Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I've been given some stuff for a DWC system, it's kind of 3rd hand and came without any info and I'm not 100% sure I know what it's for. Can you help me out? Many thanks!

Hi Denise, pic 1 looks like what I clean my wood burning stove chimney with. I'd be wary about putting anything metal in my system until I knew for sure it wouldn't do any damage, poisoning my system etc......

Pic 2 is called (here in France) Chinese mat and is used in bio filtration..... Pic 3 and 5 look like home made bio media and provided they are just plastic I don't see any problem....

Pic 4 didn't load for me..........

Pic 4 just loaded and looks like the sponge I had in a bio filter I bought some years ago....

Thanks very much for that. So all biofiltration except what could be cleaning brushes.

Would I use all these biofilters at the same time? is it a case of more is better with biofilter?

The system came with a 780L fish tank, 4 x 150L grow beds, and a 70L sump. Without any other tanks in the system I'm assuming the filtration will go in the sump, is that right?

What about mechanical filtration? In a small system like this (which will be used for demo purposes) where would I put that and can you offer any suggestions as to what to use?

It all looks like filtration equipment, including the brushes, for aquaculture or deep water culture.
Is it all needed in an AP system? Provided your grow beds are sized correctly to your fish load, no it's not needed.
Most of those components are just providing surface area for the bacteria and the media in the gbs should provide that.
If you are planning to go down the dwc road then all that equipment would go before the gbs as bio and mechanical filtration, you would also need to be able to isolate it for regular cleaning.
If you are new to AP then start simple, keep it easy, use media in the beds and build from there.

Hi Skeg, thanks for your reply.

its for DWC. I've got a media bed system at home and have now inherited this DWC to set up and run. The pics are all of stuff that's come with the DWC system.

I'll be putting the pump in the sump, water pumps to grow beds, then flows back to fish tank via gravity and back into sump.

I was thinking of using the green strapping and black pipe sections for biofilter and the blue mesh stuff for mechanical filtration.

The sump is divided into 4 sections (you can sort of see this in pic 5) and I had thought about putting the pump in one section and filtration in the other 3.


If I use the blue mesh for mechanical filtration, I would need to clean that regularly, but with the biofilter materials, I'm assuming I don't clean them as often?

Hello Denise,

Look up Friendly Aquaponics in Hawaii. They have massive amounts of knowhow and free information on DWC systems. From their e-mail newsletters you can actually learn all you need to know about DWC aquaponics.

They do not use any kind of filter in their systems.
Basically the surface area of all you tanks combined with the surface area of the roots of your plant (which is much more than that of the tanks) is enough for your bacteria to grow on. Actually, the surface of the roots of the plants is the most efficient place to have the bacterial colonies.

An important note is that this only applies when you have a low fish stocking ratio. If you want to have a lot of fishes you will need filtration. It's also important that you feed the fish a feed which results in fine particle feces.
Some experimentation may be required before you find the right kind.

Happy growing!

Hey Jens, thank you for the info, I'll check out the guys at Friendly Aquaponics.

This is just going to be a demo system for display so we're not planning on a high stocking density at all. I'll experiment with the filters and the feed anyway to gain a bit more knowledge.

Have a great weekend!

Hi Denise,

You can definitely run the filters for experience!

The brushes and everything else you have are all media for the bacteria to live on, plus slow down the flow of the water for particles to settle on the bottom.

Happy building!

Agree with Skeg. Knows what he's talking about in regards to what you have there.