Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Yep same here... I did my apprenticeship with Claremont council here in Perth, though since doing it, I have never gone into the industry... I became very dissalusioned with horticulture as a trade, when tradespersons were being paid hardly more than a labourer, and in most situations where a qualified tradesperson should be employed, they just employ anyone with a little experience... Most people will never touch their plumbing or electrical stuff, or their cars engine etc... But gardening, anyone can give it a bash, why do you need qualifications.... During my apprenticeship I only had a qualified person over me for 12 months, the rest of the time they just had an unqualified general labourer running all of the parks and gardens.. Of course he was quite elderly with very little experience and wouldn't listen to anything I said....

Sorry.... Ok, rant over....

EB I had a similar experience. I had to work through tafe myself and had a guy come once a month to check on my progress. The guy who was my supervisor had no interest in gardening so I had to do it all myself. Fortunatly I had a keen interest in gardening and was able to do all the requierd modules for tafe and passed. I am lucky i can use my skill at the school but I do a lot more than gardening. i do a lot of maintenance as well.

AP

Why oh why weren't you doing this 6 months age

I only had very basic knowledge (EB's unskilled labour bloke ), can't wait to see the finished product Aussie

Same here, Cert III Landscape and Horticulture General, working towards Cert III Parks and Gardens. I have no intention of paid work, I really enjoy the experience and knowledge gained. I study at Caboolture because it's close but have done one subject (Sustainable Horticulture) at Grovely.

All the horties are coming out of the woodwork...

Another thing I didn't like so much when I did my apprenticeship was the fact that everything was about standard well entrenched methods, there was a spray or a petro-chemical fertilizer answer to everything.. We did almost nothing in the way of organic growing methods, and in the prac area at TAFE there was a big permaculture garden done by a weekend course that was run there, but we could only look at it from afar...

EKB it was you who inspiered me to get the green house. I am learning as I go along. My GH will have a base plate to attach the bottom of the one piece cover to. No need for clips.
derekh. All plant knowedge is good and helps with aquaponics. Keep going you will love it.
EB. Yea roundup was the cure all for many things in my training. As well as other chemicals. Nothing about organic or permiculture. Now the world is reaping and expensive wage for chemicals.

AP

Thats right, I was hijacking your thread with other stuff....

(info reposted so it's all in the one spot.)

Thanks EB

AP

See the thing is at still point, ie power off, all beds will be empty, fish tank and sump tank full... Switch on system, water pumps from sump into fish tank, fish tank level rises, overflowing into growbeds... With this method of system there is a fair fudge factor in the volumes as I have founf with my little system that works like this... It takes time and volume of water for the level to rise in the fish tank and flow out into the beds... Even discounting this, to fill all beds it takes 2000L, this 2000L has to be pumped out of the sump, into the fish tank, so it can fill the beds... That means that your sump tank will be left with 300L and a pump that will be almost pumping dry...

Does this make any sense...

EB I hear what you are saying. So if you had my system what would you do?

AP

AP - if I were you I would set up the grow-beds at 2 levels and have one set feed the other. If you want to chat about how it all works - just give us a call sometime - you have my number I think.

Hmmm...... I think the general plan is good, using standpipes rather than siphons, you will have a bit of water going straight back into your drain tank right away, while as with siphons you may end up with a few moment when all the beds are reaching capacity yet haven't started the siphon yet, and the sump is almost empty... I guess unless you go for a larger sump tank, then the other obvious answer is to just keep your levels slightly lower in the growbeds.. ie, don't quite fill them to the same level with media and/or water.... cut the stanpipes a touch lower...

Ooohhh, multi level VB..

The other option is not to have your entire volume of grow-beds running F&D - if you have some running as DWC then this will assist the sump capacity issue. I reckon you want plenty of leaway given that the system will lose a fair amount of water to evaporation and transpiration each day and you do not want to have to top up daily. Also - you don't want the pump to fail by running in too little water at times.

I personally favour a continuously running pump with autosipnons to run the flood and drain process. This in itself will result in all beds being flooded at the same time only very fairly due to natural variation in the siphons.

hahahahah....... I see your stand pipe, and raise you an auto siphon......


Definately a good idea to have a couple of beds being DWC, then they won't take any water to fill as such.....

Sorry - I didn't even realise until I read your last post that you guys were discussing doing it with standpipes. In the end the problem will be the same in terms of capacity issues. Joel - your point regarding water level is very relevant. Once plants are established - the water level can be dropped a fair bit (just chuck on a shorter outer pipe on the autosiphon), but of course then the bacteria growing area will lessen (not that this is likely to be an issue with the amount of gravel that is in the system).