Solar system up and running

Kelly

We now have a system that's been working for about 3 or 4 months without any major hicups. You can see the layout easily enough from the photos. The fishtank is a bathtub buried. Running the waterworks is a 12v bilge pump ( max 700 gph ).Powering this is 2 x 40 watt solar panels. Storing the power is 4 deep cell batteries looped together.Each solar panel has a regulator to stop the batteries from overcharging.We had to buy 2 x 12v timers as each timer has only 8 on and offs. So now it takes 14 mins to fill the growbeds. Even with the system working through the night there is sufficient power in the batteries to keep it all working well.The only thing that we were lacking was enough fish.We have just recently 'borrowed' some more goldfish from our other system making it about 30 goldfish and koys in there.Anyway so far so good.

Kelly

This photo should have been first

Chatty

Looks good Kelly!

What is the maximum head rating of a bilge pump? Have you checked out the pH of the water in the system? Those concrete troughs would buffer the water and raise the pH i would have thought. I'm sure some others will comment further though

Chatty

creative1

I would be interested to see the results of a pH test.
But figure that trough is very old and well cured...
I'd expect negligible difference if at all.
IMHO only

Kelly

Yeh the trough is very old. Ph has varied but I think that was more to do with the water we were using. It is now filled with bore water. Ph has been as high as 8 but now averages 7.4 -7.6.
To answer the bilge pump head, I experimented back in winter with getting water up to the roof through half inch poly to try and heat it. It pumped easily 3.5 m then through about 30m of pipe, sure it was slow by the time it got through but this would have had a lot to do with the length of pipe.
Here's some more photos of what happened this weekend.Just a little banana plant she says.A bit of playing around with the waterworks and all seems good.Just had to extend the pump time an extra 2 minutes.
Has anybody tried a banana plant in ap before?

Kelly

One thing I would love the answer to: In the original system we had the concrete gb and the stainless sink, the plants in the concrete bed have done well but the ones in the sink have not moved or have died.They were all planted at the same time and have had the exact same watering system.It has me beat!

Chatty

Maybe a difference in media temperature?

What kind of timer are you using - would love to be able to alter run time by 2 minutes!!

Chatty

Kelly

Can't tell you what brand they are ( just don't know ) but they are a digital timer that I got from the geraldton solar shop( even they had to order them in ). 50 bucks each mind you, still we got the solar panels and batteries for free( not what you know !)

synaptoman

Quote:

Has anybody tried a banana plant in ap before?

We've tried, succeeded and failed with EVERYTHING !!

DecalsbyJT

what is the info on the timers..... im collecting parts for my AP system and want to convert it over to solar this winter..

thanks
JT

Kelly

The timers we got have no brand name on them at all, not even the boxes they came in. As I said , we just ordered them from the local solar shop.The hardest thing was trying to get one with enough on/off options. Ours have 8 that's why we got 2 then just looped them together. I just tried another search as I seem to remember somewhere over in USA you could get one with 15 on/off settings, but I can't find it. If you have a look at www.rpc.com.au then look up timers you will see something very similar to ours. Sorry I can't be of more help.

Cyara

Neat set up! The best...... totally off-grid. Congrats.

Kelly

Thanks Cyara, so far so good.Still got me baffled about the difference in growth between the 2 main gb's.Here's a couple of photos from this morning.We just added a couple of seedlings. Anyway we're off to get some more s/p fingerlings for our bigger system.(it seems we have stopped killing them and system working well)

TCLynx

Hum, why would the stainless steel sinks' plants not do well while the others grew fine. I'm assuming you checked to make sure they were flooding and draining properly (the usual answer as to why one bed is doing well while another is suffering is that something got clogged or the syphon isn't kicking in properly so the bed is either dried out or waterlogged.) As to more esoteric, perhaps the metal sink is allowing wider temperature fluctuations to the plant roots? Or well, I don't think the metal would kill plants in just the sink bed without hurting fish and the other plants so those are about all my guesses there.

Kelly

It is a strange one.Both beds are identical in the way they are watered. We've slowed down the water filling the sink because as it is a smaller grow bed it filled up quicker, now both beds fill up at the same rate.No blockages. Also the system is under cover of beige shadeclothe, a totally closed in shadehouse. It is a fairly well shaded area anyway so the sides of the sink aren't getting hot.
That said, maybe you're right and it is temp problems.Could be something to think about when finding things to use as grow beds in the future.

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