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commander
01-31-2012, 12:12 PM
Here are a few pics of my first attempt. This is my basic first blue barrel system. No media in it as yet but all the plumbing seems to work.

http://i1268.photobucket.com/albums/jj564/militiacommander/Bluebarrel/IMG_0004.jpg

http://i1268.photobucket.com/albums/jj564/militiacommander/Bluebarrel/IMG_0005.jpg

http://i1268.photobucket.com/albums/jj564/militiacommander/Bluebarrel/IMG_0007.jpg

http://i1268.photobucket.com/albums/jj564/militiacommander/Bluebarrel/IMG_0008.jpg

bsfman
01-31-2012, 12:41 PM
Very sweet little set up!

keith_r
01-31-2012, 01:09 PM
i'll try to check the pictures tonight (photobucket and sites like that are blocked at work)

urbanfarmer
01-31-2012, 01:48 PM
Looking good! :-)

commander
02-02-2012, 02:55 PM
Ok, an update is in order. Everything seems to be working acording to plan. My next step is to introduce media. I think I have decided to put down a layer of lava rock and then put a layer of river pebbles (1/2" to 3/4") on top of the lava rock.

Does this jump up and raise a red flag to anyone?

bsfman
02-02-2012, 04:41 PM
Ok, an update is in order. Everything seems to be working acording to plan. My next step is to introduce media. I think I have decided to put down a layer of lava rock and then put a layer of river pebbles (1/2" to 3/4") on top of the lava rock.

Does this jump up and raise a red flag to anyone?

Why the two types of rock? It it was me, I'd just do the river rock throughout and skip the double layering.

commander
02-02-2012, 06:54 PM
Weight mainly.

bsfman
02-03-2012, 06:49 AM
Weight mainly.

I think you will find that the first time you harvest, you will wish you had gone with river rock throughout - despite some small weight savings. Your plants will put out massive root systems. It's difficult enough to disentangle the roots from river rock. The lava rock will be much worse and after harvesting, it's no longer going to be neatly layered. It will get mixed throughout the grow bed when you pull up the giant root balls. Not that lava rock won't work just fine for you, but in the long run it will be more effort and take more time.

commander
02-03-2012, 06:54 AM
I see your point and after sleeping on it, I have changed my plan. For this first system I will go with the riverrock. I wish I could afford to go with hydroton throughout, but I will wait to expend that kind of capital on a production system.

foodchain
02-03-2012, 07:33 AM
Why not expanded shale? It's cheaper then hydroton. And shouldn't give you as many root problems.

commander
02-03-2012, 08:48 AM
Why not expanded shale? It's cheaper then hydroton. And shouldn't give you as many root problems.

I haven't been able to source it locally.

foodchain
02-03-2012, 12:23 PM
Sand and gravel yard.
Whiz Q stone,
and Tex art in DFW.

commander
02-03-2012, 01:07 PM
Sand and gravel yard.
Whiz Q stone,
and Tex art in DFW.


Thanks for the info. That's only 375 miles east. Lubbock is a little short in the materials department.

foodchain
02-03-2012, 01:16 PM
better buy in bulk then.

commander
02-05-2012, 03:31 PM
Well, I decided to go with what was available easily and locally (translate cheap and quick). Today I loaded the grow beds with 3 cubic feet each of 1/2" river gravel. It seemed to pass the vinegar test, though I think the nursery guy at the place thought I was nuts. Everything is in place and has been running nicely for several hours. I did learn that 6 inch drain field pipe floats which makes it kind of tricky to make a standpipe that doesn't float up but that problem was rather easily solved. Now, if it will just get warm enough to put some plants in so I can start the cycling.

http://i1268.photobucket.com/albums/jj564/militiacommander/Bluebarrel/IMG_0012.jpg

davidstcldfl
02-05-2012, 04:15 PM
It seemed to pass the vinegar test, though I think the nursery guy at the place thought I was nuts.

Don't consider it being 'nuts'....it's more like a passion.... :P :lol: :lol: :lol:

Try explaining what you need to the guy at the harware/big box store too....After they say something like "Your doing 'what with that ?" It's a perfect chance to get to explain aquaponics and try to get someone else 'addicted'... :lol: :lol:

bsfman
02-05-2012, 05:34 PM
Now, if it will just get warm enough to put some plants in so I can start the cycling.


You can start cycling without plants! No need to wait! :)

commander
02-05-2012, 08:06 PM
Now, if it will just get warm enough to put some plants in so I can start the cycling.


You can start cycling without plants! No need to wait! :)


Well then. As soon as I can do a water change and I let it sit for a few days to gas off the chlorine, I will whiz in the tank and get it going!

bsfman
02-05-2012, 08:17 PM
Now, if it will just get warm enough to put some plants in so I can start the cycling.


You can start cycling without plants! No need to wait! :)


Well then. As soon as I can do a water change and I let it sit for a few days to gas off the chlorine, I will whiz in the tank and get it going!

If you don't have fish in it, why bother with a water change? Just whiz in there and crank her up! Chlorine will gas off just as fast or faster in a moving water system as a stagnant water system! The quicker you get ammonia-laden water circulating through your media, the faster you will establish your bacteria colony and the sooner you can put fish in the system. The sooner the fish, the sooner the nitrates and hence the sooner the plants! :)

commander
02-06-2012, 09:53 AM
Now, if it will just get warm enough to put some plants in so I can start the cycling.


You can start cycling without plants! No need to wait! :)


Well then. As soon as I can do a water change and I let it sit for a few days to gas off the chlorine, I will whiz in the tank and get it going!

If you don't have fish in it, why bother with a water change? Just whiz in there and crank her up! Chlorine will gas off just as fast or faster in a moving water system as a stagnant water system! The quicker you get ammonia-laden water circulating through your media, the faster you will establish your bacteria colony and the sooner you can put fish in the system. The sooner the fish, the sooner the nitrates and hence the sooner the plants! :)

I thought about doing that, but I wasn't as diligent as I should have been about washing my gravel. Hence, I have water that has still has a lot of suspended solids and a nasty brown color. I am going to run it out into my raised soil beds and wash my gravel again and then start the process. I had a thin layer of ice on the top of the tank water yesterday morning so I am not really to interested in spending to much time with my hands in icy water and rock but I also want to get this thing going. Patience is NOT one of my better virtues

commander
03-04-2012, 05:10 PM
UPDATE! I started cycling my system a couple of weeks ago and things are looking pretty good. The down side is that the temperature keeps dropping to low during the night to allow me to add fish and plants. Hopefully in a week or so that will change. Meanwhile, I got bored today so I built a swirl bio-filter and added to my little two barrel system. It is a 35 gallon blue barrel with the top cut out. The water enters through the side of the barrel about 3 inches from the bottom and is designed so that the flow creates the swirl. The water exits at the top through a standpipe arrangement in the center of the barrel. The top of the barrel that I cut out was used as a baffle. I drilled a hole in the center of the top and threaded a female pvc coupling through the hole. The baffle sits on the standpite about 10 inches from the bottom. Sitting on top of the baffle is all the polyester quilt batting scraps from my wife's quilting projects. Lots of surface area for bacteria to grow. I may add some air stones to the bottom of the swirl filter to increase the DO. I don't have any way to check the DO right now so I guess best to err on the side of caution. We will see how this design works.

Jeff
03-07-2012, 07:56 PM
Pics! Must.....see......pics!

commander
03-07-2012, 09:29 PM
Pics really don't do justice to the project. Here are some really crude drawings of what I did. I will try to answer any questions.

commander
03-13-2012, 08:42 AM
Put 2 dozen one inch gold fish in the tank last night. Lost three this morning. Will be monitoring the water closely. Wife is getting anxious to put plants in the beds.

keith_r
03-13-2012, 10:15 AM
you can put plants in the beds now - i had seeds in my system (water was flowing with fishless cycling) before the fish,, no issues that i could see.. (except for some seeds getting washed away)

commander
03-13-2012, 10:29 AM
That is the plan for tonight. We already have some lettuce, kale and broccoli sprouts started. We are gling to move them to net posts with coir and then transplant them into the system. I have also arranged a set of hoops over the system so that we can put it under plastic while the nights are still pretty cool.

commander
03-13-2012, 06:45 PM
Three more dead fish this afternoon. The others are looking healthy, moving around and eating. A few plants went in tonight. Leaf Lettuce, Kholrabi, and broccolli.

commander
03-14-2012, 06:53 AM
No dead fish this morning so that is good. Ammonia has climbed a bit, but nitrites and nitrates have dropped to close to 0. No sure that is causing this unless it was me disturbing the grow media to plant last night. I will test again this evening and see what is happening.

commander
03-15-2012, 07:18 AM
No dead fish last night. I did notice that the fish seemed to be coming to the surface and trying to gulp air so I added an airstone to the fish tank. It occurred to me later that this might be why the bacteria growth has been slow as well.

No dead fish this morning and with the air stone in place over night, everyone seems to be much more perky. The numbers are beginning to come around to a more normal stable set so that is a pleasing find. The few plants are looking good, standing tall and reaching up. Tonight we add some more plants. I am thinking some basil, dill and some different types of lettuce.

keith_r
03-15-2012, 08:24 AM
yup, the nitrification process requires oxygen as well as the fish!

commander
03-15-2012, 06:50 PM
One more dead fish this afternoon. Water temp was up to 78 degrees after a sunny day. I can already see that water temp is going to be a major concern so I will need to figure out some way to moderate the temp when it starts to get really hot. The rest of the fish seem to be doing well, eating and moving around. Plants are looking good as well.

commander
03-18-2012, 07:12 AM
I discovered a fault in my elevated swirl filter design today. While I was at my store, the power went off. When I got home I found that my system was seriously short on water. A little further investigation revealed the flaw in the design. Water enters the elevated swirl filter at the bottom and exits at the top via a center standpipe. When the electricity failed, the water back flowed through the pump into the fish tank. It overfilled and the excess water exited through the openings in the tank through which the siphon return pipes enter the tank. So, some redesign is in order. The obvious fix is a back flow preventer in the system to prevent such but that puts one more thing in the system that can clog up or fail plus they are relatively expensive. I have considered just doing an elevated loop in the feed side of the swirl filter with a siphon break plumbed into the system but this puts a lot more pipe in the system which equates to friction loss.
Other than this minor problem things seem to be coming along well. Fish losses have stopped, the plants are looking good.

Bioritize
03-18-2012, 01:14 PM
Pictures must see the pictures haha. :P

commander
03-18-2012, 06:23 PM
Here are the pics.

http://i1268.photobucket.com/albums/jj564/militiacommander/IMG_00361.jpg

This is looking down into the swirl filter. You can see the standpipe in the center which sends the water to the brow beds.

http://i1268.photobucket.com/albums/jj564/militiacommander/IMG_00381.jpg

Here is the front on view. You can see where the water from the fish tank enters the swirl filter on the right side. The return to the grow beds from the stand pipe is in the center under the filter tank.

commander
03-19-2012, 07:02 AM
We had heavy rain last night and the temps dropped into the high 30's. It appears that the temp drop wasn't to good for the fish. Several more dead this morning. It may be time to go back to the pet store and buy a few more feeder fish to re-populate the system. The plants do look good tho. I will probably replumb the feed line to the swirl filter today and install a back flow preventer in the line. I am thinking of adding an air stone to the swirl filter as well while I have it down for maintenance.

foodchain
03-19-2012, 10:42 AM
The storm you just had is headed our way. Will be here tonight.
And I just put my Tilapia out for the year....just my luck. Already had a malfunction and lost nearly 20-30 lbs of channel catfish over the weekend. Mostly I am worried about the golf ball hail that's forecasted.

commander
04-02-2012, 08:58 AM
Just a quick update with some photos. We have had plants in for few weeks now and are starting our second round of seedlings.

http://i1268.photobucket.com/albums/jj564/militiacommander/blue%20barrel%20update%2004%2002%202012/IMG_00441.jpg

http://i1268.photobucket.com/albums/jj564/militiacommander/blue%20barrel%20update%2004%2002%202012/IMG_00451.jpg

http://i1268.photobucket.com/albums/jj564/militiacommander/blue%20barrel%20update%2004%2002%202012/IMG_00461.jpg OUR NEWEST SEEDLINGS

http://i1268.photobucket.com/albums/jj564/militiacommander/blue%20barrel%20update%2004%2002%202012/IMG_00471.jpg

Jeff
04-02-2012, 11:10 AM
Already had a malfunction and lost nearly 20-30 lbs of channel catfish over the weekend.

Holy crap, what happened?

commander
04-05-2012, 07:19 PM
My seedling lettuce is looking a little yellow so I decided to go the bloodmeal route to try and green them up. Current conditions are:
15 1 - 2 inch goldfish in the fishtank, apparently healthy, eating and doing their other stuff. The top of the swirl filter media has a good healthy green algae growth, but the water remains clear and has virtually no smell. I added about 2 tablespoons of bloodmeal to the system by injecting it into the input side of the swirl filter. This happened yesterday afternoon. Today, conditions haven't changed appreciably. The fish are still healthy and active. Ammonia level this evening was 0, nitrates were 1.5 - 2 ppm, nitrites were between .5 and 1. I plan on giving it a few more days to see if the plants begin to green up before I decide if I am going to add more bloodmeal.

foodchain
04-06-2012, 04:28 AM
a check valve from home depot for like $5 stops your backflow issues.
I just put in a well pump at my place and a foot valve and check valve keeps me from having to reprime every time I adjust it. Well worth the $'s.
Your not quite doing the same thing here, but the physics are the same. A check valve I assure will solve future backwashing issues.

commander
04-06-2012, 06:58 PM
I simply put a stand pipe loop in the system before it enters the filter. You can see it in this pic I think. \

http://i1268.photobucket.com/albums/jj564/militiacommander/IMG_00371.jpg

This is the filter before I added the looped standpipe.

http://i1268.photobucket.com/albums/jj564/militiacommander/IMG_20120406_195737.jpg

This is the filter with the looped standpipe in place. The top open pipe is a siphon break. I have found that I can also use it to add things such as blood meal into the system which puts it at the bottom of the filter. It ride the swirl action in the bottom of the filter up through the filter media and then down the stand pipe.

I looked at the back flow prevention valves at Home Depot. They were about three times the cost of what I have done and, because they have a spring that has to be overcome by water pressure, they add a lot of head pressure. I am not sure it is more than I have added with the looped standpipe, but cost always wins over ease of use.

So far it is working really well.

weldmaster80
11-22-2012, 09:11 PM
looks prety cool. I would like ppl to take a look at my little system and let me know what they think I have a short video on youtube. happy to reseave some feedback...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDmRETRQQc0

Daniel

davidstcldfl
11-23-2012, 05:08 AM
Hi weldmaster, welcome to the forum... :)

Daniel, please start your own thread under the topic..."Backyard Systems". You'll get over looked here.
When you have your own thread, we will have more room for everyone to make comments... :)