Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Starting construction on new C.H.O.P. system. Should I incorporate a swirl filter at the FT discharge? Plans are 250 gallon FT, 200 gallon sump, 200 cu ft GB and room for a few 5' vertical towers and future FRS beds. Fish will be talapia. planning on 1 pump, 1 aerator, with a 12 volt b/u system. Volcanic rock or 3/4-1" river rock for media in GB's, verticals will be a homemade zip using PVC and filter media. Any other suggestions for this AP virgin? Have test kit ordered, am trying to find inexpensive D/O. meter- any suggestions on that as well would be greatly appreciated. Cheers! -Chris

You really don't need to remove solids from your system. Removing solids = removing nutrient for plants.

You're much better off just planning your system around a balance between your fish stocking levels, and your filtration (grow beds) capacity.

The closer to a balance you maintain, the more forgiving and natural you system will be.

Then when something goes wrong, you have some room for error.

If you remove solids as a normal activity, and the power goes out, or you forget to remove your systems solids, you may well find yourself with a few more pounds of rancid fishmeat in your yard than you might otherwise expect.

I wouldn't bother with solids removal.

And you probably dont need the DO metre. If you have plenty of money it might be nice, but otherwise, you might just be better off buying another grow bed

You can never have enough grow bed

don't add one if you can help it... get everything balanced correctly and you should be ok.

in saying that i do have a radial flow filter (more efficient than the swirl) but that is mainly so i can harvest some solids for use on the many dirt gardens in my backyard

Im planning on adding one just because I want to pump to some towers and nft add-ons. Straight GBs I would think you dont need.

A swirl or radial filter would be ok as a primary filter but you will need some finer filtering after that before you run it through NFT. Towers might be more forgiving to solids.

Like what?

Something like brix pads, shadelcoth, brush filter, bioballs etc

RFF's and swirl filters drop out the sandy and large gunky stuff but there is still a massive amount waterborne particles that quickly accumulate in small NFT piping and throught the root zones, suffocation the 02 to the plant and restricting growth.

If I were to use a radial flow and the an outlet of the brix pads, could I then flow to a FRS, and then to my GB's? Or would it be better to plumb them separate coming from the FT? Initially, I'm just having GB's, but am planning on adding FRS at a later date, when it cools off and I can grow leafy veggies. In the 90's here now.