Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hiya Greasy, personally I think 50mm drain is too small. I've used 90mm dwv as its cheap and gave me future expansion possibilities. I have the gbs emptying through a 40mm sink drain fitting dropping straight into the 90mm pipe, not sealed to allow air to escape eliminating back pressure issues.
Stepping up and down sizes is possible using a mix of pressure fittings and dwv fittings it just takes a bit of playing around in the two sections at the hardware store. Sometimes you may need to use the od of the fitting instead of the Id, if that makes sense.....
I have an ibc that was sun damaged and cracked but I still got a gb out of one half.
Hope this helps.

Thanks Skeg, might up the drain size just in case I expand later
Uniseals arrived today, cheeky shout out to rob bob for amazing service , and I picked up a trailer load of free scoria on the weekend. Let the blessed gravel washing begin.

So I don't have a list of events/things that will speed up the construction of an aquaponics system but what I do have is a list of things/events that will stop it dead!
Number 1 on that list...wife going into early labor and child number 2 arriving four weeks early
Back up and making progress tho, trench dug and pipework laid for pump to tank and tank to growbeds.

Base for fish tank/s got done today and filled with gravel, plus managed to knock of majority of the plumbing...and haven't really progressed much on the gravel washing

Good to see the progress Greasy... Looks like the early labour didn't slow you down too much.

Looks like your system build is off to a great start. As far as the early birth, I hope all is well. My son was born almost 3 months early at 1 lb 14 oz, or .85 kg. There are definitely some extra hurdles for premie babies, but they generally sort themselves out. My boy is 2 now and perfect.

Thanks, he's doin great now, 5 months and doin everything he should be so we are very fortunate.

In other news the build progresses... have clad the growbeds and the fish tank and have finalised the plumbing for the pump which has now arrived
Just need to finish the plumbing from the sump to the fish tank and fill the growbeds and we will be ready for a test run

Well that escalated quickly! I bought a single IBC system off gumtree, more for the clay balls than anything and ended up walking away with 6 silver perch and a large yabby as well! That gave me a kick up the butt and in a day I had finished the plumbing, hooked up the pump, filled one growbed and filled the system with water (treated to get rid of chlorine and other nasties).
So my system has been running for 4 days and I can safely say no fish deaths...yet. I do have a few questions though:
1. Will my cycling be shorter because I used media from an established system?
2. How long can fish go without eating?
Thanks in advance

I'd say that if the media was being used as the system media for your current fish/yabby and only a few hours and not days to setup, you should be good.

As for eating, happen to be supplied with any food from transaction? I would put a tiny bit down and just observe behavior still probably skittish.

My koi are like labs, anyone with food is there best friend.

Good luck,

Adam

The media came straight out of a running system into a fridge (long story) for transport and was put into my system the next day still wet so I'm hoping the bacteria will still be viable.
I wasn't lucky enough to be supplied with any food so my fish haven't eaten in 5 days so far as I'm still waiting for my food to be delivered.

Not wanting to dampen your joy but Id be freaking out about possible extra heat generated with that iron around everything... if its not to late or hard Id be peeling some off and wrapping sisalation or something around the F/T esp.

I'm not too worried, the fish tank is always in shade and never receives direct sun and the growbeds have a 50mm gap between the iron and the cage around the plastic. Hopefully that is enough to get me outta trouble

Bit more progress. The one functional growbed is now planted out with a mixture of chives, iceberg lettuce, bok choy, capsicum, mini eggplant and silver beet.

Well it's been three weeks now and the plants are definitely growing. My API test kit arrived today and so the results of my first test are:
Ph- 7.4
Ammonia- 0.25
Nitrites- 0
Nitrates- 20
Seems my bio filter is handling the load well enough, but I'll give it a few more weeks before I add anymore fish and I'll continue to monitor levels.

Looks like it's coming along nicely . I do see some yellowing of the plants on the lower leaves but this could just be transplant shock since they were just put in. If it looks like it's getting worse it may be a shortage of nitrogen - be a good idea to test your ammonia, nitrite and nitrate to see where you're at (I didn't scan back through so my apologies if you've already done this).

Cheers