Newfarmers - Swanvalley WA System

[newfarmer]

Hi All,

I have been hanging around for a while, and thought it about time to start sharing...

I have various systems running at the moment:
- 6 bed system, 3000L FT (beds currently in a homemade greenhouse)
- 1 Bed system, 1000L FT
- 3 Bed system, 1500L FT

My latest addition (and my pride and joy) is the 3 bed system, and I have set this up as a CHIFT PIST system.

I have used 80mm PVC from the FT to the grow beds, reduced down to 40mm at the beds with ball valves to balance out the flows between the beds. Water from the beds gravity feeds to my old 500L sump from my 6 bed system. A pond pump constantly pumps the water from the sump to the FT, and I have a bypass to feed some water back into the sump if required.

I wanted to trial several things at once, so have also setup different grow media in each of the beds to try and compare, thus have used: hydroton, blue metal, and rainbow stone.

I have kept the beds lower, so my small kids could get more involved with the plants, and I have put covers over all my tanks as my 18mth old was getting a little too involved...

[GaryD]

Hi,

Looks great! More photos needed......particularly inside that greenhouse.

Gary

[Outbackozzie]

And it can look like this



Tadaa!

[newfarmer]

Bloody card reader has clapped it in , so I'll post some pics inside the Greenhouse from late July.

I'll post the pics I took yesterday when I get a new card reader...

Greenhouse - 21st July 2009

Things were going well then, but most have doubled over the last few weeks. With the warmer days, I've had to start leaving the greenhouse door open to keep the temps down a bit (was getting over 40deg during the day).

The last pic is the prunings from the tomato plants, so I could get in the door. I have had to do the same several times since...

[newfarmer]

Ahh was a computer issue, problem solved...
Here are some more recent pics of my system from yesterday.

Things are starting to happen in the new 3 bed system (installed mid July).

The 1 bed system is my nursery system, currently home for some small SP (approx 100, 2-3inches long). The new 3 bed system has approx 40 trout, and the 6 bed system has approx 110 trout.

[Outbackozzie]

Thats a serious amount of growing space

[GaryD]

Nice photos, nice set up.....congratulations!

Gary

[Bidadisndat]

That's a great set-up. Colour me green!

[carshaw]

Hi
What have you used for your green house?

[newfarmer]

I made the greenhouse frame from 40mm PVC.

I started by putting in star pickets in the ground, and then bending the PVC up between each star picket, and fittings were used to construct the skelleton of the frame.

Here's a pic before the cover went on...



To build the cross braces I used T pieces, and cut out a section and snapped them onto the arches.

This year I used split PVC to clip on the cover. Next year I will probably upgrade to the propper stuff (wirelock) now that I'm happy with how the greenhouse performed.

I added 4 pine posts along the centre to tie down the structure, as we get very very strong winds, and to form the doorway (as per earlier pics). The central pole has also bee a good place to hang a light and tools.