Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I went to a aquaculture supplies shop in Adelaide today to see about getting my first batch of fishies. I asked what he had, prices etc (which were high) and then asked if he had any Barra. The two blokes looked a bit sheepishly at each other, then told me they lost 40 kg's of barra fingerlings up to 150mm long last Sunday in a power failure, along with their silver perch and Murray Cod beood stock and most of the their perch and Cod fingerlings. I asked them about backup power, and they said things were going really well, I guess we forgot about it

Anyway, thought I would post this as a timely reminder to at a very least have some air for your fish should the power go out, and don't stock too heavily. I dare say these blokes are stocking very very densely by the numbers they were giving me, which wouldn't have done them any favours when the power went down.

Cheers

Monya

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www.thefishfarm.com.au

nice one Monya,
I have just about finished the write up on the auto siphon thing and going to "temporarily relocate" my computer UPS to see how long it runs my 2000lph pump -300VA UPS to 38watt pump, if it goes okay can then get a larger UPS (for the AP system not computer)

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Do it - like 'Ell!

Ouch, for sure its better to be ready for Murphy when he does hit.

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John
Hooked on Ponics

Good one Monya - I have been meaning to bump this issue for ages. I haven't organised a backup power supply and I am heading into storm season (meaning blackouts). At a stretch I have a 12v dc sump pump that I can hook up to the car battery to get some waterfall aeration going, but this is only good if I am around to do it. I really need to get a failover switch and hook a pump into a permanently avaiable car battery with trickle feed. I like this idea better than running something off a battery 100% of the time.

Anyone know where to get cheapish failover switches. Should talk to the sparky that lives next door to me I guess.

I reckon a reliable computer style UPS is a fantastic option for a smallish system on AC power. Connect only the air pumps/bubblers to it, and if you have it somewhere near neighbors, remember to disable the audible alarm if you can. They are bloody loud!

Don't rule out using a pump instead of a bubbler. You would not have the pump running through the beds - just making waterfall aeration. These pumps may actually use less power and be more effective. Am I wrong?

Edit: and by pump I mean water pump of course.

Go here and search for "UPS", and you can see they are not too expensive.

http://www.auspcmarket.com.au/

And you can claim a tax deduction if you have a home office

Nope, I agree, whatever suits your system the best... I'm just saying, that even for a smallish system, a 1000VA UPS is pretty good insurance at around $100 new....

Simmo - we have had this same discussion before and the general consensus was that the UPS may not be the best alternative. Can't remember why - possibly due to the battery not being very big. How long would, for example, a 30watt pump or bubbler run for after power out on the sort of UPS you describe and also how long would it then take to recharge after power up again (sometimes another power-out follows).

Dunno VB, the pump i'm using ATM (not for long) is about 30W and it barely trickles over the bed at a 1.5m head and 3m 20mm pipe run.

WHere as i think my air pump is 15W at 30 litres per minute air flow. That a hell of a lot of air..........and the plants are more likely to survive a power outage than the fish (i assume you were suggesting kill two birds with one stone)

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The only tool you need is a paperclip

VB can't judge the running time soley on VA . That gives you the maximum load you can run from it. running times will vary on battery capacity / load connected / efficiency.

Think 2400 VA generator. 2400 is the max watts you can draw from it.......running time depends on how big the fuel tank is and how much load you actually have connected

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The only tool you need is a paperclip

Yeah I guess I am looking at it from the perspective of low maintainence fish as well, and the other thing is I happen to have a couple of big UPSs that I have "aquired" from work so I am not actually shelling out the bucks for them.

As a matter of interest, I might go hunt for one of them in the spare room and hook it up to my system to see how long it runs for after a full charge...

Cool, let us know

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The only tool you need is a paperclip

We've probably gotten a little side tracked anyway (it happens)...

The point of the post was, make sure you spend some time ensuring that your system has some means of keeping stuff from carking it in the event of a power failure.



As another aside, though, I used to support an office in Noida which is near New Delhi, India, and the grid power there was notoriously bad. Out for hours at a time and at least a couple of times per day. And this in a commercial district - most large company buildings all had their own generators and/or massive UPS systems. Except ours...

There was a mail gateway there (didn't store messages, just forwarded them for us) that one of the guys ended up custom building and shipping to site that had ultra-low energy requirements. We stripped everything out of the PC that wasn't required and hooked it and the router up to a nice new UPS and it almost never powered down.

Exactly Simmo. I said nothing about how to do it, only it needs to be done. Bring on the ideas. This is an incredibly important area of our syste,s. These guys lost a lot of fish, and they are supposedly professionals. It can happen to anyone.

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www.thefishfarm.com.au