Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Postponed Luke... dead battery... and the numbers just haven't come in to make a trip for any Tandanus... or Cod... people only want 6-10... of one or the other.... (email me, and I'll see if can sort something out)...

Silvers are no problem.... and it's almost trout season...

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Fresh By Nature - Distributor of Aquaponic Systems and Products in NSW
http://www.freshbynature.com.au

By the way. I canned the insulation idea. I thought wrapping the tank with this type of sarcking or wall insulation I found before putting the tank back in the IBC cage was a good idea since it was only a cm or two thick uncompress. WRONG! EPIC FAIL AND WASTE OF TIME!

Ended up ripping the whole thing off and going with no insulation whatsoever.

So today's lesson. Do not wrap anything around the liner before putting int into the cage. Unless it is as thin as paper, it will be a poor fit.

Oh well. Yeah, at this rate it looks like I'll be waiting till trout season anyway. Cod is starting to look like a great ap fish from what other members are saying, and i would be going these over silvers, but heading into colder weather they might just occupy space during the prime trout growing season.

Probably get 25-30 trout when it's time and give away what ever gold fish etc I have put in the system for cycling.

Long time no post.

So my new system is now...shall we say...operational!

And I already learn't my first leason: One length of 20x20x1.6 Steel RHS on each side does NOT completely stop plastic growbed walls from bowing...

And on to the pics. Enjoy.



Sides of GB bowing from weight of gravel, even with 20x20x1.6 RHS steel reenforcement


Picture of the under gravel filters in the sump barrels. You can only see the emergency overflow sticking up. Pics and details are in a previous post.

Filling with water and and running:

Spary bar in action


My dual 40mm SLOs can barely keep up with the 3000ltr/h pump (zero head) at 1.4m head. No room for adjusting ball values, they are fully open.


I took others' advice and only gave my gravel a quick rinse in the trailer, then will simply circulate the water till all the dust gets stuck in the GBs. However, I thought adding a couple of layers of filter wool/fabric between my gravel gaurd and standpipe might help to keep most of the dust in the GBs to start with.


Unfortunately I havn't been posting progress. There was so much rain the last two months and so many other commitments, that I was only getting stuff done in 10 minute bursts. Beofre I knew it, it was finished and I'd taken very few pics.

I will show the back log of build pics and progress notes in a future post.

Luke.

You don't have to tell me about that Luke....

P.S. ... you didn't leave yourself much freeboard in your tank in case of overflow... or a fish flipping out... especially trout...

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Fresh By Nature - Distributor of Aquaponic Systems and Products in NSW
http://www.freshbynature.com.au

The tank will have a lid which will be close enough to water to keep in the jumpers. Over flow will be a prob, I expected the water to come just above the bottom on the SLO outlets, 30mm below the shown height. I'm going to use one of my spare uniseals to run a 32mm return pipe back to the sump to add an extra safe guard. Because it smaller than the 40mm outlets, I should be able to have the bottom of it sit slightly higher than the SLO outlets so most of the water goes through them instead of the 32mm pipe.

Hi all,

I switch to constant flood the other day from f&d for a few reasons:
1) sump empties down to gravel in sump barrel for f&d and I wanted to keep livestock in barrels
2) sump level stays only just above pump, not enough margin for error
3) although I measured stand pipes exactly, slight imperfections in leveling and warping in the big GB was causing water level in GBs to be too high

So I just pushed my stand pipes further through my uniseals. The f&d holes in base of small gb standpipe are blocksd by the pressure of the uniseal, I pushed the drain holes on the large GB standpipe all the way through and plugged with silicon.

All seems to be running okay, but now I'm getting areas of low flow near corners of GBs that are not on the direct line to the stand pipe. I think I will need to build some distribution pipes to distribute the water more evenly around the bed.

What do people think?

The filter fabric seemed to work in reducing a scoria dust movement through system, but I have no comparison point. It is out now and he dust has pretty much stayed in growbeds since. FT water is almost clear.

I also have 5 gold fish in the sump and hopefully have given the system and insta-cycle by tippig and squeezing all the crap out of my small system biofilter into the GBs and FT.

Hey DrLuke..

try to put an overflow in the tank..
- from the Tank to the growbed..

And have a overflow from the Growbed down to the Sump..

Other than that little issue the system is Looking good..


Juergen

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Smack me if I say something Dumb..

I'm full of idea's..
That need to put into action..
One of those idea's is happening right now even If I think it is slight void of what It could be..

Can I have a Mulligan..

J

It's funny, when I was looking at the photos your system it reminded me of my dad's place in Sydney (St Leonards) -- something to do with the colour of the light. Sure enough, I check yr profile and lo and behold yr in Sydney.
Your system looks great so far. Have you put yr cod/trout in yet?

Thanks Snowy and forgo,

Definitely will make overflow from tank back to sump or gb.

Got my 25 trout on order. Hopefully coming in a few weeks. 10 in small system, 15 in large one to start with.

forgo = fergo.

I recently had a similar thing with my new fish tanks. Originally i had a 20mm NHO and when i changed out the tank for a bigger one i went to a 25mm drainage hole in the side. Turns out my NHO was moving a hell of a lot more water than i though because now i have to have my new tank level almost as high as yours and nowhere near the flow. It has caught me out a few times when i have been in the kitchen and glanced at it. 'HOLYSH!TTHETANKISOVERFLOWING!!!... Oh wait...'

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Apparently mine over flows when it rains hard. I was not home at the time.

I will put that extra over flow back to the sumps or GB in this weekend. I'll make it a little lower than the current two and use a ball valve on the end to regulate the flow to ensure the current ones still over flow enough volume to my liking.