Lessons Learned - Start up

[John Fruncek]

After a short delay in the project to get some properly grounded outlets installed in the basement workshop, yesterday filled my new aquaponics system with water and turned on the pump!

The good news is the siphon action set up on the first try! However later I realized that the grow bed needed to be elevated slightly, otherwise the water level in the fish tank covered the siphon outlet pipe. oops.

Within minutes several more issues were identified and opportunities to learn and re-engineer solutions are in progress.

Issues / Lesson

1. New hydroton is very dusty. First 80 gallons of water will need to function as a wash and be thrown away, or otherwise could have washed it beforehand
2. The hydroton, apparently neutrally buoyant, combined with the water in the grow bed, "floated" my media guard up slightly, allowing the smaller clay balls to be sucked up into the siphon, and on into the fish tank. Will need to either glue the guard down or make it out of heavier material
3. The factory installed drain plug in the 100 gal fish tank leaked ever so slightly- will need to seal it
4. Wondering if a small amount of water can remain in the bottom of the grow bed after the siphon does its work, or if I need to make sure the bed drains almost completely between cycles
5. A little short on the amount of media need to fill the grow bed- will now implement an earlier suggestion from the man I bought the hydroton from- will add some lava rocks at the bottom of the bed

[Ellen Roelofs]

I, too, failed to anticipate hydroton's buoyancy. Doh!