Brian's system so far

Brian Fanner

tank in.

Brian Fanner

Oh, I nearly forgot. I loaded the fish trap mentioned earlier in my thread with dog pellets and tossed it in the local river and came back the next morning. The thing was absolutely teeming with 4inch fish! :thumbright:

I am not sure what the where but I just let them all go again. I can now say that the trap really works. There must have been about 40 fish in there.

hydrophilia

And you found out what the fish like to eat!

Brian Fanner

Ya, they did seem to go for the dog food but I think they where carp... There where a couple of crabs in there too.

I have started to clean the gravel and I must say that is possibly ranks as one of the most inane and boring and backbreaking things to do. I put my truck up on some stands at the front and chucked the gravel in the back and moved it up and down from the bottom to the top with plenty of water and a rake. It took a long time to get the water to flow clean and lots of sweat. I am thinking I should hire a cement mixer next week and see if it goes a bit faster. Any other good Ideas out there?

earthbound

Yep.... Only people who have cleaned gravel themselves can understand the gravel cleaning pain..... :headbang:

There were a number of threads discussing different methods of cleaning, try a search and you should find lots of info...

Brian Fanner

What makes it worse is the fact that the gravel pile has been around for some time and is now polluted with wind blown sand. I can see how the gravel makes a good filter cause it is very difficult to get this fine sand washed out from the gravel. I am thinking one of those growbeds is going to become a duckweed pond... less gravel cleaning :cheers:

earthbound

If your trying to get sand out of the gravel, perhaps some mesh on a frame would help.. If you can angle some mesh down to your growbed then tip the gravel/sand onto the mesh, gravel rolls down into the bed, sand drops through the screen next to the bed..

Or make a duckweed bed... :wink:

hydrophilia

I'd probably take a hint from the heap-leach gold miners and make a pile on a sheet of plastic. Dump some water on top, then use a sump pump to run the water over the pile multiple times. The sand and mud will work their way down and you can shovel off clean stuff from on top, leaving much less to clean by hand. If you have an excess of water you can always skip the plastic and sump pump, but I like the high-volume water-flow.

Or say the heck with it (if the gravel is fairly clean), load the system, run it a while, and clean out sand and mud from the sump and fish tank once or twice.

Brian Fanner

Hmm. I did think that it might not be a bad idea to heap it up high and run the garden sprinkler on it overnight and then take the stuff from the top and dump that in the system.

hydrophilia

I'm not sure the sprinkler would have enough force to wash it decently, but it would help the sand and sediment to settle to lower levels.

Brian Fanner

Yep, the sprinkler did nothing substantial to help. I am going for the cement mixer option. At least it will not be so heavy on the spadework. I will also get the Malawians to help out again.

earthbound

This is what you need... http://www.smart-gardening.co.uk/produc ... Sieve+230v

Or more labour intensive..

http://www.manytracks.com/Garden/SoilSifters.htm

Brian Fanner

That is what we all need but the price :shock:

. I have decided that the dirty sand infested gravel stone is going to be put to use on the floor of the new chicken coop and I will get some clean stuff delivered. I will hose the new pile down from the top with copious amounts of water then dump it in the system, run the system for a few days with the pump running continuously. Then I will drain the fish tank and the sump and refill the system again and see if it runs clean enough. Luckily I have lots of water and it is free except for the electricity to pump it.

Brian Fanner

I am really not liking the sump tank cause it is getting wonky as the sand is higher around the edge than the water level and the edges are conking in from the pressure of the sand.I am thinking to dig the sand away a bit and then fill the tank to the top with water and then mix the sand with a bit of stone and some cement and place it back in carefully around the tank and then let i set up with the tank in a better state of roundness. It really messes with the beauty of the symmetrical round brick stuff. I was also thinking to put some bolts through the tank above the water level that can anchor in to the concrete mix around the tank, to hold the walls of the tank against the concrete packing.

Brian Fanner

Some progress has been made. The sump tank has been stabilized around the edges and looks much better and you can walk around it without fear of collapsing the sides. I also have now filled two grow-beds with gravel. I figure that if the system is ready to roll in a fortnight I could start with a batch of trout in the winter time. I reckon the temps will be between 7 and 20 degrees from about mid April to mid September. would this be enough time to fatten trout? I also stumbled across this interesting TED talk featuring an aquaponics system. Not too sure how well this system would work in terms of filtration but it looks cool. http://www.ted.com/talks/mathieu_lehann ... esign.html

Backyard Aquaponics
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