Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

So cool.

Looks like Darth Vader's system.

Blimmen overachievers! I like to invent my system as I go, takes a looong time....

Nice work Simmo! How much of your house got mortgaged for all that p gravel?

Nah, it's pretty cheap, a 6 x 4 trailer full only set me back $50.

If you factored in the labour though...

Great system in record time...
:happy1: cant wait to see the plants

Wish we had pea gravel like that in Qld.

I'm back from my trip, but here's the last of the work I did on the system before I left.

Transplanted the seedlings from my old system into this one.





I know some of these seedlings will probably struggle at first as the system is barely a week and bit old, but the top 10cm of the beds is the expanded clay from the old system so there should be some bacteria present. I have some Seasol to nurse them along if they start looking too sick.




One interesting thing has happened during my abscence. The goldies have been getting sucked through the pipes into the yabbie tank and have been living there (reasonably) happily.

My brother noticed on Saturday that there were 3 goldies swimming cautiously around the area at the back of the yabbie tank, staying clear of the yabbie's pipe houses (and hence their hungry claws). They seemed unharmed, physically at least, but probably slightly freaked out at the prospect of living amongst 16 pairs of nippers... oh, sorry... make that 14 pairs + 2 (to account for Pinchy and Pinchy junior, who I discovered yesterday).

The flow from the system is from right to left, the pump drains the leftmost tank faster than the system can equalise its level across the 4 tanks, but all 4 growbeds fill (and hence drain) at roughly the same rate so water level in the rightmost tubs rise with the rightmost tub filling the most. This creates a fast enough flow through each connector at the front of the tubs to suck a sleeping goldfish through it. Must be one hell of a way to wake up, sort of like a living nightmare. All of a sudden you are sucked backwards into the black abyss and spat out into a foreign world full of antennae and claws.

In the interests of scientific experimentation, he decided not to fish them out (excuse the pun) and left them to their own defenses for the next 4 days. He fed them a small pinch of fish food with the others, and they survived their ordeal. When I came home I gave them a good inspection and it's possible one of them has had a little bit of his tail nibbled at, but who's to say it didn't happen before that. He's probably forgotten all about it anyway.

I have since put them back into the goldies tank, and wired a small patch of plastic mesh over the outlet in the goldies tank so they can sleep in peace.

Simmo, top notch mate. You've done really well.

nice work simmo,

i have goldfish in with my marron and they are doing well. i have a low stocking rate and feed well and think this helps. the only thing that has done any damage is my dog, when she managed to get in the pond and kill one of my goldfish. the marron weren't to happy but managed to fend for themselves.

well done.

Just tested the water prior to the introduction of (hopefully) just a few silver perch, and perhaps murray cod, depending what they have in stock at the shop tomorrow. looking to get around 10 silvers which will populate 3 of the tanks and one cod who will have his own pad.

PH between 7.6 and 7.8
Ammonia 0
Nitrites barely .25
Nitates around 5

So it looks like the system is fairly close to being cycled (I did use 150L of hydroton from my previous system to get the bacteria stocks a boost), and I'm reasonably confident that the fish will be happy.

I'm going to try to get the smallest size possible, to keep the cost down but also so I can see how fast they grow. Also, the smaller the fish the less the demands on the bacteria as the system is bedded in.

Right, back to rehoming yabbies and goldies.

S77, figures sound good (aslong as you haven't done a major water change in the last two days)

Have you got some type of carbonate in there? (shells, lime stone?) PH seems good.

Nope, haven't had to change water at all, just topped up a couple of times from the two overflow tubs that I have, and maybe added another 50L of rainwater in the past week.

I've got a decent half bucket full of shells from the beach mixed in with the gravel that is in the middle two tanks. I plan to get some more and spread the gravel + shells out across the 4 tanks after I have moved the goldies and yabbies.

Thought you might have. Hold out on adding more though.........My preference for PH is 7.0 to 7.5MAX. More than this and you start gettnig into serious nutrient lock-outs. and you don't want your KH too high.

I'd wait till it drops below 7.0 before i add any more, and i'm tipping that won't be for a LONG time

Dont name them... it makes it harder to eat them... unless you go for names like dinner, lunch, BBQ
But seriously, I like what I have seen - keep 'em comming

Just so you know s77, i started digging up my herb patch next to the back door, to make room for one of your darth vader systems.

Steve

Cool, loud and clear on the shells... Can't wait to see how it turns out Steve.