Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Your sump is big enough to handle the water from both beds. The adjustments you do at the beds will just be to get your syphons working right, no need to time them, it would be difficult to time them anyways.
Remember, the pump in the sump controls the flow going to the beds via the FT. The fine tuning can still be done with ball valves at the beds.

Hi Charlie,

Yeah I still don't fully understand how the pump in the sump controls the flow going to the beds via the FT. Does the overflow from the FT go directly into the GB's or back into the sump?

The overflow from the fish tank... via an SLO... goes directly to the grow beds.... which then dump to the sump tank... where the pump returns to the fish tank... which overflows.... etc...

Rupe thanks for the reply.

Do you still pump to the GB's as well as the FT?

The bastardised version... CHOPII..... pumps from the sump to both the grow beds and fish tank at the same time.... with the fish tank overflowing into the sump....

Thus moving the shit out of the fish tank into the sump.... where half of it gets pumped back to the fish tank....

Thanks Rupe,

I now understand and can see why pumping to both would be a disadvantage and I'll just pump to the fish tank only.

Would I be able to use 50mm PVC pipe or would it be too small?


Joe

For two cut IBC grow beds... 50mm should be fine....

Thanks Rupe

+1

Rather than raising the fish tank or digging a hole for the sump, could you not cut a couple of inches off the top of the sump? It'll be a smaller volume, but should still be okay. I notice they've been cut neatly with a horizontal peice at the top, but the horizontal metal is a nice to have, rather than a requirement, right?

Charlie:
Thanks

Boredom:
I like the stability of the cage cut on the horizontal bars and if I cut it down I would need to do a fair bit of work to get it too be able take the weight of the 2 growbeds.

So what I think I'll do is just move the sump 800-900mm to it's left to make room between it and the fish tank and then put 2 - 65mm square tube supports directly on top of the sump to take both growbeds and support them at either end with Besser blocks if needed.

If in fact I do need to raise the fish tank I think it would only need to be one Besser block higher and then it would only be a matter of moving the Goldfish into the sump pumping the FT water into barrels, raise the FT and put everything back again.

Because of the weight in the top GB I would need too remove the plants and clay pebbles and then replant everything back when the GB is down in place. I don't think that would cause any problems and I wonder if it would be a good idea to take a bucket full of cycled clay pebble and put them into the other GB to kick start it off.


Thanks for your input Guys it all helps and is appreciated.



Joe