Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

CCbear was similar, joined in 07 but don't think he started a system till 2013 from memory. I remember joining the forum in 09 under a different account but didn't get back to it till early 2011 but couldn't remember my login details so started a new one. A lot of the way of thinking around AP has changed, some for the better, some for the worse. Youtube has definitely done some damage.

Looking forward to the build Brian, glad you hung in there.

So the temperature here has finally fallen below 40 C. Been way to hot to do anything outside the past 5 days.

Fitted some strapping to the frames and test fitted the grow beds. Looks half promising.

Pipework almost complete. Few small things to tidy up. And then some water to test out flows. Temperature is going back up again for the next few days so that will limit how much I get done.

Hiya Brian, with the drop and rise in your gb supply line you may need a tee and valve at the lowest point to flush settled solids that will build up over time.
Really neat work with the set up, looks great.

Thanks skeggley. I am not 100% happy with all of the pipework. But probably only I can see where it looks a little out of whack.

I will keep the solids in mind. Hoping that I have sufficient flow to keep them mobile, seems to be plenty of flow at the moment. But I guess that may change with fish, algae etc... And pretty easy to fit a tee and tap down the track if needed.

So, I wasn't going to wash my scoria. Even as the bloke at the landscape yard loaded my ute I was feeling confident there wasn't much dust in the scoria...

How wrong was I!

So washing it one bucket at a time. And a lot of sludge being separated. Thankfully the really fine stuff seems to stay in suspension, so hoping it will all end up lodged in the grow beds after a few weeks of circulation.

Thankfully only two small beds to fill with the scoria and then top off with some clay balls.

So a bit more scoria washing :-)

And about 40 lts of sludge removed form the 600 odd lts of scoria!

Added the clay balls , no rinsing of those suckers and run the pump!

looking good

Fitted half of the two part lid that came with the tank, started adjusting the standpipes. Using V notches as suggested by someone in one of their thread (Thanks to all those who document these little gems that make life easier)

Nice work Brian, the water will clear up in a few weeks no problem. Silver Perch ?

There will be silver perch. I think I need more grow beds if I go for trout?

Nice build Brian
I have never used scoria but had no idea it contained that much dust, incredible. Nice job rinsing it out, imagine 40 litres of sludge in the GB's of a brand new system!
Love those round FT's, wish I had one.

Thanks Tallman.

Yeah, huge amount of sludge. bit of a task to rinse it , but only 600lt, so not too bad.

Clay balls are way easier, no rinsing needed. but $30 for a 45lt bag! Adds up quickly. I only used 5 bags in the top of the beds.


I was very lucky to find the round tank and with a two part lid.Hate to think what it would have cost new.

First water test.

Keep an eye on that Ammonia Brian.
I know it's warm down there in Adelaide at the moment, and at 8-8.2 pH that ammonia level is pretty scary. Here's the ammonia toxicity chart if you haven't got one.

Just scanned back over your thread and saw you've been here since '06!
You don't me telling you to watch the pH then :-)

Thanks for the link Tallman.

I may have been registered since 06 , but been off more than I have been on, so any advice is welcome and probably needed to make sure I don't miss something obvious :-)

Going to be hot for the next four days, so will keep an eye on the water temp and I have no plans to add any more ammonia to the system. A lot of threads talk about patience, taken me 8 years to get this far, I reckon i can wait another 4-6 weeks while the system cycles.