Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Jen - is it me, or have you made your avatar even spunkier than it was

Hence the reason it's so damn hard to give people definitive answers.. Living systems have to many variables..

you noticed!! I was getting tired of the purple witch look so I got changed to be more festive
Maybe this weekend I'll change to red and green!

probably consuming their own fat
will last until they die of famine
and then a little longer while they decompose

frank

With all this talk about sumps, can you show me a thread diagraming the plumbing layout of the sump to fish tank?
They must be connected since the nutrients are in with the fish, so pumping out of the sump essentially pumps out of the fish tank, but doesn't decrease the volume...

sorry, i some what of a visual guy,

cheers

peter

follow up question,

if I add more sump capacity then i no longer have the 2:1 ratio, so are we then shooting for a 1:1 ratio or there abouts?

I have a 100 gal tank, a 4' x 8' x 10" growbed to be filled with hydroton. Ebb and flood irrigation.

this system would give me about a 1:1 ratio if half the growbeds are filled with media.

Filling the tank half way would yield a 2:1, filling it full would be 1:1

would there then be a need to have a sump?

cheers

peter

Peter,
1:1 would be 100 gal tank and maybe 2 Growbeds with 50 gal each.

Rupert and OBO and the others are saying (to my way of thinking) that if you have a 100 gal tank and want to add a third bed with 50 gal, it would mean that you would need a sump as the 100 gal tank would be almost dry trying to fill 3 50 gal growbeds!!

hygicell is saying (again to my way of thinking) that if you have a pump in the 100 gal tank for each of the growbeds you could time them at different intervals so that one is being filled at a time. In this case, I don't think you would need a sump as only about 20% of the 100 gal tank water would be taken up at all times. Just as well as connecting more and more growbeds with their own pumps. The only problem here that I see is that the ammonia produced by the fish will be a lot more frequently converted between the GB's, unless perhaps if you add more fish.

ebb and flood? do you mean like fill up the growbeds slowly and then drain completely as fast as possible?

You don't count your sump as part of your fish tank when figuring your grow bed to fish tank ratio.

Here is a description of a common way to plumb a system with a sump and only one pump. A CHIFT PIST (constant height in fish tank pump in sump tank) system

You would have your say 1000 l fish tank water surface above the surface of the grow beds it would feed to. Plumb in an overflow that would feed from the fish tank to the grow beds. The grow beds would flood and drain and they would empty into the sump tank where the pump is and the pump would send the water back up to the fish tank, as water is added to the fish tank, it overflows into the grow beds.
Does this help any?

The ratio is meant to relate fish space (and thus in a way relate stocking density or weight of fish or input of feed to the amount of filtration capacity provided by flood and drain grow beds) and filtration. It does not really relate the amount of water in the system to the filtration. The only time it becomes necessary to count your sump tank volume in your ratio is when you are raising large amounts of critters in your sump tank as well as your fish tank. The ratio really is only a rule of thumb method to help people get enough grow bed capacity to support their fish. Otherwise we might be seeing more people trying to support thousands of fish with one barrel of gravel and the few plants that would fit in such or others trying to support thousands of plants with just a few goldfish in an aquarium. It is just a way to give people a starting point with which to create their own balance.

As to the goldfish managing to support plants in a system with no feed input. Just because the human didn't put feed into the system, doesn't mean that nature didn't. Bugs and algae are perfectly viable feed for gold fish. I've heard of people putting a few gold fish into rain barrels to take care of the mosquito problem.

you perfectly understood the principle
with the correction that the 20% would be relative to the water contents of the biggest growbed

that would be simple: an extra growbed = an extra pump, not re dimensioning the head pump (or over dimensioning it in view of later expansion)

ebb and flood are notions not dependent on speed or length of time
in nature it is approximately 6 hrs each for big salt water and fresh water bodies
or it can be limited to once or a few times per year in the case of flooding rivers
or once per hour (or less or more) in AP

frank

I absolutely agree if we come to the basics
which TMHO is two things:
1. feed input.
2. recirculation rate

we seem to agree on feed input being the major factor to determine the amount of plants a system can sustain
surface is relative to that:
tomatoes and cucumbers will need less space than carrots

so let's discuss recirculation rate:
with the same feed input in a small body of water you need to pump less water containing nutrients to the plants or do so less frequently compared to a large body of water as TMHO the nutrients will be less diluted (the total nutrients content stays the same, the ppm changes).

so a larger water body needs a bigger pump
or the same pump on a smaller body of water can assist to the other functions the pump must (ooops, sorry, can ) perform: fast(er) solids removal and aeration

these will contribute to better water for your fish (which doesn't mean one MUST increase density ) it simply means your fish will thrive and their food conversion will be more efficient

all this is nothing more than my personal opinion

frank

yes, very much so,

I was thinking about sectioning off the one grow bed into 2 beds, both about 50 gal, one could be empty until the fish volume was high enough then open up the second overflow

cheers

peter

I am in the process of gathering nutrient data (contents, needs, fish, plants, vegetables etc.) and will try to put them in an excel file for further study
though I believe this to be on topic (accurate ratio calculation) I have started a new thread:
http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum ... =11&t=4645

please help me with adding data

frank

Goldfish can live on their own fat for 18 months!!!!! (this in not when they died, but when I started feeding them again...

well, now i am not so sure about this layout.

the ebb and flood system that I like is this:

a pump pushes water up through the bottom and floods the area up to some point, then the pump turns off and the water goes back to the tank via the same line it came in through. Basically back through the pump.

There is an overflow of course, larger than in the inlet.

But this system returns the water to the same container it came from.

If you supply your grow beds by overflowing your fish tank by pushing water into it from the sump the growbeds will not flood, they will drain as soon as the water enters.

This system could water along the perimeter with distribution lines

or

I guess you could use an auto-siphon but I dont think I like them. from the barrelponics group they seem to require lots of "tinkering" and work great, "once you get them adjusted"

so where am I confused?

peter

This is how my small quarantine system is set up:


and this is the growth:


It is not ideal due to being continuous flow, no flooding and draining - but it does work ok.

I will get around to putting a bigger sump in and converting to flood and drain once I finish the big system