Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I remember a lot of us saying that we would work on 'heating systems' for next winter (in 2006)... but we are no closer to having cheap heating
My one IBC is okay as it has the pump from Murray which is very inefficient and as a result converts a lot of its power into heat ... for this cold weather its good, but not for the power bill or for the warmer months (will have to purchsa one of EB's pumps before the heat of summer returns

And i also remember me saying that come this winter we'll remind ourselves that (insert your quote) LOL

heheheheh i knew i'd still be in the same place re-heating/heat loss.

I'm sure I was going to have a greenhouse by this winter

didn't we decided it was easier not to try fighting nature and just use climate appropriate species? Running water thru black pipes is by far the best method I have found, but have 2 cloudy days and 2 cold nights in a row and......

climate specific fish. Morning Mon!

I think it is a matter of degrees (excuse the pun ). The best plan for me is to reduce heat loss as much as possible by having greenhouse and then if economical have a way of adding another couple of degrees a day than what will happen naturally.

The reason is that for me a cold water species like trout is not an option. I don't want a situation where the entire period from say June to August is wasted in terms of fish growth. Even silvers will grow little at the lower temps. Ideally I would be able to keep my jades gowing year round. I know for a fact they feed fine at 18 degrees (despite literature to the contrary) because I witness it all the time. The temps doen't have to be 18 degrees all the time - provided they reach that sort of level in the middle of the day when I can have an automatic fish feeder give the fish their rations, then I will be laughing.

1 problem I didn't mention above is that fingerlings often do not become available until late October (or even later). By then some good suitable growing time has been wasted. Another reason why I would want to be able to keep the fish year round - allowing me to buy fingerlings late in the season (if I needed them) and grow them through winter (albeit slower than the growth I will then get when the heat picks up).

Good thing about getting fingerlings late is the grower has been feeding them and taking the risk and consuming power for you, so that you can just chuck em in the growout tank.

I think my love affair with autosiphons may be under threat. Having drilled the hole to drain my bed at night when the timer turns it off, the bit of water flowing through this hole seems to be the difference between my siphon working and not working. The siphon is not breaking anymore. Have put one of my other outer pipes on (a variation on my one I use most of the time) and am trying to fine tune it to make the siphon break). If I can't get this to work I'll have to do something more drastic. Unfortunatelly I don't have the time to stuff around with this stuff atm - I'm meant to be studying.

VB, what dia. hole did you drill?

Dunno - 5 or 6mm

same as mine, you must have been on the limit of the siphon specs. try plugging it (AS:4020 silicone) and drilling a new one just above the hight of the crenelations.
The father of AP syphons (les ) might have some advice

I didn't want to have it above the crenos because I wanted the bed to drain better than that - but I may be forced to. Still playing but no success yet. Is very painful getting these right at first. Truth is my siphon is too small. Next time I put a bed in I will build it bigger.

that prolly explains it. you didnt know how close you were to it not breaking until now

IMHO a few cms worth of water left in the bed over say 12hrs aint gonna do no bad. Worms will migrate up slightly if DO is not to their liking.

I'll choose to make no comment about the subject VB......

But I knew you'd start to come around eventually...

Joel - I am still determined to run my system with a continuously running pump. I will jsut need the autosiphon to be a bit bigger - easily done. Too much of a pain to take this one out - so will do a fix and wait until next bed to put the bigger siphon in. See how I go - might take me a bit longer to come around to your way