Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

G'day again all

I have been thinking about setting up a header tank that could be filled up from overflow from the grow beds during day time cycling and then slowly drained into the fish tank at night for airation, the tank would possibly be a 200 lt drum or a bath tub.
Has anyone tried this or a similar idea? if so how did it work out?
Would it previde much airation for the fish?

FT overflows into sump, sump pumped into GB 15/45 during daylight hours, timed flood and drain, some water overflows into the header tank with each cycle, GB drains into FT, header tank drain turned on by a solenoid/timer and slowly drains into FT over night.

Well it would provide some I suppose bent , seems like a lot of stuffing around though, an air pump cost about $11 and cost about $2 a month to run max

Yeah I know, I'm trying to set up a small 12 volt system and want to use as little power as possible.
I know power is cheap, solar is crap lol, I just want to do it for the fun of it.

Any idea how much flow it would take to effectivly airate a small system?

Very dependant on fish load and water temp. A 12 hour period without other aeration would require every 1000 litres of water to have two airstones. Or a pumping / splashing equivalent there of.

the higher the water temps the less the oxygen holds....there is a term for it ??

i run 2 air pumps because of the heat...this last march I turned one off, and the next thing all the fish where on their sides triing to go belly up.

Carefull about how restricting you will let the power supply get....I found out the hard way...but saved all the fish being observant of what I was doing

A Lot of people have tried 12v and solar but end up back with the old reliable Bent, would recommend battery back up air pumps though, air is critical in a tank environment

thanks for the input guys.
Yeah air is not a big issue on this little system atm, it only has a light stocking, in fact the fish in there have been in that tub since before I knew about AP and had no filtration / air for ages, current stock in the system is:
10 speckled gobies @ 1 in
1 flathead gobie @ 2 1/2 in
1 barred grunter @ 2 in
with the addition of 1 butterkofuri @ 4 in, because he wouldn't play nice inside.

had been working on the rule of thumb of 2 sq inch of surface area for each inch of fish which had been working just fine, but now that I found AP i want to put grow beds on all my tanks, not sure what the boss would think about a GB in the bed room though, LOL.

Also the solenoid/timer in your diagram up top will cost you a pretty penny. They're bloody hard to come by. Impossible to come by cheap.

Kuda, I'm getting one for a 6 pack of rum cans, thought that was a good price lol! it runs off 4 AA batteries.

I might be best off just using my 12vdc as a part time / back up system, I tried searching for fail over switches and couldn't find anything on them, can any of you gurus point me in the right direction?

My next swirl filter will have a small drain via a spray bar. If the power goes out then it will slowly drain into the FT. Not sure how long it would take to drain. Even floating raft systems could be set up to slowly drain back when the power goes out. As long as water volume was taken into account. I can live with sad looking plants it it means the fish are okay.
On the header tank I'd just use a standpipe with a small hole. No need to rely on a tap opening.