Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Alright, not everybody seems to agree with the whole concept of letting your grow beds deal with all the waste from your systems (solids included)... any why should they!? Each and every one of us is here because we love the concept of Aquaponics, however we are not all here because we necessarily agree about how to deal with the effluent or waste from AP systems
I have mentioned it before, and I do it again, what I do so like about AP is the ever so wide diversity of systems that spring up all over the world, and are shared here

As with every member, I have my chosen opinions and approaches, based on several years of experimenting with AP, chatting to other people (never preaching to them) and reading a diverse selection of texts on the topic (some of which were WAY out there with figures and supposed facts, claiming science was on their side )... And I have fashioned my system accordingly...

What I would like is simply for peple to share and discuss what appraches they use to deal with soilds etc in their system...

I personally have always simply pumped my water straight from my sump, to the GB, then to the FT, which in turn flushes the solids into the sump, from which point they find their way to the GB's I once installed a small biofilter of sorts to trap solids and reduce the flow of solids to the GB's... and landed up having to clean it out once a week... great food for the plants in the garden, but a stinky job! Which got me wondering why the heck I was doing this! so out came the biofilter and the water went straight to the GB's... but that was not the end of it - It was roughly then that I read about people having earthworms in their system, which broke the solids down and kept the beds clan and functioning.. so I gave it a go, added worms, and have never looked back! My beds are fed water which contain the solids from the FT, and are yet to break down, or cause toxic conditions which kill my fish... SO for me, its flood and drain (with earthworms) and it works fine..

However, other people use systems which remove solids
I would like to hear about their systems, and reasons (and mechanisms) for removing solids.. curious as to what happens to the solids too I have a friend who wants to harvest some of his solids to use it as food for black soldier flies... which is his reason for wanting to remove the solids, but is yet to put anything into his system to the the job (poor fella works roughly 6 out of 7 days so has limited time)

SOOOO, how do you do it, why do you do it, what happens to the removed solids/nutrients?

I have some beds that have been running for 2 years withour worms, and were starting to get pretty badly blocked up.

I added worms, and now they flow just as good as the rest of the wormy beds.

I love the simplicity of CHIFT to Grow bed to PIST method. Solids go directly from fish tank to grow bed without getting blended up by the pump. This seems to allow the grow bed to catch the solids more effectively and there is much less fine suspended solids making it through the rest of my system now. Anyway, Plenty of grow beds for the amount of fish and some worms in all grow beds to keep things clear. No daily, twice weekly, or weekly filter cleaning anymore and the water is much cleaner than it used to be before I went CHIFT PIST.

I've tinkered with swirl filters and other solids removing methods, yuck!!!!! Ya gotta maintain such things all the time. Now if I were to decide I want to feed fish to to my worm bins or a BSF bin, I think I would try collecting the solids where the water flows into the grow beds. Perhaps try attaching a geo-textile tube to the inlet of the bed and collect solids in the bag while the water can filter down into the bed, then I could take and empty the bags into the BSF bin when they start getting full or as often as one likes.

Anyway, to each their own but I personally like the lower maintenance option of more gravel beds and not having to clean any sort of filters all the time.

I don't really have much scientific evidence but based on reading here for a couple years now and a few of my own experiments, I think the rules of thumb most often given here are good and worth while for a low maintenance system.
1 3 kg of fish per 50-100 liters of water max
2 At least 100 liters of gravel for that 3 kg of fish
4 Twice as much grow bed as fish tank-though it means a sump is needed (this might not be needed for bio-filter but it does help with solids)
5 Pump the volume of the fish tank through the filtration each hour
6 Add air anyway even if the water gets enough aeration

If systems get designed with far more fish tank/stocking of fish and way less flood and drain media bed, then solids removal or needing to clean out the beds may start to become necessary. I prefer to add more gravel instead of cleaning out solids.

I have swirl filters but they are more for collecting solids for the dirt garden or for adding to compost tea. A lot of the solids in my system are aglae that is due to the surface area of the pool and not being able to keep the sun off the water. I've been using raised gravel filters that incourage more worm activity. In systems that run normal ratios I don't see it as a need unless you want some solids for the dirt garden. Mineralizing solids in the GB's is a better option.

chift pist here with no solids removal. zillions of worms and the gravel beds are still clean and not clogged and the system is 2 years old. Another bonus of chift pist is you are always pumping clean water, so I have never had to remove the pump in the sump for maintenance

Great topic Aquamad, can people who have worms please post the type of worms they use and whether they have tried any others? I am yet to add worms to the school system and being in the transistion between winter and summer crops at the moment it is probably a good time as there is old root material and FT solids to be broken down.

Burnsy, I dumped about 1500 compost worms into each BYAP growbed... mainly because that was the number in each package delivered by the "worm man"...

Any idea what type they were, I believe there are a few? I take it they are doing well and reproducing?

As far as I know.... "Tigers".... and yep reproducing just fine... as evidenced when I remove any plants by the number of "small" worms in the root balls...

As far as the recent clamour concerning "solids removal".... and suggested utilisation of any sludge/nutrient outside of an AP system....

It raises the question of possible nutrient disposal and/or run-off issues...

While it might not be a problem utilising removed solids in a worm bed, or on a garden/satellite pots etc...

Indiscriminant dumping could/would lead to possible ire and legislation by local authorities...

IMO... the idea both negates some of the basic benefits of aquaponics... and potentially compromises the ability of families/individuals to grow food in backyard aquaponic systems due to local council or other regulatory bodies becoming involved/legislating...

Such issues are a major problem to both the aquaculture and hydroponic industries... and have attracted strict licencing and regulatory practises for disposal of "nutrients"

agreed rupe.

my worms are red, unsure of the brand name

put about 10 in each growbed, now there are countless. they are thriving

We put about 20 worms into our system awhile back and when we added our second grow bed we transferred the grow media into the new bed. I reckon there where 200-300 worms and they are big fatties. I cant believe and am amazed at the growth in worm population and size.

Yea theres thousands in my system to dont know the name but theres a point at each end if that helps

The worms I got for composting were Eisendia Fetida and Lumbricus rubellus.

Chances are any worms sold for composting or worm bins will be appropriate for grow beds.

I don't remove solids from my systems, except for the large floating raft system where the larger solid matter is broken down outside of the main water flow. If you're having troubles with solid build up in your beds then you have too many fish, or preferably not enough beds and as such plants.

One of the biggest input expenses for a system is fish feed, one of the biggest outputs from a system are the plant crops. By my way of thinking you're better keeping the fish stocking levels lower and making complete use of the feed going into the system, as well as the wastes from the fish. If you're chasing high stocking levels of fish, then to push your levels higher you will need to remove solids, and this brings about complications, inefficiencies and more work.

For my money I'd go with less fish and no solids removals every time. I know that some people love to have lots of fish, but I'm happier to go with a simpler balance.

I found that worms populated my beds without adding them, but now a days we add them to beds when starting systems where ever possible.