Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I started to assemble a grow bed for the back garden yesterday and started washing the Hydrotron this morning.
Have a look at it in the attached photo. The pipes are from defunct trampolines and the drums are HDPE chemical drums. These were used for a wood glue, and I am unsure of their toxicity, but the goldfish I plan to use will tell me pretty quickly if they don't like it.

I found that the 1/2 200L HDPE drums cannot support this weight sitting on parallel pipes. The ends of the drums deformed (this can be seen clearly in both photos, where the drum at the RHS of the side view had a deformed end) and 3 of the 4 1/2 drums fell thru the frame onto the floor. I have added a couple of galvanised hoop iron straps to support the drums better.

After rescuing around $120 worth of Hydrotron, I have the GB assembled again and have washed it a couple of times.
The hydrotron has some plant matter in with it now, as despite washing the Hydrotron to remove the sand and plant mater, the plant matter and Hydrotron both float,so they were both added to the GBs. I reckon I managed to recover over 95% of the spilt Hydrotron.

Just how much do I need to wash the Hydrotron?

In the background of the side view, you can see the area I have set aside for the main fish tank. It is around 3M square so I should be able to fit in a reasonable sized tank.

I plan to use a 200 Litre drum with the top cut out, as a sump tank, as the GB has a 400 litre capacity (less the space taken by Hydrotron), but the current sump has only 100 litre capacity. I will need to sink the 200 Litre sump tank to facilitate its use.

Until I get the main tank, I plan to run the pump on time clock and cycle the system with a couple of gold fish in the sump.

My pump is a pond pump which I purchased for one of my rental properties which had a fish pond. The tenant did not take care of the pond, their cat ate fish for a while and then the algae took off big time. I recovered the pump from the stinking algae sink last week.

Wish me luck.

Tony

Tony

Hi Tony, I've found Hydroton to vary in terms of dust.... but generally one quick wash is all that's required....

If the water is running through it clean, then it's done.... gravel seems to need a lot more washing....

Yep, you learned the lesson the hard way of how heavy 60+ litres of water is.... better now than latter though.

Hey Tony,
it looks great
are you trying to get optimum density right of the bat, or are you going to take it one at a time?


-df

In ur next setup, (there will be a next setup) you could use that tramp frame as a frame of sorts for a pretty decent sized fishtank. Looks like u have some nice space to work with, best of luck.

Thanks for the replies. I washed most of the Hydrotron to separate off the sand, so I guess that it is done.

Here are today's photos, showing the hoop iron straps to ensure that I do not have a repeat of yesterday's fall.
You may be able to see some hydrotron on the ground in the 2nd and 3rd photos (I recovered most of it). As you can see, there is a reasonable fill in the 4, 1/2 drums (I used 8, 50 litre bags of Hydrotron)
I have sunk the 200 litre sump 1/3 into the ground and used a flexible 1" hose from the submersible pond pump to the GB feed line. A 3/4" bleed back to the sump limits pressure to the GBs.
The drain/overflow pipes are similar to those seen on Faye's system (done in polythene) but I have one which is leaking a little, which I need to revisit.

I will play with the flood and the drain rates for the GBs, before adding a timer to automate the flood & drain.


This is my first GB, I have enough Hydrotron for 3 more GBs (plus some for other BYAPers who would like to try some at the bulk price).

Now, I suppose that I need to cycle my system for a while - how long? and how do I tell when it is enough?

I am looking for a fish tank to allow me to run my 4 GBs and possibly some satellite units for experimentation. I will recheck EB's post on Faye's AP system for the ones he has available.

I'm still having fun!

Tony

You may notice the bungs I put into the ends fo the GBs. These were the initial Drain and overflow points I installed. They did not work to my satisfaction, so I worked out how to make a better method.

The drain.overflow consists of a 1" PVC - 1" BSP male, thru the GB bottom, a 1" BSP Polythene female coupling and a 1" BSP to 3/4" poly barb. A piece of 1" PVC is used to provide overflow and holes are drilled in it to allow the drain phase to occur. More holes = faster drain (but has an effect on flood times too) I saw something similar to this at Faye's place a few weeks ago (I can't take credit for the idea).

Tony

I see a bit of rammed earth there bloke-
Wonder if that was ramtek that did the work?

You need an ammonia source before the system starts cycling, then, depending on temp, it can take up to 4 weeks (or longer).

You then need a test kit which will read ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels
Master test kit in use by most members

You also need to read the thread done by Steve on tank cycling and a more recent one by vb (I think) on using human ammonia, alternative is to use fish.
Some info here

You then need to be able to recognise HSM , seeing that you have already dumped your hydroton gracelessly on the ground, you have already experienced your 1st AP HSM

C1, You got it in 1 guess.

They did a bloody good job around 25 years ago when they built this house. All doors were recycled from the renovations of the St John of God Hospital in Subiaco. We were in the right place at the right time and in the market when we saw this house for the first time. We were very fortunate to have our offer accepted, and to keep it too, as we took 3 months to sell ours and they could have enacted a 48 hour clause to make the offer unconditional, had they got another offer.

regards,
Tony

Tony

I got some pond gooo if you want to get some bacteria going.

A couple of hardy goldies (maybe feeders from totally tanked in maddington) is a good way to get things going and maybe a little bit of assorted manure. Little is the key!

Johnnie,
Thanks for the offer. I will try to use some of the water from my garden fish pond (System 1) to see how it goes.

BTW, what does "HSM" stand for?

Tony

HSM = Holy s**t mode = panic!

Thanks for the TLA interpretation Jaymie.

Whats TLA ?

TLA=Three Letter Acronym