Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

So it turns out I moved a couple months ago, and the system I had started got destroyed.

I just now got the electricity wired up to my garage, so I've started on the new system!

It's an indoor one because my house doesn't get any sun anyways and the missus can't stand the thought of seeing it anyways. It's small, 22.5gal GB and 10gal FT a la WalMart plastic bins, and under day-spectrum flourescants.

I know everybody says flour's don't work for fruiting, so it looks like I'll be doing some leafy greens to start. I'm figuring on stocking goldies for ease of maintenance and heating. And hey, according to wikipedia, they're edible!

No pics yet, will have some soon.

well now you can have the "new system" excitements all over again

True! I nearly went stir crazy waiting for aquarium sealant to cure today

Don't you hate that... I hate waiting for glue and paint to dry. I am too impatient and end up filling it up with water and finding leaks everywhere.

That's remarkably similar to what happened

Funny story, put a new water tank in the other week, (3000L). It is full already, but it was leaking very slowly from the overflow fitting. So I tried to silicone it up. I started at the bottom and as I went up around the fitting the leak moved up and up around the fitting. It was so funny (not at the time). I was chasing this tiny leak around this 90mm fitting with the silicone...

hydroton is washed, tank is undersized, and my siphon isn't working correctly.

Tank is easy to fix.

I think the siphon doesn't work because my influx pipe and efflux pipe are the same diameter. I thought I could compensate for this with the variable flow rate on the pump, but even at the minimum setting the flows are pretty much equal.

Back to the hardware store (5th time in 3 days)

Every day is a good day if you're doing AP stuff.

True enough

do they know you by name yet ?

Heh, it's a big-box Lowe's. Haven't seen the same person twice.

I got a larger FT, so now my GB is 22.5gal, and my FT is 30gal. I'll be starting off slowly with low densities so it should be fine for now.

Today is auto-siphon testing!

Woohoo! After 3 hours I seem to have gotten it working. I'm using a loop style, so I had to fiddle with the starting angle of the loop to get the siphon to start, and then had to make the end a u-style ending to get the air break to work properly. Seems good to go now, but of course I have to go to work now!

I tinkered for a long time to get the siphons to work, but now that I understand, it is easy. I eliminated the ending U-bend from mine, but went through that stage. My loops start horizonally, execute a smooth loop, and then end vertically with a straight drop. Sweeeeet.

Mines got inspection covers and everything

Naturally, after I posted that earlier, it stopped working. I'm thinking of going to a pipe solution rather than a tubing solution. That way I'll be able to add the air break at the top through a t-connector and be able to modify the ending to be vertical, j, or u-bend easily.