Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Thanks for that about the slits instead of holes as I can whack one of those out quickly.
Will submerging the K1 for a week in a barrel help with it floating or don’t bother?


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One more thing is I’m going to have to cut a hatch into the top of the tank as it’s way too high to see anything and to feed the fish would be hit and miss.


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So I made the hatch today, already for this weekends upgrade. Have a few plans in my head just hope it turns out.


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You're going to have fun fishing the trout out through there.

I've seen a thread with a similar tank and cutout and I remember 'fishing' was an issue.
Can't find the thread. But I guess the upside will be that you'll be ready to kill the trout when you do get them out.

Haha Skegely
I think you’re bang on with that but I learned this season I need a net with larger holes so the net can move faster as I had a terrible time with the net I had. I had someone mentioning drain some of the water out might make it better to catch them so will see if my expansion keeps the water temperature down as I was surprised how well it did this year with the heavy shade cloth over the growbeds and silver builders sparking around the tank.


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I've carried trout through our summer a couple of times, insulator, shade evaporate and cross your fingers.
My small, now defunct, system has a 1kL round tank and once, we emptied the tank due to temps and a week or so later heard a splash from the tank. Missed two... Once the water gets a little murky after chasing them around. Slippery buggers.
I was always told to keep it simple and now I know why. My running system takes minimal maintenance. Feed and eat the fish, top up the water and check the pH, plant and eat. Easy peasy.
Keep up the updates.

So this weekend was the BIG upgrade in which I went from a 1000L FT & 600 ST to a 2200L FT & a 1000L ST. It was a long couple of days @ 12 hour shifts but thankfully all is complete.
I ended up totally removing 2 grow beds out of the way, removed growbed rails and then dug out another cube of sand in which to put in the larger sump tank- no pics sorry as I was too buggered.
The 15 silver perch I have are approx 4 months old and were in a barrel with O2 until I got the hole dug and new Sump Tank put in then I had to rebuild the 2 rails that the GBs sat on.
Who would've thought that a GB with only clay balls was sooo heavy? So after emptying ALL of the clay balls out of both GBs and then refilling and replanting I don't think Ive lost anything yet- and it was a very hot weekend over 35C with a 39C yesterday to top it off.
The easy part was plumbing in the new FT and RFF & MBBR to which Ive been adding about 2L of k1 media every 3-4 hours to see how it goes.
I did have a little PIA moment where my large GB wouldn't stop syphoning but have mucked around with flow and different size bells and I think Ive got it sorted( everybody has spare bits and pieces aye). What I'd like to do is buy an air diffuser( thanks Joblow) for my fish tank as I think that will help with water movement and trout love them.

So yet again this bloody 500L growbed isn’t breaking the syphon after the upgrade. I did nothing to this bed apart from lowering the drain pipe for the bed to the sump by approximately 2 inches at the sump tank end. WOULD THIS AFFECT THE SYPHON WORKING?
I’m at a loss and run out of colorful words.


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I found lengthening the pipe at the bottom of the siphon aided breaking the siphon

Make bells out of a clear soft drink bottles so you can see what is happening (practice changes on these)

Siphons dont break for a few reasons

Water flow too fast

Not enough clearance between top of stand pipe and bell

Not enough clearance between side of stand pipe and bell

Not enough holes in bell

Not enough holes in media guard / media blocking holes (Siphon trouble can happen when roots block the holes)

Delivery pipe back to sump must have NO uphill sections

Fixes for troublesome siphons

Drill a small hole in bell cap

Under grow bed put a Tee piece and run another pipe out and up the side of grow bed to above water height (lets more air in)

Fit a tube in the bell cap and run down side of bell (lets more air in) . For really stubborn cases put end of tube in a small cup , water level goes down past cup during the siphon cycle and hose sucks all the water out of cup (lets air in)

Keep drilling holes up the side of bell until it behaves itself (lets more air in) (practice on soft drink bottles)

I have a couple like the last option as the flow is a bit quick (2000L tank and 5 siphons) I want as much water going through the tank as I can get .

Take a deep breath and have fun.

Thanks Terra I’ve seen you mention this often so will try it out. It used to work so don’t know why it stopped working.


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So trout season in WA is pretty much here and I brought a air diffuser and plumbed it to 25mm retic pipe and then onto 10mm air hose into my air pump valve block. Pump was underpowered so am going to get a larger one tomorrow but the issue I’m having is the bl@@dy thing being plastic and full of air means it wants to float to the surface and I need it to be vertical to work as it’s in a J shape. Not sure how to wedge it or screw a bracket of some sort to the tank top. So hoping for a few suggestions and I’ll need to get a few pictures tomorrow to explain better.
On a different note the 15 silver perch are slowing their feeding down due to the colder nights but the vegetables are powering along and hopefully the MBBR will do itself justice when the trout start feeding as I’m going to get 40 this year compared with 15 last year.

So I’ve been away for a few weeks at work and come home to heaps of veggie growth but my Ph is 6 or lower and my ammonia is 4 and nitrate around 2. I’ve a MBBR and RFF but replacing 1/2 of 3500L is out of the question- so what can I do as the days are hotter and I can shade every thing but air temps are what they are in Perth. Any ideas welcome.


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I'm not sure of your water temps but the good news is that at that pH the ammonia levels aren't likely to be toxic based on this chart - http://ibcofaquaponics.com/information/tables-and-charts/. If the pH is at or below what you can read with your test kit (pH 6.0) then you are in danger of having your biofiltration crash. I'd probably stop feeding for a few days and bring the pH up.

I think initially that bringing the pH up to around 6.2 might be the way to go (The ammonia still shouldn't be toxic at this level but check the chart based on your pH and water temp). Do it very gradually over several days by removing some of the system water and adjusting it's pH outside the system (probably a pH of 6.5 is a good place to aim). After adjusting, let this portion reach equilibrium over a couple of hours and check it's pH again to see if it's on target or needs to be adjusted again. If it's OK then add it back to the system. Don't rush this process because it's easy to overshoot if your water doesn't have much buffering capacity and it could cause the ammonia levels to become toxic.

Once the pH is up a bit the ammonia levels should go back down as the bacteria process the ammonia. Once this has happened then I'd raise the pH gradually up to around 6.5 to 7.2 (using caution not to get into the ammonia toxicity zone).

NOTE:Nitrites should be checked. They are really more of a problem than Nitrates. If you are seeing high levels of Nitrites then it's probably a good idea to salt the water to 1 Part per thousand with NaCl (aka sodium chloride). This helps the fish with stress and helps prevent Nitrite poisoning.

His water temps would be similar to mine at a guess Scotty. Around 18C.

We are in spring atm in Australia, but no real hot periods yet, only one or 2 days and still cool nights.

Liney how many fish do you have at the moment? Did you go for 40 trout on top of the silvers you had?