Finishing off the Plumbing

You may recall a few posts ago I was testing my overflow drain and it was a partial success. Once the syphon got running things looked great but the 1" pipe was not large enough to keep up with the inflow of my pump. If I had let things go there would have been quite a flood. So here is version 2.




As you may be able to tell I have gone with a larger pipe (2") and modified the position of the T fitting. What you can't see is that on the grow bed side there is no stand pipe so the drain will be pulling from the bottom instead of skimming of the top. This solves one problem in that I hope to minimize the amount of air that can enter the pipe and allow the drain to maintain syphon. The problem is the drain will empty the grow bed if the pump shuts down, solution raise the t-fitting to a height that determines the minimum water level. In order to make the height adjustable I installed a compression fitting so I can raise and lower the T-fitting height.

With the new drain in place and design changes complete all thats left is to test so I turned on the pump and sucked the air out of the syphon to get things running and it was a thing of beauty.The water level came up and the drain started to flow perfectly for about an hour... What I didn't account for was a less than perfect seal in the check valve it was ever so slowly letting air leak in and eventually breaking the syphon. Time to find a better check valve. While searching the google machine I couldn't help but think about the problems that would arrise if the drain ever failed which led me to "improving the design".

Version 2 and a 1/2: 

I found a youtube video where a guy added a small pump to constantly pull air and water from the top of the syphon now thats an elegant solution. Of course in my typical over the top fashion I also added a filter to prevent the pump from clogging. The system has run for 24 hours without any issues. I feel very confident that this will run as long as the pumps do, in the event that something clogs or a pump does go out its my plan to add 2 float switches on the grow bed water level that will shut off the pumps if the water gets to high or low. This will let me sleep at night.

Always remember fellas "If women don't find you handsom, they better find you handy". I'll be sure to update you on the progress with the switches as soon as I get to them.

Time to eat some Mosquitoes!

I bought some Mosquito fish on friday and put them into my grow beds. Hopefully they are hungry for some Mosquito larve and not plant roots.


Its hard to see them all but there are 32 in the bag. I plan to put eight into each grow bed. Since one of my beds isen't finished yet I will put 16 into the 3' X 8' and move 8 into the 4' X 8' next week when it up and running.

Here is the first grow bed and when I pulled the net pot out 6 of the pests flew out. Sorry I didn't get a picture of one of them.

A new home for my little workers. This new bed dosen't have much for them to eat yet so I will have to feed them until the plants get established. They are supposed to eat algae too so hopefully this will help keep things clean.

Pest - What to do

It has been quite a while since I've updated my blog so today is the first of many new postes to come. We have been on a couple family trips and I've had some business travel so the aquaponics has mostly been fending for itself. Fortunately things seem to be doing quite well and plants continue to grow at a rampant pace. We now have peas that have flowered and are growing pods in only 4 weeks from planting. Beans are not doing as well in the same 4 weeks but the plant is growing. The fastest grower is a cucumber plant that exploded and now has 13 buds that I could count. My lettuce is almost ready to harvest again so we are looking forward to fresh salads soon.

On the negative side, I am seeing an awful lot of small bugs like aphids, fruit flys etc. To combat this problem and to remain organic we have ordered 2000 lady bugs to hopefully colonize the aquaponics garden area. They should arrive by tomorrow and I will tack some pictures and update how the release goes.

The second and more pressing issue is that last night I pulled out a lettuce plant to check its roots and out flew 4 to 5 mosquitoes. I know what did I expect having a large body of water is bound to create a breeding ground for the little disease caring pests. Not to fear, I have the Google machine right at my finger tips. Unfortunately lady bugs aren't the best at catching mosquitoes so I need a better plan, fish should eat their larve but that only helps in the fish tank and leaves the grow-beds defenseless since the fish would likely eat the plant roots killing their growth potential. My friends at www.friendlyaquaponics.com must have an answer so off to their site I went. After some searching on their site and in the manual I got from them I was able to locate the answer and its a good one, mosquito fish! These little beauties will eat the mosquito larve, other bug larve, algae and clean the plant roots effectively helping things grow even better. Not to mention the Friendly folks swear that they never see mosquitoes on their property any more, no mosquitoes in Hawaii thats cool.

I have found a local source for Mosquito fish http://phoenixtropicalfishinc.com/ and I plan to stop there on my way home tonight. I'll blog about the addition of these guys into my system tonight.

Plumbing the new Aquaponics grow beds.

Now to the fun stuff Plumbing! Originally I planned to drill a hole in the side of the grow bed and install a bulkhead fitting connected to my standpipe and return plumbing. After a visit to my friend Bob's blog at Chico Aquaponics and I found a new way to drain the beds without punching a hole in the side. This is a test that may well lead back to my original plan if I don't gain 100% confidence that it will work, oh well nothing ventured nothing gained.

Here is my first attempt at an overflow drain. You are probably asking yourself did it work? Well the answer is yes and no. Yes the drain pulled water from the grow bed and drained it into the tank below. Yes the loop remained primed  after the pump got turned off and the drain stopped. No the drain could not keep up with the pump. I have a 330 gph pump at 1' of head so i did the math and since the pump was was pumping up 3' it should be outputting approximately 200 gph. Since a 1" overflow should drain off 375 gph it made sense to me to go with a 1" pvc overflow.

Where did I go wrong? After review 3 things became clear 1) my lift is actually closer to 1' which means the pump is rated to pump 330 gph 2) this pump actually performs better that its specs indicate it should and it's delivering 400 gph 3) the overflow is probably only draining at 300 gph. Back to the drawing board, I will build a 1.5" overflow which should drain at a rate of 840 gph. Below is a not so good video that I shot in the dark with a flashlight on my phone, not good I know but it gets the point across. I will update when I get the larger overflow built until then I wish you love and happiness.

Grow bed liner installation.

Today is a very exciting day, I am installing the liners in my grow beds. I know that for most people this is probably not the most exciting thing but for me it represents the light at the end of the tunnel. We are so close to growing all our own veggies that I can almost taste them.

First step is to roll out the liner making sure you have enough slack on both ends, measure twice and cut once. This stuff is not cheep but its worth it to not have leaks. If you are interested in learning more about the liner I used then click here.

 The trickiest part is to fold the corners in such a way that you end up with a clean corner that keeps the liner from wrinkling and puckering. In the pictures to the right you can see the folded triangle pocket that is tucked on the backside of the liner.

Here is a view from the front side, note the liner must be cut to allow the excess material to be folded flat on the ledge of the grow bed.

Here is a completed corner, looks pretty good if I do say so myself. Don't be shy with the staples in the corners. It helps a lot to make sure things are secure. This reminds me of wrapping Christmas presents, I'm not very good at that either.

As you can see even when your careful its easy to get some wrinkles. Not to worry though because once its full of water and rafts I'm the only one who will know. Last step is to trim off the excess then cap the edges with a trim piece.

This has taken a lot longer that I thought but its satisfying to know that my hard work will have a great payout for me and my family. Next I will show how I add the plumbing to circulate the water throughout the system. If you want to see a real pro check out Friendly Aquaponics installation videos by clicking here.

Aquaponics Finalizing Construction

This is the final day of construction, I am very excited to get the heavy lifting out of the way so we can start the fun stuff. Today's entry is boring but important, Arizona's extreme temperatures will put high demands on heating and cooling water.

 In an effort to maintain a more consistent water temperature I have wrapped the IBC with 1 1/2" Styrofoam insulation. Then I skinned the tanks with siding to protect the insulation and make things look finished.

  The opening to the top of the IBC will allow full access to the fish. I will build an insulated lid to help reduce heat transfer.

All I have left for construction is to insulate and wrap the back tank. You can see in this picture that I have received my roll of trough liner, the next blog will cover how to install the liner.

Rediscovering my passion for Photography

I have always liked to take pictures and found myself trying to capture that special moment that would deliver an emotional return. Unfortunately my skill level was amateurish and I only had enough knowledge to be dangerous. Equipment seemed to be the logical solution to my inability which has led me to purchase newer better and faster gear but I still lacked the understanding to know how to properly compose and take a great picture. Thats not to say I never captured good pictures, the problem was that when I did I couldn't tell you what I did to get them. This has sent me on a journey to figure it out and let me say its not easy.

My current camera is a Canon EOS 40D which is an entry level DSLR that I thought would be my holy grail when I bought it. Of course I was wrong and even though I managed to get more good shots than before, it was mostly because I could take a lot more pictures faster so I had more to choose from. There are so many features on this camera that I figured if I learn how to use the features it would deliver results. Canon has some decent resources available that explain what each button is and how to use them, now I am armed with more knowledge and must have new skills right! Wrong things went from bed to worse. It seemed like I could use two settings and all would be perfect these are aperture priority and shutter priority. When you read about them and watch the training videos it really produced outstanding pictures, now that is something I can do.

Not being one to give up, my search has continued and the thing I now know is equipment does not make a photographer. I'm not saying good equipment isn't a difference maker, but knowing how to set your shot up and what to do with the equipment is crucial. A great photographer can take outstanding pictures with any camera you put in their hands, an amateur will struggle especially with the best equipment money could buy.

In the coming months I will share with you my experience as I embark on becoming a decent photographer.

P.S. Below is a sample of where I am today, let me know what you think.