Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I've had a few opportunities to ramble on some other people's threads about some topics I've become pretty keen on.
CLIFT PIST & Venturi drains (these are working so well for my aquarium system)
Pond liner (cost effective if the ground can support it for the most part.)
in ground tanks (temperature effective in my climate/location)

Wet climate, sub tropical climate, sand, and lack of slope contribute to my design situation.

I am of course mentally designing future systems (which I of course hope to build but don't know if I'll ever get to.)

I really think in ground stuff makes lots of temperature sense here because our ground really doesn't get cold yet it is just moderate enough to help balance the really hot weather too.
The balance to this comment is that I really want a CLIFT PIST system since it would help a lot on the maintinance of the system (mainly cleaning out the pump trap ever few days.)

Problem I need to solve here, how do you have an in ground sump in a place that has major rain events. (I don't intend to pour and seal a 900 gallon concrete sump.)

Sand makes digging easy but slumps really easily too so level fluctuations in ground tanks leaves them vulnerable to collapse.

I've been rolling around an idea for a lined pond/largely gravel filled sump Idea. If I were doing an ornamental pond AP system I might simply surround the pond/tank area with a gravel filled bog area to help absorb the fluctuations in level without having to get too complicated. This would of course require a very large chunk of pond liner.

For a more specifically AP method of partially gravel filled sump I was thinking perhaps dig a hole a bit deeper than a blue barrel. If there is a deepest part of the depression where a blue barrel could be modified with holes to act as standpipe for the pump inlet or submerged pump. Surround the barrel with large gravel and make the rest of the sump pond big enough to handle the volume of water plus gravel plus a bit extra for safety and top up valve. The gravel/rocks hold the liner down even when it isn't full and there is rain. The entire volume would not need to be filled with gravel or rocks but the entire bottom and around the edgs (where the liner needs to be supported on the inside by gravel/rocks and on the outside where some other support needs to keep the liner above flood level for rain events.) Otherwise the space could be quite ornamental being something like a gravel rain garden with the fluctuating water levels. Perhaps a bit of a frog pond going on. If some areas are filled all the way above the high water mark with gravel, they could function as grow bed space even. This could probably even kinda tie into the AP patio ideas out there.

Biggest problems I see are;
*requires a very large volume to be contained since much of the space is taken up with gravel (space)
*requires a lot of extra rocks/gravel (cost)

Big benefits I see;
*provides a huge amount of extra bio-filter, solids filter, and perhaps plant capacity within one unit while serving as a sump.
*Could be turned into a fun ornamental space
*could be a place to grow certain bog/water plants
*perhaps the Flood and drain crowd's alternative to the AP patio could be the Sumpito, just make it large enough to handle the amount of water while also filled with gravel then place pavers on top while leaving the barrel off to the side with the pump under a lid. Then the shrubs and other ornamental plants can get their water from the flood/drain action without the issue of drippers clogging.

Ideas, changes, expansions?

Bury the required amount of blue barrels hooked together with large bore pipe. This gives you a large amount of water, safely buried, cheaply, and will help with temps.

Last one has the pump in it. Would draw a picture, but at work atm.

Great idea Lynx. Just treat it as another low growbed (or perhaps growsump) - bog plants might take nutrients away from veg., so perhaps just grow climbing veg. to reduce the bending, which is one of the benefits of a higher level growbed.

When I was changing over to an auto siphon I change over to a 20 l square drum with top and bottom cut off as the 'inspection hole' - I did this so if I ever have problems with the siphon I can always drop in a submersible pump and pump out the bed.
These should be easy to get cheaply - but as per all containers you need to know what was in them - should be big enough for most sump pumps?

You would have to have the growsump raised a bit above ground level to prevent wash/blow in of soil/debris/nutrients etc. and as you said, to allow for rain events.

Outbackozzie,
I would love to be able to just burry barrels or bins or whatever type of tank but my issue is the heavy rain event we regularly get here. If the sump is mostly empty at the time heavy rain fills the ground/hole, I get blue barrels ejecting themselves from the ground and likely breaking plumbing lines while they do it.

I may be lucky enough to have soft sand that is easy to dig but even as freely draining as our ground is, 4" of rain in an hour will produce standing water on the ground that will drain into the nearest hole and filling it, anything in the hole needs to be heavier than water or it will float. And then I would have to dig the hole all over again once the rain drained away. I've no intention of doing that several times a year.

yep, a grow sump would need to have much higher edges than needed to contain the water since it would also need to be high enough to keep water and debris from the ground getting in. Might be as simple as a row of concrete block around the edge at ground level to keep the liner 8" above ground.

As to bog plants, I would tend to grow the edible or useful ones so I would count them as part of the veggie crop and what they use is part of the balance.

Hum, now coming up with other ideas too. If the blocks around the outside of the sumpbed were to be supporting the ends of some of the grow beds, they could drain directly into the sump bed without needing much in the way of extra plumbing.

oh so many ideas, so little money left to put tword them.

TCLynx your ponderings has led me to rethink an aspect of my first system

I have just realized that one of my grow beds can be modified to act as a sump. I will plumb it to an extension i.e wheelie bin to hold the pump and serial drain the other beds into the last. I will detail the idea in my system thread later.
Basically overflow from fish tank, serial distribution into GB 1, 2, maybe 3 then siphon into GB 3(4) and pump back to tank. The ordinary GB's will fill slow, drain fast, the sump GB will fill fast, drain slower, but still should work OK I think.The sump GB being lower should be good for growing tall plants. The current sump and temporary GB will move and become a quarantine/purge setup.

Cool. Post some pics and description about how it works out once done!

I suppose in a way, my current Monster grow bed is sort of a sump as well.
Two of my standard grow beds loop siphon into a big pipe that then feeds the monster grow bed. The monster grow bed has a sump pump in a sunken section of one end of the grow bed. I'm using a plastic basket with the bottom cut out to keep gravel back from the sump pump. Something like a milk crate would work too so long as the gravel near the crate is really big. Only real issue I have is that my fish tank level is still the lowest level in the system and the main pump pumps from that tank and therefor the tank level fluctuates quite a lot.

Next time, I'll just have to site the fish tank and frame the top in such a way that the water level is above ground level. Then the sump bed could be directly next to it.......
Ack, I'd better watch myself or I'm likely to start pulling parts of my system apart to make this happen.

I had AP insomnia again last night. The problem with a heavy rain is the high ground water but the sump is empty?

If that is the problem then maybe some sort of one-way valve could help - it would open to let in the ground water if the pressure between the sump and the ground water became significant?

Also, if the beds are open to the sky then they will collect the same rainfall and make the sump full in that situation, wouldn't they?

I'm curious to hear from the people who had their sumps pop up if it was because they were in covered greenhouses and there were another way to avoid the problem?

I think another contributing factor of sump pops might be runoff from adjacent buildings/concrete. My system is next to my house/driveway. Rain coming off the house and driveway can quickly outstrip the amount of rain being collected in the grow beds/fish tank/sump tank.

I'm not sure I would want to implement a valve to let the runoff water into the system just to keep the sump from popping up. Who knows what might be in water running overground to get into the sump hole.

I am liking the sump/growbed idea more and more Enough gravel around a sump/pit barrel with holes should keep liner from floating up. Perhaps splurge on a chunk of flagstone to place under the pump intake or barrel to weigh that area down.

Talking about sump tanks popping - I have been patienty awaiting DTHawks pics of his MDF formed ferro-cement manufactured GBs and see if I can modify my sump tanks to be of concrete...bit harder to pop that much concrete

Les, when yours popped what was the situation?

HSM in a big way

Dave, first had big rains and water got under the sump tanks...sump lifted and broke the return pipes from the GBs...sump tanks got lighter (less water) and so rose higher

My solution was to extend the sump tank hole and put in a sludge pump which keeps water levels low when/if the sump hole starts to fill with water again...there is some pics on my system thread of the HSM with sump tank about 12" out of the ground - no loss of fish though

Here ya go, found it for you Dave
viewtopic.php?p=38308#p38308

Have you considered burial vault liners for a sump? There is a company on the way home from work that makes them, maybe I'll ask how much they cost. Heavy suckers though.

http://www.ccfhr.noaa.gov/stressors/lan ... ffish.html