Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I have recently moved to the Hills of Perth leaving behind my Koi pond. The poor things are now in a tiny fibreglass pond on my back porch until I finish my new pond. I am vegaterian so not particularly interested in growing fish other than ornamentals, so am building a nice 25,000 litre pond (almost ready).
I've become very interested in aquaponics in the last few weeks, and would love to hear your suggestions for the best setup to grow herbs and vegies using the koi pond as the fish 'tank'.
Ready and waiting for suggestions!
Mike.

Welcome. They like photos, it helps to get an idea of a setup. Koi have been on a wish list of mine for a while. They produce a lot of waste and with AP that is a good thing as the plants will take care of that. Theres some systems in Perth so if you ask someone might give you a tour of there system. Or have a look in member systems.

Welcome Mike... talk to Duff and others who have converted swimming pools... or search the forum and the net...

I figure an old koi man doesn't need to be taught a lot about water quality and filtration.... just substitute media filled growbeds for your normal filtration methods... or part of...

Have I got the perfect video for you!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJMDw998c5k

Welcome Mike, you did not do Biology at Curtin by any chance did you? My system which is under development is also Koi based as I don't eat fish either (alergy). Great fish Koi.

I want to know where to get those nifty floating grow cup holders!

Burnsy, not me (Curtin).

Have ordered the Backyard package - so hopefully in a position to start designing soon.

I'll have to get some photos of the pond (or what will be the pond as soon as I have a few hours to finish!

If you can design your new pond in such a way that the pond water level is higher than the tops of your grow beds, you can do a CHIFT PIST system which makes pump and filter maintenance much easier but then you will need a sump or a sump bed.

Having my pond higher than beds is easy with my setup (my pond is on the site of an old shed, and hence retained at a higher level than the surrouds).

Thanks for the tip, I'll look up CHIFT PIST now I know what it is from your web page.

I am so incredibly happy with the CHIFT PIST conversion to my big system that I can't imagine why I ever built it the other way in the first place. (well I know I had reasons but the advantages of CHIFT PIST have outweighed all the other reasons in my mind now.)

OK, this is a stupid newbie question I know, but what is the benefit of the sump tank? What is the benefit of that approach, rather than just pumping to beds, and gravity feeding back to the main fish tank (pond in my case). Is it just the hassle of putting the growbeds higher - because I wouldn't think that is more of a hassle than worrying about another pump / backup pump / flooding concerns I keep reading about?

Please correct my newbie ignorance!

More pumps mean more chance of failure
Chew more power, etc...
You would be better off buying a second pump and alternating the duty cycle Hr x hr or 2

The sump allows the FT to be at the top.
then the solids are drawn from the FT and into the GB where they are trapped, and worms live.
then clean water drains to the sump, and you pump this to your fish.

The other advantage is that you can maintain a height in your fish tank, your fish like this almost as much as they like fresh water.

Say you have a 1000l sump and 600l GB
You will pump about 400l into the fishtank which will overflow into the GB.
This leaves 600l in the sump.

So should you lose 50l to evaporation, it will have 0 effect on your system.
In fact should you lose 500l it will have 0 effect.

This saves you adding water daily. It also saves your fish from dieing if you spring a leak.
Also should you fill from rainwater tanks, it allows you to fill when it rains rather than when it evaporates.

Hope this helps, it's hardly a stupid question; just cos we all take the method for granted... I did not set up my system this way, and I have to regularly clean solids from my sump

Sump tanks can have a few purposes. Often layout of a system just doesn't allow for easy piping so a tank with another pump is put in place (this reason I don't really like since it means there is another point of possible failure.)

A better reason for a sump tank to to absorb level fluctuations so that the fish tank level can remain constant. This I like better since the system can hopefully have only one pump and the water can flow from the fish tank by gravity. Some people set up so that the fish tank drains to the sump and then pump the water up to the grow beds above the fish tank which gravity drain back to the fish tank which drains to the sump (I don't like this set up since the water in the sump is going to be about as dirty as it can get and the pump will have to pump the dirty water.) I prefer the layout Kuda mentioned, water pumped from sump up to fish tank which then gravity drains by solids lifting overflow to the grow beds which clean the water before they drain to the sump tank so the pump gets to work with rather clean water making everyting easier.

My reasons to use a sump tank.
1-absorb level fluctuations so fish tank can remain at a constant level
2-let the pump work with clean water for easier maintenance
3-have more water in the system overall to increase system stability (water quality and temperature)

OK guys, thanks for your help so far. I promise photos of my almost completed pond will come - I just never seem to be home during daylight.

I need more advice / help!

I have very dodgily sketched plan 1 based on the love of CHIFT PIST from plenty on the forum. I guess just to let you know the most important thing for me really is happy and healthy KOI in my ornamental pond (liner - ~20,000 litres), with that said I would love veggies too (being a vegetarion and all).

Can you please comment on m basic plan and tell me if I have missed something simple, and/or your improvements you would recommend. Essentially I am planning on hooking up a standard biofilter to my ornamental pond to run 24/7, to make absolutely sure my fish are healthy, then using CHIFT PIST system for the growbeds. Also without photos you should know the pond is below ground, but built up with a retaining all, so grow beds are definately lower than pond. Also not planning on high stocking density.

Some other specific questions I have are:
1) How big should my overflow pipe from pond be, and also does a rectangle pipe make more sense than a round pipe?
2) How best to seal pipe to liner
3) Any harm / benefit to add gravel to bottom of pond (more room for bacteria etc).
4) OK for pump to be a foot off bottom of pond (I did that in my old koi pond so it did't block up quickly)?

Lots of questions I know - help much appreciated!