Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I should add, "Stage 1" of the system is due to be completed at the end of this month, so far just one tank is in, with the hole ready for the second (which needs to be fitted with the drain still)

Am going to use a header tank: A 200 L barrel fitted with a flout half weay up, to minimise its footprint. The flout rather than starting flat at the bottom and floating up, will start at a downwards angle (eg outlet will be midway up the tank) and float up.
The header tank will be used to flood my growbeds(fitted with auto syphons)

The bottle of meth in the other pic is finished....Found a stump and big rootmass (stump prob 50cm across) near the edge of where my pond hole is, and it was move that or the wall, so i chose that. Tried hacking at it, but even though it was chopped down 5+ years ago still rock solid....so it is now slowly smoldering away......
(ap system will still be carbon neutral as planting 4 fruit trees as a result of its creation)

Good to hear Daniel, using second hand materials, and offsetting the construction by planting trees...

I wonder If your avere system would become carbon neutral in the long run, and how long it would take to get there.

Stump didn't burn too well, its still mostly there =(
Last stump we removed was a huge peppercorn tree stump, and that smoldered for around 72 hours into non existence....


hmm, that would be really interesting to know, but would be an absolute pain to figure out, all the energy that went into creating everything, and transporting it, and would be diff for everyones system.....
However im sure that it would save tonnes more c02 then it used, decreasing food miles, tonnes of packaging and all that

Daniel, give F&F a call - couple of sticks of gelly will move that stump no probs

Try mixing some petrol and oil together and give that a go. Drill a heap holes as far down into it, let it soak right into the tree stump and then light it up.

There will be a fair bit of smoke but it usually works. We used this method on a huge cotton palm stump.

dug around it some more so we could use one of the other essential ap tools, the chainsaw....
cut through a couple of big roots, but there must still be some hidden ones, oh and broke the chainsaw....

hmm gelly sticks would make it easier and fun =)

Tim do you light the stump up by itself with the oil and petrol, or do ya still need to build a fire up next to it?

Either way is good. If the stump will just light by itself do it that way, if not light a fire around it to really get the heat into it. Just be careful with it (disclaimer).

Thanks Tim, will keep that as the backup plan, in the process of digging and hacking it out.....

Second tank is in, first one is full with rainwater and ap water from old system (which is running on min water till i transfer last of goldies and gravel)

Stump stayed where it was, just hacked slowly a couple of cm off one side to fit the tank, lol both tanks together make the system look HUGE!!!!! (even though its smaller that a couple of em out there)

The fish in the pic are all the same age, the small ones were fed a goldfish food, while the big ones stole lots of the sp pellets, so diet makes a HUGE difference

now for one of my fave parts of members system threads....the pics =)

I only have a very short time to get my system running if i want to be in the comp.......

Heres a pic of the stump we couldnt hack out cut with a chainsaw out or burn (well we would have got there in the end, but meh)

i need to juggle soil (big mound in the pic) and "live" gravel over the next couple of days, the soil is going in the old ap pond hole

What a great start! Is it going to be a bit shady there?

I thought it was me hallucinating with the goldfish...I started feeding mine on flakes but costs too much (compared with pellets) so did the switch and they seemed to double in size very quickly

Love the way it is starting to come together for you....hint, put the pics as is in the dvd winning lottery section....worst scenary, you don't win

Janet, it gets moderate light, worst case senario i just move some growbeds to a sunnier position, theres a bit of space in full sun pretty close

Ell, Yeah, never gonna buy goldfish flakes again (i did get mine heaps cheap tho...)am going to put the pics in the dvd winning lottery section tomorrow, currently working on my secret weapon, THE............ (drumroll)

Outer Flouter (name needs a bit of work) but its basically an external flout, that will allow the growbeds to flood and drain, even in conditions where an autosyphon would never work (eg will be able to initiate drain at a flow of less than half a litre an hour...or a drip)

sounds interesting, once its reliable it would have many uses