Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

That water temp is why I've decided tilapia are not really viable as my primary fish for my system. I may still grow some but not as my primary fish since the system temps are only up in the mid 80s for a few months.


On another note, I'm starting to think that the bin tank of my quarantine system is not getting as good a water quality as the aquarium. That quarantine wing goes from the pump in the sump up to the aquarium then to a half barrel with a loop siphon then into the bin tank then through two half barrels (cascading) then back into the sump. So the aquarium gets two barrels between the other tank and it's input and the bin only has the one half barrel after the aquarium before it gets the water. I'm guessing that just isn't enough filtration to keep the water quality up for the catfish. Also, the bin has intermittent flow while the aquarium has the water flowing in constantly from the pump.

I've been noticing the stress patchy skin on the catfish fingerlings that were in the bin. When I moved the fingerlings from the aquarium to the waterfall tank and split up the fingerlings from the bin between the bin and the aquarium, the ones in the aquarium were looking better in a few days.

Now there are only 4 catfish fingerlings left in the bin and 13 are up in the aquarium. We currently have 74 in the waterfall tank. Add the 5 little ones still in the indoor little aquarium and the 4 big guys still down in the big tank, which brings us to 100 catfish!

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Aquaponic Lynx
Main System
300 gallon System
Tower System
PeePonics

Can you replumb to get more filtering for the bin? Add a grow bed?

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Governments only function is to defend its citizens individual rights with military, police, and courts. All other functions should be privatized.

I expect that I will re-arrange the furniture again when it comes to the quarantine system. Just need to figure out how to lay it out and all.

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Aquaponic Lynx
Main System
300 gallon System
Tower System
PeePonics

We decided to move the tilapia up to the top (waterfall tank) as it will likely warm up a little more than the big tank. Since we will likely be harvesting and eating mostly tilapia over the summer, I'm not too worried about the breeding and such. Any babies would likely go over the falls and become catfish food anyway.

So, didn't re-count the catfish fingerlings as they were put into the cage, there should have been 74 in the top tank and providing we didn't miss any, they are all in the cage in the big tank now. There are still 4 large cleanup crew outside the cage in the big tank. Got a large hide down in the deep end now to see if they try breeding. (still 17 catfish fingerlings in quarantine and the 5 still in the house.) Total catfish 100. Some of those cleanup crew catfish are huge!!!!!

We did count the tilapia. There are now 78 tilapia up in the waterfall tank. I'm uncertain about the number that are over in the duckweed tank now, somewhere between 3 and 5. I'm guessing we have a total of between 81 and 83 tilapia now.

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Aquaponic Lynx
Main System
300 gallon System
Tower System
PeePonics

I'm working on setting up a header tank so I can run some NFT pipes with the water from the monster grow bed.

Plan is a header tank placed high enough to store up some water to trickle into the NFT pipes and the excess will overflow back down into the fish tanks. (extra use of the pre-filtered water that is being pumped back to the fish tanks.) The NFT pipes will be attached to the railings along the walkway. I'll try two tiers of 4" drain pipe. Flow will go from the header tank along the top of the railing then at the far end will flow down to the next lower level and flow back to the waterfall tank.

Will have to get pictures up tomorrow.

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Aquaponic Lynx
Main System
300 gallon System
Tower System
PeePonics

I did promise some pics didn't I....

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Aquaponic Lynx
Main System
300 gallon System
Tower System
PeePonics

managed to get the NFT pipes glued together and holes drilled. Cleaned out the pipes and mounted them on the railings.

Then started to tinker with the header tank fill height and the flow rate into the NFT pipes to see if I could make the volume of the header tank last from one fill to the next. First try was a resounding NO. The header tank drained in about 45 minutes but for some reason the sump pump didn't kick on again for a rather long time....Hum.....

Ok, tinker with the overflow level......Scaring the cook since the header tank is filling to about an inch from the top now. He keeps trying to get me to open the valve feeding the NFT pipes more (as if a 1/2" pipe will make any difference to that sump pump gushing into the header tank through 1 1/2" pipe. The overflow is a small section of 2" pipe that sweeps into a larger pipe to run down to the fish tank.)

But thinking....... 2 hours is way too long between that pump kicking in? Better clean the pump trap again. Ok, so now the time for the sump pump to kick on seems more like 25 minutes. "sigh, which my pump didn't need cleaning so often" If the pump kicks on every half hour, that header tank will do just fine to feed the NFT tubes with the 1/2" ball valve open just under half way.

Bypassed the whole NFT/header tank set up for the night since I'm not happy with the security of the overflow drain yet, more tinkering to do tomorrow while I'll be out by the system to keep an eye on things.

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Aquaponic Lynx
Main System
300 gallon System
Tower System
PeePonics

Well, I had planned on tinkering with and checking the operation of the header tank/NFT pipes today. However...

I noticed something today that I had checked for in the past but today I saw signs. The "sump walk" and rats. That sump walk was only being used as a pass through drain for one grow bed and the overflow so only the one end of it was actually wet normally. Rats had at some point since I had last checked, chewed holes down through the dry end corners and made nests under the liner.

Sigh, so spent the day ripping out the sump walk and re-doing plumbing.

Always make sure you can access all parts of your AP system since anything difficult to access will need attention.

Anyway, there were a couple of drips from the header tank so they got silicone and will have to wait till Sunday or Monday to tinker with that again.

Fish are happy and rat traps are set again.

Here are a few pictures of the new look of my central Walkway for the system. I guess we will need a good step stool for tending to the tomatoes now.

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Aquaponic Lynx
Main System
300 gallon System
Tower System
PeePonics

I watch you with amazement TC! Impressive

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Chelle.

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.
Ellen Parr

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident.
Arthur Schopenhauer.

It's easy to spend a lot of time working around the house when there isn't any other work.

At least the cook has a job for the end of this month and we are both expecting to get paid for the last job before the end of the month so we should be able to pay the mortgage for next month.

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Aquaponic Lynx
Main System
300 gallon System
Tower System
PeePonics

You think you could get to the point of growing most of what you need there? You seem to have a lot of really sustainable solutions working for you already.

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Chelle.

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.
Ellen Parr

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident.
Arthur Schopenhauer.

I believe we are already growing most of the veggies we eat. We still wind up buying some fruit. We also buy meat other than fish. We also buy bread and other grain products as well as oil, sugar and coffee. And of course we are buying fish and chicken feed and electricity.

I doubt we could really cover all of our food, oil, and fiber, and have enough left over to sell for the money to pay the electric bill as well as taxes and the mortgage.

But we have not needed to buy any veggies for a while since the dirt garden is doing well along with the AP system.

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Aquaponic Lynx
Main System
300 gallon System
Tower System
PeePonics

Just growing veges to cover most of what you eat is a pretty big saving these days. Tomatoes have gone crazy here. I am getting there bit by bit. Also getting into rabbits as a back-up protein and will harvest the Angora wool. I am really interested to learn to spin. The great thing is the wool can collect for ages till I can get to that. ... whenever! Chickens and fish of course. I saw you had some hens. That is pretty sustainable at a crunch. I would love to get off-grid for power use. Looking at solar water heaters now as the first saving. Someone told me yesterday that water heating is 80% of the bill. Didn't know it was that high. Prices for solar geysers have come right down with all the power outages we had last year... demand is right up.

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Chelle.

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.
Ellen Parr

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident.
Arthur Schopenhauer.

That really is the truth, If I had a broom I couldn't keep up sweeping the footprints around where she been working!
What is the green deer feeder looking container on the 4x4 post?

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There is room for all God's creatures,
Right next to the mashed potatos
The purpose of government is to provide service,
The purpose of the media is to provide vasoline.
http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=6945

You mean the header tank with the green spray paint on it? That is actually a hopper from a large fish feeder. Some friends dropped off a couple of old fish feeder hoppers. We have tried a few different things with them. Was trying to use one as a swirl filter but that wasn't really doing what I wanted at the flow rate I wanted. When I went to take that apart, it cracked so is now less than half the size. The other one we had tried to use as a BSF larva bin but that wasn't really effective so I cleaned it up and sealed up the holes and re-fitted it out for use as this header tank.

The post it is on is one of the above ground pool supports like I used for the duckweed tank. I had one left over and the hopper seemed to fit on top just right. Some extra bracing and support around the tank up top and hay, I discovered how to support a tank up high to make use of that water returning from the monster bed for NFT or towers or whatever.

I'll need to wrap and cover that header tank a bit because we know that plastic gets brittle in the sun.

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Aquaponic Lynx
Main System
300 gallon System
Tower System
PeePonics