Tag Archives: bell siphon

Its done! 1 Year later

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It was one year ago when I began a new project. I was going to build a chicken coop and start a little back yard flock. The endeavor quickly grew to much more than just a coop, adding an aquaponics garden and ultimately, re-landscaping the entire back yard.  I really got sucked in by those backyard chickens. I was lucky to have  a friend who helped with the landscape design and more so, the labor!   This is what it looks like now that it is all done The fish have been in the tank for 2 days now. … [CLICK TO READ MORE]

Adding Fish to the Aquaponics System

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Our system has been cycling with seaweed extract for the past few weeks.   Over that time, the pH has come down to 7 which is good.  Today the fish arrived.  I was surprised to find the pH for the bag water at 7.8.   Over the day, I gradually added tank water to the bag, slowly matching the pH. I’ve been cycling my system for 10 days more than what is on the chart below.  I’ve been surprised that it never really cycled — no real rise in Nitrite and Nitrate never increased at all.   Here is what it looked like when I opened the shipping box. It’s hard to tell, but there are 50 or more in that bag.  They are about 1″ long right now. Here is a clearer shot once I removed the outer bag.   Floating the bag in the aquaponics tank Have a look at … [CLICK TO READ MORE]

Aquaponics Garden – Plants are In

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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]

It’s getting close

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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]