Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello, thanks for reading. I'm new to AP and have a 23K gallon pool that I was considering conversion to a rainwater collection cistern. Having stumbled upon AP, now that looks like a preferred option. I have been collecting info from books and forums and have many questions but I will start with one that would be specific to my application.

How do you deal with rain in an outdoor AP system, particularly in a large one such as a pool conversion? Or is it simply a non-issue as long as you have a system for overflow?

Any special concerns with leaves and other debris from trees? I guess the primary concern would be clogging of part of the plumbing system. And cleaning leaves from the pool is a job I'm trying to get away from.

Welcome Electro!

Have you seen the Garden Pool stuff (you probably have)? http://gardenpool.org/ That one is covered and of course it's in AZ so no problems with rain there.

A couple members here have pool systems, hopefully they'll chime in.

Thanks. I looked at that gardenpool page. They have done quite a bit. I am looking at doing something more durable rather than the hoops and plastic wrap, although nothing wrong with it.

Am thinking that the first thing I need to do is build a model of the backyard and do some figuring.

This guy has done some impressive work: http://kilk.com/pond/

I will have to do it incrementally. Sounds like it is best to build beds first, then put the pool on line with plants, then add some fish and more beds as nitrogen processing ability is ramped up.

Throwing this out in case it's helpful. "Nitrogen processing" is done by the bateria, which won't "ramp up" until they have some ammonia to eat. So your cycling won't start unless you add fish or some other ammonia source (pee!). Add an ammonia source as soon as you have some dechlorinated water in there for fastest cycle up time.

Don't know whether to start another thread for a different question, but here it is . . .

I am looking into different bed designs for a backyard system. I want so have some beds in the ground or at ground level if possible. This would involve creating some sort of system to retrieve the water to return it to the pool. One possibility would be to have a sort of buried container or perhaps a buried impermeable material and a sort of sump pump or pipes to retrieve the water. Anyone have any experience with this?

Another thought is keeping the water level in the pool a foot or two below the level of the ground and putting in plumbing to passively direct the water to the pool from 'in ground' beds. For example, have beds around the pool and / or elsewhere in the yard and have the impermeable material direct the water to a pipe with a proper grade to get the water back to the pool and maybe bore holes in the side of the pool for return of the water by these pipes from the ground level beds.

Do you have a photo of the pool and the area around it that you want to put the gb's.

I will post photos. I am also working on drawing a sort of schematic of the backyard showing the pool, fence, house, etc. My back yard is flat with the pool in the middle.

Right now I am trying to figure out what sort of designs are possible or practical for beds. It occurred to me that you could have multiple in-ground beds with liners and drainage to an in-ground sump that is pumped back to the pool.

Imagine what this would do for rainwater collection as well and for water conservation. You could turn your entire (or as much as you wanted to work on) yard into an area that would collect water and would function with reduced net water consumption because you would be returning it to the pool.

One would have to be very careful in design of the system to insure proper grade and drainage.

One of the problems with a large pool conversion seems to be processing the nitrogen if you were to fully stock it. I figure I would need something like 100 large beds if I fully stocked my pool! If you could convert much of your yard and put it in the AP loop then that would:

1) drastically reduce or eliminate the use of city water
2) process all your nitrogen for aquaculture nitrogen
3) collect rain water and return it to your system by adding a huge collection surface (would probably need add'l cistern)
4) eliminate any need for fertilizing.

Since I have never done any of this, is this crazy or is there something practical here?

Note the construction of these so called 'natural pools'.

http://www.totalhabitat.com/p&p.html

They are effectively an AP system with the gardens mostly aquatic and integrated into the shallow sides of the pool with continuous flow through a sump under gravel beneath the planted part. Not too far from what I was describing with adjacent ground level beds. Lots of interesting ideas here.

I find without a cover like this it is just about a full time job keeping leaves and other junk out.This has a solarweave cover and I also have a gutter on it so I can collect the water .With a pool this size a few inches of rain dosen't make much difference.

Thanks.

Do you know of any design for 'in-ground' AP beds? Perhaps something like a non-porous barrier below the bed, leading to a drain to a sump for return of the water.

Re. garden beds for aquaponics . . .

I have about a 40' x 8' area along the curb at the side of my house running north / south that faces east and gets morning sun but is shielded from afternoon sun by a fence. I will be putting bed(s) there and because it is along the street would like to make it look like a regular in-ground bed.

I would prefer to make it part of my yet-to-exist AP system of which my pool (potential for lots of nitrogen) will some day be a part. I can build it up a bit (like a berm) but prefer to use little or no lumber (unless it is along the back) in order for it to look more natural. I want to try tomatoes here among other veggies since they burn up in the Texas heat elsewhere on my property.

What are my options for an in-ground, possibly raised a bit, GP for an AP system?

I am thinking of a carefully graded 'bottom' of the garden in the dirt with a liner of some sort and perhaps a long run of perforated PVC, returning the water to a low point from which I could pump the water back to the pool. I suppose this would have to be a top irrigated design, continuous vs intermittent. Maybe dirt on the top, then a water permeable layer then gravel above and around the PVC pipe.

I have no experience in this. Does this make sense? Perhaps I should build a small bed to experiment with this design before making a major excavation.