The fish tank is empty and on the pallet jack.
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It started flooding
?!?!??!?! What do you mean it started flooding? How bad was it?
Why didn’t anybody call me?
If yall are needing me on site just let me know
The fish were moved into a temporary tank that was filled with water. An accidental siphon situation happened, and caused water to leak out. Luckily members on site stopped the siphon, and cleaned up the mess.
It was a very immediate problem, and handled as best as could. Everything seems stable now.
@Tookys not sure if you saw the other post with more flooding info but here it is Aquaponics - New Life - #3 by iisword
OK thank you for the update
Because you live in San Antonio and this was an emergency address right now situation. Eric had been working on the tank that day and came right back immediately to assist.
@Tookys Does the sump tank separate easily from the planter bed? Are they two pieces?
We will soon need to move the rest of the aquaponic system to finish the floor. I’ve been cleaning the gravel by taking it home two buckets at a time. I think I’ll wait to replace the clean gravel until after moving the whole setup. In the meantime I’ll transfer the plants to gravel-in-a-pot that is just sitting in the planter bed. And the plant(s) that can’t be easily moved I’ll trap in the corner with some screen like the aloe and possibly the basil. I’m also planning on tying up the aloe well because it will not have the support of the window when moved.
BTW, The cotton plant made some more cotton. I’m going to propagate the seeds as I find the Genus Gossypium kind of neat. I’ll save the cotton for you.
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@Tookys the electricals are currently powered off by tripping the GFI outlets, the area is too wet to have 120VAC. The 2 big fish are in the cube with 18"-24" of water. The sump area is full to the brim, that’s what overflowed. No pumps or lights are running. I don’t think powering up the outlets will help yet, I don’t think the plumbing is connected anyways.
Best status I can give. The plants are probably the most imminent risk of dying, is there something we can do or are you going to be there soon to address it?
The area should be dry enough to turn the outlets back on.
The grow bed is separate from the stand, and the stand is separate from the sump.
The overhead light stand is attached to the stand but can be unscrewed.
The restraining wall around the sump is just 4 board screwed together and don’t attached to anything else.
The power is on and the pumps are running. The drain pipe on the IBC is secured to the cage and a hole was put into the PVC to break any siphon. I believe the plants would probably be fine with no pump running for a couple of weeks as long as the gravel didn’t get too dry. The fish would definitely start to suffer much sooner with no water flow. The ammonia from their waste would spike which is toxic to most life forms in relatively small concentrations.
The floor is being laid back down. It looks like the stuff that got wet may be reusable.
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ooh, is that a Shaper Origin inlay?
All is well in the space again. Huge thanks to @LivingOnTheEdgeKupec for helping get this done tonight. Couldn’t have done it without him.
@dannym got creative and created the first laser inlay I’ve ever seen in laminate flooring, put your order in now folks.
P.s. nobody show @TravisGood until he comes back in March.
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This is looking amazing, great work everybody.
Technically in aquaponics the plants will die in 4 hours if the pumps stop running and things go dry (general warning they use in books)
But in practice as long as their roots have access to water (AND AIR) and their temperature is stable they can last a good while. They did servive last years snowmegedan without to much trouble.
Right now our hydroton (gravel) is full of solids, essentially future dirt or pond muck. The plants would be happy in this for much longer than if they were in a clean system. It looks bad but smells organic like it should. Personally, I like the smell of funky pond water in a healthy biome. While digging around in the planter bed I have not encountered any ‘dead’ zones. These are pockets that don’t receive oxygen where anaerobic bacteria thrive and produce the super funky pond smell.
While digging through the hydroton you should be able to find some red wriggled.
I added a handful of worms 2 years ago.
As far as I know they’re still alive and happy. But they are hard to see since they dig away anytime you disturb the gravel.
Yeah it looks dirty and scummy, but that’s the sign of a healthy system lol.
James, Happy to have been able to help out… and even more happy at how it turned out!
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