Gordon's 2nd, larger, AP system

Gunagulla

haha yes, she did most of it, and had the sore wrists for several days afterwards to prove it. I just pointed her in the right direction

BuiDoi

..
You seem to have already got the media, but watching Better Homes and Gardens (I Think), they mentioned crushed brick being a fraction the cost of more decorative stuff..
And it would be very rough = greater bio-surface

Any progress photos..?
..
.

Gunagulla

Crushed brick is the same price as the $125/m^3 river gravel (crushed terracotta @ $190/m^3!), so no advantage other than increased surface area, but it's horrible stuff to shovel/ handle. The 14-20mm river gravel I'll be getting delivered in a big truck (2 X ~8 ton loads) will provide me with many hours of shovelling and wheelbarrowing fun

I'll just go and take photos right now.

Attachment:

AP2-20150307c.jpg [ 492.29 KiB | Viewed 5233 times ]

Attachment:

AP2-20150307b.jpg [ 498.07 KiB | Viewed 5233 times ]

Attachment:

AP2-20150307a.jpg [ 424.72 KiB | Viewed 5233 times ]

floridafishin

If I had your amount of land I would stay broke. And my AP system would never be "complete"

sickpuppies

Following with interest :think:

rendang

I can see this is going to be an epic system, with an epic system thread ! All the best with it cheers.

Gunagulla

I've had the temperature probe in the tank for a while now, starting off with 5000 litres of water, but added another 4000l on the morning of 24/2, which you can see as a 0.3C jump in temp. In the afternoon of 28/2 I started pumping air as I could see from the temperature plot that the water was stratifying, and that gave an almost immediate jump of 0.4C.
Lately, a couple of cooler nights have seen the water dip below 22C for the first time, I'd like to see it stay below that before I introduce the trout, meanwhile I need to get enough beds filled and plumbed to support the potentially 250 fingerlings.
For a super-fast cycle, I'm thinking of pumping some water from my Murray Cod system through this system for a few days, hopefully a few bacteria will take up the opportunity to move to a new home

Attachment:

AP220150307.gif [ 31.79 KiB | Viewed 5170 times ]

dasboot

Its certainely going to be impressive and set in beautiful surroundings as well...... :thumbright:

rendang

When I finished a second,(but smaller) system I filled it with water from my existing system and then gave it a few litres a day from the mineralization tank. It was cycled in a couple of weeks.

Gunagulla

Thanks Rendang, thats useful info

JimV

Wow, that's going to be a pretty epic system! Plus pretty graphs for us data-heads! Inspiring, keep it up.

sandiegonewb

Hello I have already praised this thread. I hope you don't mind put can I ask for help I have a thread posted about help with diagnosing,issues in my plants I have a thread in the plant section. I have a large summary and lots of pictures

Colours

Gordon I hope you're getting some pigs to help you eat all the produce, this is a mammoth effort. Cant wait to see it up and running. Nice view from the office too.

Gunagulla

No more pigs!

There were 10 feral pigs rooting around near the AP system with the Murray Cod a few weeks ago, I managed to take down 5, and the rest scattered in all directions in the long grass and scrub, and I haven't seen them since.

Here are the first fruit trees to go in, as we left them when it got dark last night- 3 finger limes, which look a bit scrappy due to having been munched on by grasshoppers. The 100mm perforated poly ag pipe is to go around the stand pipes. We should be able to get the rest of the geotextile laid today, but have to get some sandy loam to mix with the potting mix for the top layer, then straw will go over that.

Attachment:

Finger-Limes20150309.jpg [ 513.15 KiB | Viewed 5123 times ]

Progress will be rather slow this week, as I have 15 stitches in my back from when the doc chopped out 3 BCCs this morning, and I don't want to pull them out! I picked up another 700kg of gravel this morning in the trailer, so there's some shovelling and wheelbarrowing to look forward to next weekend! I'll get the first 8 ton truck load delivered next week, after I get a few more beds in place.

BuiDoi

Quote:

I managed to take down 5, and the rest scattered in all directions in the long grass and scrub

What did you do with them - Filled the freezer???
..
.

Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics