Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

That's it in one Les. How much are you making out of this on the side? Love it.

...all donations are going towards my AP hat

I've seen your hat & yes it needs all the help it can get. LOL

you're copping a battering tonight les...............

....but wait....there's more

That's it Les. There is then say a 50mm drainpipe running past and connected to the end of each row. It is one end of this drain pipe we need to open electrically at the end of the pump cycle to drain the lot back to the sump. Does that make sense and is it far removed from what you are doing?

Because of the size of fishtank, i am not necessarily looking at filling sequentially. Happy to fill the lot at once, which would be say 1500lts out of a 6000lt tank, ie no biggie.

You need some sort of water sensing device to trigger the solenoid Jaycar has this

then a power supply for the solenoid and the sensor...and that's the easy bits, there was a lot written about it when we were working out sequentially operating GB's

Just had a quick look through "Hardware" but couldn't find it, it was connected with the use of smart relays

By using a stand pipe with a slow drain there is no need for the solenoid. The emptying is done automatically.

Yep - just need to put the pump on a timer, much simpler

Timer or float switch. My pump cam with one so I used that. Takes a bit of mucking about to set up. But once it's done it looks after it's self.

float switches are the way to go... just make sure they ar clear of everything i had an accident first month

My interest in this was to do away with standpipes and siphons in the GBs altogether and cut down on some plumbing. I will be interested to hear what the plumber comes up with and will post his thoughts. Worse case, gotta put a tee, tap, drainpipe/siphon on each GB and i have no problem with that.

Thanks for the input.

Ordered my fish tank this week. After much searching, have got a 6000lt aqualined galtank from Hamilton for $650, thanx DC.

Having second thoughts on my GBs. Spent not much on steel barrels but the plumbing will be an ass pain. Thinking about 525sq lt beds of zinc alum, 300mm high, 600mm wide, 3mt long, $120 plus GST. What do we need to treat these with, in order to be fish safe GBs? If suitable they will only work out slightly dearer costwise taking the plumbing bits saving's into account, (6 GBs V 30 GBs if i use steel barrels.) I can use the steel barrels elsewhere or as feed beds for bsf etc.

Have enrolled in an intro aquaculture course at tafe to get a bit of formal fish stuff behind me.

Leaning towards murray cod in my fish tank and thinking 300 fingerlings won't be too much of a stretch in 6000lts. As they grow, i can add GBs, order another fish tank in 6 months and grade them to size.

Rained all day here (good) so hung new clothes dryer on laundry wall, (really good). Got some inch by inch pipe for hoop supports running lengthways along GH. Hope to fit that 2moro.

Pretty good...heading in the right direction

Remember, its not so much the number of GBs, but what is planted in them that uses the nutes, so plan to give the GBs a months growing time for the plants to become established

any dramas with zinc alum beds? Do we need to treat or line them?