I’ve been working on finishing up my back yard landscaping. The aquaponics garden is going good. Our chickens are laying everyday again and its time to finish up this year long project. My good friend Don has really helped out. I am awful when it comes to design – no creativity. Mechanically, I can build about anything, but I just have no artistic ability. This weekend I had a lot to do. I started off by going to the nursery and buying plants for the backyard. Once I got the plants home, I shifted focus and spent the next few hours working on my truck – resealing the intake manifold because of a water leak. By 3:00 in the afternoon, it was time to get back to the yard and get my plants in the ground. In this small corner area just off of the aquaponics garden you can see … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
Tag Archives: aquaponics
It’s been so long, I can’t remember the last time I posted. I took some time off from my project over the holidays, and have just begun to get back in the swing again. This month, I began testing my tank and grow bed by filling them with water and cycling the system to insure the bell siphon would work properly. I’ve now got it set where it takes about 35 minutes to fill the grow bed, then 10 minutes to drain. This picture is of my first siphon setup. I’ve since changed my bell from 2″ to 3″. With a 3″ bell, I no longer needed the cap on the filter, as the bell fills the 4″ filter completely, not allowing any media to enter. I also added a 2″ to 1″ reducer on my stand pipe which greatly improved the starting and stopping of the siphon. Unfortunately I … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
Not much happening lately. Spent most of the day at my son’s wrestling match. I did manage to get up a first light and plan a small apricot tree in the back yard. Once Christmas is past, I’ll finish off the landscaping and the back yard will be complete. Right now I just need to add the rock and fish to the Aquaponics garden, and then put some crushed granite through out the rest of the unfinished yard. Not much more than 2 days of work left. Late in the afternoon I let the girls out for a few hours. They have kept my grass at this height and completely eliminated the need for mowing. Here they are scratching around in my flower bed. … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
I’ve been able to complete all electrical and plumbing for my aquaponics garden. This week the pump arrived. I ordered a Lifegard Quiet One 4000 pump rated a ~900GPH. Along with this main pump, I installed an emergency backup pump. This is nothing more than a bilge pump which is used just to aerate and circulate the water in the pond in the event of a power outage. It will run off of a 12 deep cycle battery. To make this work, I wired in a 12v relay which is powered by a “wall wart” plug/transformer I had stored in the attic from some long lost device. I found a deal on five of these relays with the pig tail plugs for $4.99 on Amazon. This is how my electrical and plumbing … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
It’s that time of year here in the Vegas valley where we have 2 or 3 weeks of wonderful weather. Time to enjoy to outdoors. I’ve spent the spring and summer working at a painfully slow pace on my coop and garden project. Seven months into it, I’ve finally finish the wood working part of my project. The coop and aquaponics pond and garden bed are built along with the patio cover. You can see the pond cover/bench seat now completed and in place above. I’ve also put grass back in the small area by my planter. The chickens have loved the addition. When I first put the grass in, I wondered what I was going to do about keeping it cut since I had given away our lawn mower. This turned out to not be a problem. The 4 chickens have kept the grass perfectly manicured. I let … [CLICK TO READ MORE]
