Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hey what is the ideal spacing between troughs like if i have a 30 feet by 48 feet size greenhouse and my troughs are 4 feet wide how many troughs can i fit in the greenhouse in terms of the spacing between each trough.

In most commercial operations, where they only need access along the length of DWC beds etc just to tend the plants, they usually have a gap of around 600mm (2ft). If you need to run trolleys or carry boxes, crates etc, along the walkways, they would most likely need to be wider.

Hey was hoping a 2ft space between the DWC beds would be wide enough was trying to maximize growing area. My thinking was 4ft wide DWC bed with a 2ft wide space that would give us 5 DWC beds across and we would get 10 DWC beds in the greenhouse. (5) 4ft beds and (5) 2ft spacing =30 ft.

If you haven't thought of this, when the beds are lower to the ground you can have slightly less space between them. Probably won't make much difference but if your greenhouse is a bit tight it might.

Is the greenhouse sidewall high enough that you get any benefit from the last 2 ft walkway? Does the sidewall height restrict the growing height? Consider if you can raise the sidewall height to gain vertical space (assuming that makes sense for you to heat the extra volume). That should give you some additional food for thought.

You might also gain the equivalent of a trough by forming larger troughs although I'm not sure how easy 2 eight foot troughs would be to work on. It would be laid out like this -

4 + 2 + 8 + 2 + 8 + 2 + 4

vs the original

4 + 2 + 4 + 2 + 4 + 2 + 4 + 2 + 4 + 2

keep in mind the size of the rafts you want to use... I made my beds 2ft wide on the outside dimension... then bought my rafts from BeaverPlastics and realized I messed up because they are 2ft wide, so I needed 2ft wide on the inside dimension... it stinks paying good money for those rafts then having to trim them down smaller to make them fit. If you are going the cheaper route and buying styrofoam insulation board type of materials then it might not be as big of a deal since you'll be adding your own holes in, but might still be better to get full use of the materials, so might take some out of your walkways.

I put 2ft walkways in my greenhouse with my beds raised about 3 cinderblocks high to the bottom of them so they are close to my natural height so I'm not bending down to work in the beds... then the 2ft walkways aren't really great once things start growing and hanging over, but it is a tight fit to do anything else in my greenhouse so I'll have to live with it.