Would You Like Some Fish With Your Hops.

[bonj]

Man those clay pebbles look dodgy!

 

[Zizzle]

Maltesers!

 

[kirem]

Man those clay pebbles look dodgy!

they are actually little poos I put in the kiln to make them hard

 

[bonj]

the grow bed has an auto siphon/ bell-valve in the middle
submersible pump in the fish tank
T-piece below the water line and a valve on the grow pump line to adjust for correct grow bed fill time
autumn/winter vegies planted

The system is cycling away now and I am very happy with the rebuild.

Why is the T piece below the water line? I plan to use a similar method to throttle the flow to the grow beds, but my plan is to splash the extra water back into the fish tank to add some aeration, along with a U-bend at the bottom of the drain from the auto-siphon to also create more splashing. What method do you use for aeration?

 

[kirem]

Why is the T piece below the water line? I plan to use a similar method to throttle the flow to the grow beds, but my plan is to splash the extra water back into the fish tank to add some aeration, along with a U-bend at the bottom of the drain from the auto-siphon to also create more splashing. What method do you use for aeration?

The water noise was too much and it is unnerving to hear running/splashing water whilst sitting inside, perhaps if I couldn't hear it I would put the T-piece above the water line.

The air/water interface is naturally near-saturated with DO, by moving the water around, the top layer of water is constantly changing and therefore dragging DO into the whole water mass.

I will have an aerator in the fish tank in the next few days to go for overkill on DO.

 

[kirem]

I fine tuned the inner pipe on the bell valve tonight. Now I have full flood drain.

I also better sealed up the bell lid and where the inner tube leaves the grow bed. I have discovered that it is very important that anywhere that even the slightest amount of air can get in, is sealed up, otherwise when the vaccum forms it will suck in air. I could hear mine whistling.

I added some seasol for the new plants.

So it should be firing in the next few weeks.

 

[wakkatoo]

Not mine, but a mates system

How often you travel to SA to see scott?

Just found his system on another forum. The post count of some of those guys is huge. One bloke has 14,924 posts since Nov '06 :blink:

 

[Mantis]

Just put two bags of the clay balls in my growbed and they didnt go anywhere near filling it. It will take $120 worth of them to fill one grow bed of 150L sheez
Next grow bed will be filled with blue metal

 

[komodo]

Question for the guys with "bigger" aquaponics systems - How much power are you using for water pumps and air pumps?
Are you using any other filters? UV etc?

I'm keen on giving this a go - but I dont think Kel will be impressed if our electricity jumps up like it has with brewing (fridges)

 

[pdilley]

Most setups of decent sizes have added electrical bills of $45 to $65 per year. With the savings
in buying fish and veg at the supermarkups you can justify it.

Just noticed Murray released an more advanced DVD here after I just got the first one. If anyone gets it Ill give you a loan of the first one for a loan of the 2nd on

Cheers,
BP

 

[Mantis]

Things are starting to come together in the greenhouse

Clay balls soaking


Bell Syphon hopefully ready to go



Just made tank lid out of Modwood



Tank lid open



Waiting on the submersible pump and the clay balls to sink then I will start it cycling. Dont expect to have fish in it for at least 3 weeks

 

[jbirbeck]

That looks awesome.

I'm just in the process of setting mine up. Well a pilot system anyway. 90l fish tank made from a 90l plastic storage container, a pump that will feed up to a 35 litre grow bed full of aquatic plant potting mix (read gravel). The tank has 5 or 6 yabbies I got from my PIL dam (fun catching them). Really simple set up, pump will be on a timer to 'fill' the grow bed which has a mash tun style false bottom that slowly drains out by gravity back into the yabbie tank that sits below the grow bed, then go again. The frame is one of the boltless shelving units from Bunnings. I may even pop some cuttings from my hops in later this week as some of my hops are still going mad and flowering

I think I'll get another 35 litre grow bed for the pilot system if it works well on the first one. The expensive part is filling it with a grow medium.

one of the smaller hops will go in next year to see what sort of growth I get as my older hops have far too big a root ball to go into the pilot system If it works I may be able to convicee the other half of a significant system which will include some room for hops

Its taken me a while to get going on this afetr seeing this thread originally, but on the road now

 

[devo]

My new 215L rig now is up and running loaded with yabbies and a few silver perch fingerlings.



As you can tell from the pics below my ammonia and pH levels spiked since adding so many yabbies so I've been doing 1/3 water changes and backing off on the food to help keep things in check while the system cycles fully and the plants kick in.

 

[beerbrewer76543]

Sweet work there Mantis!

Would you be so kind as to sketch / post a link of how you build one of those bell syphons? I have a friend with a block of land who I may be able to convince to grow some fish with a side benefit of me growing hops in the setup...

Cheers :icon_cheers:

 

[jbirbeck]

Sweet work there Mantis!

Would you be so kind as to sketch / post a link of how you build one of those bell syphons? I have a friend with a block of land who I may be able to convince to grow some fish with a side benefit of me growing hops in the setup...

Cheers :icon_cheers:

+1 for a link/instructions on how to build a bell siphon. wouldn't mind incorporating one.

 

[komodo]

Quick sketch :

Basically you make a pipe upstand that comes out of the base of your grow bed (the white bit). At the top its advisable to "flare" this out. You can do this using a head gun and a mould or you can buy apropriate plumbing fittings to do so. drill a small hole at the base of this incase an issue arrises to allow the grow bed to drain (i would do this after you get your system running though as it needs to drain significantly slower than your pump pumps for this to work.)

Over the top of this you place a larger diameter pipe (the green) which is notched aroudn the bottom and has a cap ontop to create an air tight seal. This notching makes this part stand and allows for the water to get through.

This is essentially your bell syphon. Water comes in the grow bed and gets into the green area and rises to the top of the white upstand once it gets in there it generates a vacuum this sucking all the water out of the grow bed.

Now the red bit with holes around the base is just a larger pipe again over the whole thing - this is just a filter to stop any of your grow media getting caught in the bell syphon and causing issues.

Hope that helps

 

[devo]

Here are some pics/diagrams of how I constructed a bell siphon.

 

[komodo]

http://www.aquaponicshq.com/forums/showthr...p=6696#post6696
Hopefully this link works

 

[komodo]

 

[jbirbeck]

great stuff, cheer Komodo and Devo. That will e the next little project so I can take the timer off my pump.