Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

lol, gotta love ya commitment! Is the green skin from all the AP vegies

Why dont you just organise a [s]working bee[/s] aquaponics meeting and BBQ?

I must have missed something, how did you score those baths so cheap?

Monya: just lucky I guess. I bought them from www.graysonline.com.au

2.5 tonne of 10mm round river rocks arrived this morning. So far, I've filled 1 growbed, 3 to go. Gave up gravel washing after the first 20kg - I'm going to try cycling the water for a few days & put some sort of filter (socks?) over the supply outlets.

Today I found out Tradelink sell PVC pipe by the metre! Solved my problem of requiring 10cm of 32mm PVC pressure pipe. (Happy to purchase 1m, but 6m was overkill!) Also found out that stormwater pipe is the same material as DWV pipe, just thinner.

I had to place a special order for 90mm pressure pipe to make my standpipe - it's not commonly used. So I'll have to fork out ~$45 for a 6m length when I only need <2m.

Is that your driveway they dumped it in ... or the neighbours

An update.

All of the plumbing has been completed & cemented together. 3/4 growbeds have been loaded with gravel. I also cut a hole in the top of the fishtank & connected the pump.

T minus 22 hours until ignition ...

View of the fishtank & 2 of the GBs.

Looking GOOOD

I love it! Cliff-top Aquaponics!

Boy that does look like it's on the edge of a cliff... Must admit, I was wondering where your fish tank was Scottie, now I see....

You could use that water bombing helicopter 'Shania' (however it's spelt) to give you a fill...but I guess the tank is contaminated with fire retardants!

Yesterday was very exciting! Put ~1000 litres in the tank & turned the pump on ... EVERYTHING JUST WORKED!! (No burst pipes, no leaks ...)

The pump fills 3 of the GBs in ~160 seconds. So I guess I've got to find a timer that will let me turn the pump on for ~4 minutes every hour. (GB #4 isn't loaded with gravel yet.)

So, question for the day: is it possible to filter out the sediment in the water? Or do I have to keep doing water changes until it's all clear?

put a sock over the end of the pipe, or something similar

i would have thought it would settle out eventualy

It would probably settle out over time, but the sock would speed things up, especially if the sock were removed and rinsed periodically. Besides, a sock is an approved BYAP filter, don't ya know?