Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

if u have the money, start with a few blue barrels. Join a couple at the base for fishtanks and cut a few in half for growbeds. With plumbing bits, you might get out of it all for a couple hundred bucks.

An IBC would also be good if you can find one cheep, 1000 litres for under $200. You can start off with a small grow bed and just a few fish, then add more grow beds + more fish at a later date.

OK I have more questions *grin*
After losing a gold fish (inside in a basic fishtank with standard filter) due I think a DO problem (filter sank down further into the tank and the fountain part became submerged on the hot day - when it was 36 C in side my house) I am wondering if there are going to be any fish that will survive happily without cooling the water out here in summer.

Basically at the moment our average daily temperatures are about 2degC above what the forecast man says for Noarlunga. We are often tempered by a southerly that blows over the vineyard and through the back dog-wire fence of an evening. However - that fence is soon to be replaced with a 6 foot colorbond one and about 100 houses are going up beyond it.

I have a funny feeling this is going to turn our property into a bit of a heat sink in summer. Despite our plans with large tree plantings etc etc, and my intention to bury the tank at least half-way to try and stabilize the heat a bit, I'm beginning to wonder if we will be better off running a fishless cycle through the heat of summer and only running trout in winter.

Others in Adelaide - what do you think? I'm not wanting to spend a whole lot of electricity on extra requirements like cooling, I kinda figured one pump and an air pump of some description would just about max out my abilities in that regard.

Thanks!

PS King Erik - yeah I am going to look for an IBC. Have to check the salvage yards around here.

TT - can get blue barrels for not a bad price BUT only when he has them available - and he hasn't for a looooong time. He keeps molasses in them - I assume that's going to be ok to wash out for the fishies/growbeds?

molasses is fine

What is your soil like Ali? Is it easy to dig? If you buried the tank all the way you would get better temp stability, and you could take advantage of gravity feeding back to the tank.

I know you're looking for IBC's but the bigger the better for temps too.

What are the average temps is day Ali and then what does it get to at night. As has been said here a bit in other threads lately, the gravel will act as a heat sink in the day unless the bed is well planted out or under some sort of cover. At night however the grow-beds will also give off heat - which is handy in summer if the nights are cooler.

Hi Ali, I'm pretty new here to but I just made an attempt at building a barrel ponics system according to the barrel ponics manual. I estimated the total construction price at being somewhere around $300 US dollars. That was estimating a pump cost of about $100 US (I already have a pump and don't remember the price.)
That price estimate did not include gravel (or other growing media), Fish, fish food, or water quality testing supplies.
I was able to pick up the blue barrels for $15 each that contained good grade glyserine which was very easy to wash out.

If you want to reduce the # of containers you need, and you are planning to dig anyway, perhaps you could save money by digging an in ground pond and lining it with pond liner and then just pump up to grow beds that can drain directly back into the pond or cascade through eachother back into the pond.

There are drawbacks to in ground ponds since they may be hard to drain and it could be tricky to catch your fish depending on how you arrange it but it would be in ground so you get the insulating temp factor. (make sure you elevate the edges some how so a heavy rain won't wash into the pond or any in ground tank for that matter.

Good luck!

Jaymie - soil is sand to about a foot and a half, with a nice solid clay pan underneath. Hence the dirt garden not going too well - sand is devoid of organic matter and the water drains to the bottom of the clay pan which is too far away for the roots to reach - but in winter, the clay holds the water and we have floods....
If I can get 2 IBCs and link them I will try *grin* would love a custom built job but it's all about seeing what cheap at the moment. Digging them into the ground below the sand level might be a job for a bobcat though. So that will have to wait *grin*



This is the last weeks temps for Noarlunga.
min anomaly max anomaly rain
Tue 01/01/2008 25.6 +8.9 38.3 +9.8 0.0
Wed 02/01/2008 16.6 -0.1 25.3 -3.2 0.0
Thu 03/01/2008 14.7 -2.0 27.9 -0.6 0.0
Fri 04/01/2008 17.7 +1.0 35.3 +6.8 0.2
Sat 05/01/2008 23.0 +6.3 37.9 +9.4 0.0
Sun 06/01/2008 16.1 -0.6 25.5 -3.0 0.0
Mon 07/01/2008 12.6 -4.1 25.7 -2.8 0.0
Tue 08/01/2008 14.4 -2.3 26.5 -2.0 0.0
Wed 09/01/2008 15.7 -1.0 33.3 +4.8 0.0
Thu 10/01/2008 22.1 +5.4 41.3 +12.8 0.0
Fri 11/01/2008 20.3 +3.6 25.5 -3.0


Scuse shoddy formatting these things sometimes don't copy and paste too well.

We are about 2 deg higher in the high temps but the same for night temps.

To put it in perspective a little - on Thursday, high on 41.3. Under our back verandah (south-facing, roof of alsenite and 3 shadecloth walls plus a large tree on the south side) the temp was 42.5C at about 2 in the afternoon, according to my brewing thermometer anyway.

Given that the plan is eventually to greenhouse/shadehouse the AP set-up I'm thinking that's still a bit hot.
Next hot day I will stick the thermometer in the kids wading pool which is under same verandah and see what the water temp gets to.

The reason that having things dug into the ground helps is not from insulating them because earth isn't very insulating. The benefit comes from reducing the surface area exposed to a temperature differential.

In the case of an IBC above ground you have 5m2 (four sides + top) of surface exposed to potential temperature differential caused by hotter or colder air. When an IBC is buried it is only 1m2 (just the top). Therefore an above ground IBC will roughly change temperature 5 times as quickly as a buried IBC due to changes in air temperature.

THis works in your favour if the ground temperature is within the desired temperature range for your system. However if the ground temperature is colder than you want (my problem in winter for australian natives) or hotter than you want (My problem in summer for some of the alpine plants I want to grow) then burying will not help that much unless you also add insulation around the GB or FT you have buried.

Hmm I have another question.
Kinda related but not LOL
Just bought a test kit for my fishtank and since i was there I made it the one with almost all the bells and whistles.
Mostly because the goldfish have been.. well, dying.
I thought it was a DO problem
SO i tested the tank....

pH 6.6
Ammonia 0
Nitrites - through the roof (it was the reddest of the red ever!)

So I'm guessing it's nitrites that are killing the goldfish. So it's water change time - which is fine.
My test kit doesn't have nitrates - I'm guessing I need to get that separately somewhere. It does have 2 different types of PH tests and a general hardness/carbonate test, which I didn't do because I think it's for salt water tanks.

I know there are no plants in my system and I'm relying on a bacterial colony that should be breeding in my filter somewhere - but why would nitrites be so high with no ammonia present??

Ali

usually nitrite is pink rather than red.
If they're high, it's certain to be the problem. I'd be surprised if anything was alive.
Nitrate tests are usually red. Are you sure it's a nitrite test?
If you're sure it's nitrite, then do a water change immediately!!

ali, how big is ur aquarium, when did u last change out water, what is ur pump cycle? It sounds like u have anaerobic zones in ur aquarium and nitrate is reconverting to nitrite, toxic i am sure u know. U will find ur dead fish have brown gills instead of nice healthy pink/red gills. The same thing happened to me.

Get some hydroton, sit it above ur aquarium in a container of some sort, find some sludge from ur aqaurium and put it in this hydroton. Pump to this from ur aquarium and drain back to it. Ur nitrites will convert to nitrate. Put a few little seedlings of anything in to remove nitrates. Rather than keep doing water changes, perhaps just fix the problem simply like this.

Oh, and you can keep the snakes all to yaself!!

Tis a tiny tiny tank - ummm maybe 25litres. had only 5 goldies in it. pump runs continously 24/7 with a ... bit that sticks out of the water that has holes in it and drops about 8 lines of water back into the tank to help keep it aerated.

Last changed out water 3 weeks ago (yes bad I know) but just did it again then. Will re-test tomorrow. Might need to pull filter apart and check what's going on in there too.

I don't think the pump is big enough to lift the water that high, it's a $10 thing from BigW. I was purchasing only to keep the goldies alive for what I thought would be about a week until I got my first aquaponics set up in but then my fish tank was commandeered for snake releif LOL

Might see if I can rig a small float - or put some duckweed in the tank maybe?? does that help??

duckweed might help some

Ali_celt, bury an ibc, submerged pump, to blue barrel growbeds, syphon back to ibc...this would be the cheapest way to go

Java moss would be better.

duckweed like ammonia

java moss lurves nitrite

and the goldied wille nd up eating all the duckweed and making more ammonia -->> nitrite anyway