Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Most electrical suppliers have them Steve....

See my system from page 21 i drilled with a sand blaster 25 mm hole also theres really good glass diamond drills on ebay $10.00 i have seen these demonstrated buy a aquarium enthusiast excellent [ cant find the link atm]
Edit [Look up ebay glass drill hole]

http://www.aquaticeco.com/index.cfm/fus ... l/iid/8600

The smaller ones are cheaper at an electrical supplier, as RupertofOZ mentioned.

Another Option would be to drain back through the gravel filter as per Pic 2. It would mean solids would be pumped to tubes but maintenance should be easy with them.

Or you could pump straight to grow tubes with bypass through gravel filter. Pic 3

Thanks for all your help people. I decided to go with the gravel filter in a pipe. It is the top pipe in the picture. It seems to work pretty well at this stage. Cant wait to get the tank and the fish set up now.....

Finally finished. Tired but proud!

Looking good! Now you've got the fun stuff - pH testing, Nitrite testing, Nitrate testing, DO testing, iron testing... and by the time you've finished testing those, enough time has elapsed to need to test again.

Hi Emir, a question for you about your gravel filter.

I t looks like you pump into the top pipe just beyond the 90 degree bend down to your first growing pipe..... and presumably there is a reasonable fall on the gravel pipe .... looks like it.

Does the pump have enough pressure to fill the top gravel pipe all the way to the end?

Are you running continuously or on a timer.?

My concern is that some areas in the gravel pipe either might remain dry, or more particularly become stagnant and anaerobic.

Do you think it might be better to pump into the far capped end, flowing through the entire gravel filter?

Hello rupert,

Inside the gravel pipe is a 15mm pipe with slits in it that runs to the end.

We discussed having it flow right to left, but were concerned about the small surface area presented by the 100mm pipe blocking, so there is now effectively a 3m "parralel" flow path for the water through the gravel.

Its running 24/7 at least until the system is cycled, will re-asses then, but at 10 cents per week power consumption i'm happy to leave it running 24/7.

What we may do is have it turn off for 30min every 6 hours or so just to ensure no dead spots. The way that the elows have been fasioned means that the water will trickle out of the horizontal pipes over about 30 minutes, we have in effect a "weir" inside each elbow.

The fish tank we used was steve and anges old one, it had algae on the back wall and little critters in there. Steve told me not to change out the water today even though it was a very murky green colour, and not to clean the walls, but i cleaned the walls anyway

Then he brought over bag of the filthiest looking gravel from his system and told me it was sexy gravel that would speed up my cycling, i'm sure he just wanted to make my tank even murkier!!

Anyway, just ordered the master test kit so i can start testing things. It gets quite boring after you've set everything up and are waiting waiting waiting

Makes more sense now Emir.....

Watch that Steve bloke though.... he's probably just wants to "murk" up your water so he can scarpper with a couple of fish

No!...that is the good stuff you need to cycle with, prolly take weeks now, oh well...:wipes forehead with back of hand:...:deepsigh:

SO whats going on Em?

are the goldies still happy?

Hvae you started planning the second system?

Hey Steve
Goldies are very happy and are heaps more lively. The water is a lot clearer than it was. The murkiness is almost all gone (hehe). The plants all seem to have taken. Even some of the seeds are germinating. Its all going pretty well I guess. How long before I can put in bigger F.O fish? I was thinking of putting in more grow pipes, maybe come forward a bit with them. Should be able to get 4 or 5 of em that way. What do you think?

What's going on in WA. Have you met up with S&A yet. Have they got a system in there? Anyways say hi for me and we'll see you when you get back.

Eh Em,

Good to hear the goldies are happy and the water has cleared (damn, my tank dirtying "bag of muck" trick didn't work).

Hehehehe told ya you'd be planning an extension within the week.

Will source some FO fish next week end, dad wants some too.

Does anyone in melb have or know where we can "obtain" some redfin?

Reets has been down with steve and ange since we got here, joel has been a hard task master, 12hr days..........................

i'm off to meet up with them in the morning

Glad you're having fun with AP, photos are always welcome and now you have to convert 2 people..............its a secret pyramid scheme

PS the testkits should be arriving 2morrow so keep an eye out for them

Steve