Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Looking for opinions and possible suggestions on how to get my small starter system going. Haven't had any serious issues yet but I would like to know what everyone thinks.

I can't upload pictures it says max allowed size 2mb.

Well brief description then....

Cut a wine barrel in half that I purchased on a bit of a bender for my buddies birthday. Lined with 6mil plastic and added modified bulkhead fittings in 1" pvc to the bottom of each. Welded stands to bring top of bed to 4ft above pond level. Filled with gravel. bell siphon is one inch pvc to a heigth of 13" ended up having to neck down to 1/2 inch opening to achieve siphon at a lower rate of flow. Pond is established going on 6 years with ten large coi. 14 inches to 9 inches. Approximately 550 gallons. Pond has a 40 gallon top tier that acts as a settling catchment for fish poo. Bottom section has been uv shaded and only gets 1 hr of direct early.morning light. The rest of the time it's 90% uv shaded. The two beds are on the north and south side of the awning and they get differing amounts of direct sun. The south gets 6-7 hrs of direct strong light. The north gets intermittent direct light. Some in the morning and then again in the mid afternoon. The plan is to put some tomato, bell pepper, and jalapeno in the south bucket , and mint and herbs in the north.

Back to the technical aspects... I've only been able to stretch the cycle times to around eight minutes. I used a slightly smaller than ideal gravel size but I wanted some opinions on weather that can be compensated for. Also curios if anyone sees any other issues given the parameters I have described. Also just in case it's relevant I live in the desert southwest. Temps get to 100f in the summer and elevation is 3500ft.

Thanks in advance for your time and input.

I will keep trying to upload pics

Welcome to the forum

Medphatticus load the pictures on a photo sharing site or somewhere , then link across to this site

Brian