Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

What do you think about a continuosly flowing system using the airbox to charge the water with air so i have no anerobic areas for bacteria?

I think it could work. Make sure to get a good air pump that can handle appropriate size air stones for the aquarium as well as for the air box. Get high quality air stones that you can clean and re-use or you will have to be buying the cheap ones regularly.

It would be a sort of DWC with media bed to take care of solids and much of your bio filtering before the tubes.

If you set it up right, you might only need one pump in the sump tank that pumps up to the aquarium set up with an overflow and/or venturi drain to the air box which would gravity drain into your tubes. You could probably even plant in the air box stuff like lettuce that doesn't mind having wet feet so long as the air stones keep working.
You would just have to set it up that the gravel or media in the air box was above the water level. A stand pipe to hold the gravel back from your outlet would take care of that and help keep the algae down in the air box.

good luck with it!

you run into trouble if you try doing aeroponics with aquaculture. The nozel heads block up with the fine c*#p in the water. You need a seperate biofilter for removing solids and even then you may still have troubles. I tried it as my first system and abandoned it after finding gravel ( and money)
Nick

This article had some interesting details:

http://www.aces.edu/dept/fisheries/aqua ... RAC454.pdf

Ron

Excellent article. Thank you.

I'm going to try and incorporate as many recycled materials as possible.




Basically they will sit tilted upright and a PCV pipe will be draped across 4 in a row. 3 rows high.


...and just for fun I cloned some tomtatoe clippings I took from my father.


One had some necrosis on the tip of the leaf but it hasn't spread and they are becoming a little nitrogen hungry. I'm thinking about incorporating a bubble cloaner in the loop.

Hi FG, have you seen the farm fountain site? They use 2 liter bottles and LEDs, might be right up your alley:

http://www.farmfountain.com

Very interesting Dave. I do have a lot of LEDs left over from an experiment in indoor growing... but I've got an update! I've got the start of my system:

1x 22 Gal Fish tank
1x 24 Gal Rubbermaid container (to be used as res.)
4x 2.5 Gal (will me closer to 1.75 Gal growbeds), eventually there will be 8.

The excitement is starting to build. I'd like to know if anyone has any experience with domestic fish here in the states and growing them in AP systems. Mainly I'd like to know about large and small mouth bass, Crappie (pronounced "Crah-pee") and Blue Gill.

My system is small so what do you guys think about those particular species? I was thinking about probably cycling with Koi.

Did you ever get an answer to this? I would like to try crappie too.

I've found a US supplier local to me that supplies a numerous amount of domestic, hybrid and exotic fish (talipia, trout, etc.). I've been researching the bluegill a lot. I think I'll be using them.

I recently have been obsessing about gyser pumps thanks to that other thread right now and have completely redesigned my system using the geyser pump system that will recycle directly back into my fish tank.

I tend to plan things like this until I'm about to vomit. I'll post some pics of a few sketch ups i'm planning on doing.