting the forum for a couple of months, and thought I'd better introduce myself.

I've been trying to grow veges at home for ages, with minimal success. If the snails don't get the plants, the dog eats them...if my significant other remembers to water them while I'm away at work. After much head scratching, I decided to try a hydro system, and during the research phase our good friend Google led me to aquaponics. It all seemed a bit too good to be true, so off to the Big Green Warehouse I went, and grabbed a few pipe fittings, two 55 litre stackable tubs, a small pump and a 50 litre bag of expanded clay. I put it together on a Friday arvo, with a dose of my Own Brand ammonia, then being the impatient type, on the following Sunday I went to the pond over the road and caught four small fish in a milk carton. Gambusia or baby carp - I wasn't sure which. Chucked them in, whacked in some radish seeds, and went to work Monday morning. I got home the following Monday and found seedlings everywhere, and the wee fish were still swimming - Great! I purchased a couple of cheap goldfish and threw them in too, because the wee pond fish were only an inch long if they were lucky. The seedlings looked a bit pale, so I threw in a splash of Seasol, then ignored it. Next time I came home I still had two goldfish, but had lost one of the wee pond fish. The goldies still have all their fins, so looks like the wee pond fish are baby carp after all...lucky for them.

That was all about 6 weeks ago, we've eaten the first crop of radishes, and the fish are a lot happier now they're not swimming in my own personal soup. In the mean time, I have sourced 4 IBC's from work. My plan is to have 3 set up as growbeds over (rather large) sump tanks (like the standard single IBC setup), with the fourth as a fish tank at the end. The 3 sumps will be connected by siphons, with the end sump pumping into the fish tank, which will overflow into the growbeds. I'm hoping the large volume of water will prevent rapid temperature swings, plus the three large sumps give scope for marron or yabbies, or separating small fish from large. I'll probably go with Silver Perch - they seem the most tolerant of neglect during the week I'm at work.

My main problem now is I have to dig out an unused garden bed behind the house to make room for the bits and pieces - it must be Out Of Sight to appease the Minister of Planning and Recreation. Fortunately, the area faces NW, so should get plenty of sun on the GB's but the FT will be shaded by a fence.

Anyway, enough from me. I'll keep this thread running for a while to document my startup trials and tribulations.

Cheers,
Trev

Welcome to the forum Trev .

You sound like I did when I started!

I had very little luck dirt gardening. More with the watering side of things.

I look forward to seeing it all coming together!

Welcome.
You wouldn't be Kiwi by any chance If not then Scottie background.

Hi folks,

Well, after a busy week, I've finally accomplished something - the garden bed where my system will be is gone.
Next I have to sink the retic pipes, and add a take-off to fill the tanks.



I'd hoped to get more done this break, but life and weather decided to intervene.

Cheers,
Trev

Welcome trev.
Sounds like its moving fowArd mate.
I have my tank is full shade an growbeds in full sun, works great for me.
Keeps the tank cool an vegies love sun.
I used gravel for media as the clay balls are $$$$.
But each to there own.
I also thought max water would help keep temp down but it Dosnt seem to matter.
My tank is 5000 litres an it gets to the same temp a 1000 litre tank does.
Anyway any questions were here to help

Hi Hezzy89, and thanks for the advice.
I thought about what you said the other night - if it's hot, then it's hot. Each tank will most likely increase temp at the same rate. It's not like it's one tank with a large thermal mass - it's four small tanks.

Anyway, I got a good go at it today - retic pipes are sunk, and fill pipe is in position...sort of. It's not glued yet, just sitting for show.



And then I thought - hang on, there's a pool the other side of that fence , so now I need to move that tank forward to maintain clearance to the top of the fence...and I have to dig out another metre of garden bed. Lucky I didn't glue the fill pipe

Also, I'd like to able to use the three 500 litre sump tanks for marron, fingerlings, hospital tank, etc, so I need to work out a way to improve access to them.

Anyway, that's it for today. Off to work tomorrow, so I'll check back in a week when I get home.

Cheers,
Trev

Watch the chlorine from pool doesn't get splashed Into your tank mate, it will cause you problems if to much

The pool is about 10 feet away from the fence in the pic - and if catch my little fella doing bombies off the roof of the house...nah - that would never happen, would it?

I may have done that back in the days ,
Probably wouldn't try it now.
Don't even have a pool.
When it's hot I jump in with my trout for a while. They don't seem to mind

Well trained trout!

There very well trained, they eat when fed.
They die when its there time
An they taste good

Hi folks, it's been a while, as I've had other commitments requiring my time. Shameless plug - If you're in Perth on October 10 or 11, Rotary Club of Ascot is holding a Lego exhibition called Bricktober, all proceeds going to worthwhile causes.

I finally got back to my system last week. First grow bed has been moved, and sumps for the other two are now in place. I've filled them with water, about 500 litres each...still a bit to go, but my oversize siphons are proving a challenge to prime, so in the mean time I'm using 19mm poly pipe. I'm using bore water, which will be quite hard, since I live on the coastal plain in WA. I'm told that this will probably put paid to my plans of stocking marron in the sumps under each grow bed...but I'm going to give it a bash once the system is set up and cycled. I was thinking of using a few carp from the duck pond over the road to cycle the system. Not sure if that's strictly by-the-book, but they have the great advantage of being almost free...I need a fresh water fishing licence to catch them!

OK, time for some pics.



This is where I'm at right now. I'm yet to modify the IBC bases to take the standpipe drains.



And this is the pipe from the bore to fill / replenish the system.

That's all for now, hopefully progress will be a little faster in the future.

Cheers,
Trev

Hmmm...seems I've got problems uploading the images. It's bed time now, so I'll have another crack at it tomorrow.

OK, so here's the sump tanks in place. The cut off IBC frames are sitting on paving bricks.



This is the stand pipe for filling and replenishment. Somewhat overkill - it fills...quickly!

Hi Folks, there's been a sad lack of updates due to...stufff...
So - the Lego show is out of the way. stocktaking at work is out of the way. The boat I was building is finished. - And ...almost...so is my system..!
No pics yet, but basical ly I now have 3 x 600l sumps under 300l beds filled with cracked pea gravel, and an IBC with 900l for my tank. I'm running two AP3000 pumps (which I've read is BAD...OH, dear). One pump takes water from the sump furthest from the FT and pumps it to the FT, which overflows into the sump next door, which has a second AP3000 which pumps the waste FT water to the 3 GB's. So, basically the least nutrient rich water is pumped to the FT. The most 'fishy' water is pumped to the GB's. The three GB's drain onto 600l sumps, which have 60mm siphons connecting them.
My two Goldy's from my trial 55l 'crate' system now live in the sumps - you can never tell which one, because they change tanks quite often, via the siphons. They are going to be pee'd off when they get too big to fit! The crate system is still going strong, via pee-ponics and EDTA snail pellets. It has parsley, garlic and chives. There's just the EWWWW factor to get over. I'm OK with it, because it's my own brand, but I don't feed it to the family.
My only worry ATM is that even after washing the media, there is a significant amount of suspended 'browness' in the water. I hope the Goldy's will be OK, because they are reputed to create a fair bit of turbidity on their own. Once the residue gets trapped in the biofilm on the tanks, I'll start looking for some REAL fish! Silver Perch, I think.

OK, so that's it, at this stage. Any comments and suggestions are most welcome - there's nothing worse than learning from your own mistakes!

Cheers,
Trev