Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I am at the stage now of setting up sump/s and have some questions.

SYSTEM - 6 1/2 BARREL GROWBEDS, 1000L FISH TANK ( 650MM HIGH) TWO SUBMERSIBLE PUMPS WITH 8000L/HR CAPACITY EACH, FLOOD AND DRAIN ON GROWBEDS.

I am looking at an IBC cut at the 500 liter mark which is outside the shed (where the grow beds & fish tank are housed.) The grow beds drain into the IBC under gravity. Water from the IBC sump will pump back to fish tank, then the fish tank will overflow into a 200l sump then pumped to the growbeds.

1. Will this work? or is there a better way?
2. I am looking at setting the pumps to pump say 200 l at a time so as not to empty the fish tank too much. The larger sump (outside) will have some yabbies and duck weed in it

yes, this will work, and is quite typical. With that setup you have a number of failsafes:

- the total growbed volume will be 600L, which will draw around 200L of water each flood cycle (most of the volume is gravel).
- if the power happens to fail when the beds have just filled (and it always does!) all of that water will fit in your sump tank.
- you can have 300L in the sump tank all the time, plenty of room for yabbies and duckweed.
- if you accidentally leave your pumps on (steem raises hand in acknowledgement, while speaking in the third person to please, or possibly just encourage, KudaPucat) having a sump pump with equal capacity to your fish tank pump means little chance of problems.
- the system is quite expandable. if you have room/time/inclination, you could add the same amount of growbeds again quite easily.

There are many other configurations, but this is a good start.

Cheers Steem,

My next plan is to add one of those growbeds that EB supplies. Eventually if all go to plan the exisiting 1000l fish tank will be the sump with a 5000l tank for fish