Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I would like you to help me in my Aquaponics system design
I am new in Aquaponics system but i have little background details & Video from Backyard Aquaponics.

My Aquaponics system will start by below Equipment's:

6 Numbers of fish tanks each one 264gallon
So. i need your help for design

How many gallon for sump tank?
How many foot for grow bed need?
How many gallon for bio filter need?
Water pump capacity?
Air pump capacity?
How to connect all?
any Requirement need?

Thanks

Hi Qtiger, welcome to the forum

Not really enough information to help you out yet. Systems can be built with or without sumps and sometimes the layout depends on where you're placing the system . CHIFT PIST which stands for Constant Height in Fish Tank, Pump in Sump Tank is a good type of system to build but having the pump in the Fish Tank and no sump works also. You'll also want to think about whether you'll have siphons in the grow beds or not - this affects the size of the sump. Running "Constant Flood" without siphons would be another option so you should probably research that as well. I think a good place to start getting some information would be The IBC of Aquaponics which is free and you can download a PDF copy here - http://ibcofaquaponics.com/.

There are some examples of system diagrams in this thread - http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=5311&hilit=system+diagrams

Hello Qtiger,

another angle in design is to determine what you hope to achieve, what you want to grow and for what reason eg. veggies for how many people?

Pete.

Hi Mr. scotty

Thank you very much for your Supporting & Full Helping
i want know for 264gallon Tank how many space of grow bed?
and how many pound fish can i keep on fish tank?

Thank you very much & Best Regards.

Hi Mr. Petesake

Thank you very much for your replay
I hope to achieve fish & Vegetable Organic product
for my Family Like Lettuce, tomato, cucumber pepper, & Strawberry

Thanks & Best Regards

First post here is probably what you want - http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=6646

Mr. scotty

Thank you very much that is really what I need.

Unless you are using media type grow beds you'll also need some sort of solids filter/s which should come before the biofilter. One setup would use a Radial Flow Filter for coarse filtration and a Static Upflow Filter for suspended solids. For the biofilter you could use a Moving Bed Biofilter (MBBF also called a Moving Bed Bio-Reactor or MBBR). What you have drawn so far is a Recirculating Aquaculture System (RAS) since it has no plant component.

What purpose do the siphons on the fish tanks have? We sometimes use siphons on the grow beds but it doesn't look like you really need them on the fish tanks.

The fish and food make their water dirty so you need to replace or clean it in a container that will catch and break down the waste thereby returning clean water to the fish tank.

Pete.

I think in the diagram the siphons ARE in grow beds that sit on top of the fish tanks. It looks like the brown fish tank tops with slightly raised sides objects are meant to represent grow beds. So the flow is...

Sump Tank pumps to Biofilter
Biofilter drains to Grow Beds
Grow Beds siphon to Fish Tanks
Fish Tanks overflow to Sump Tank

Perhaps the grow beds would suffice for biofilter as well? If so...

Sump Tank pumps to Grow Beds
Grow Beds siphon to Fish Tanks
Fish Tanks overflow to Sump Tank

Another consideration is that you could plumb things like that with all 6 grow beds and all 6 fish tanks plumbed tother, but there is merit in having a plan to isolate a tank or two and perhaps running some grow beds independently as well. You could plumb things up both ways with valves to isolate a section. It is probably drawn that way for convenience, but I think the fish tank drains would be better done to a drainage manifold kind of like the water distribution into the grow beds, but reverse. Rather than overflow one fish tank into another and finally to the sump, each fish tank draining into a drain pipe going to the sump would help keep fish tanks cleaner rather than one tank dumping trash into another and another.

If you can work it so you don't run your solids through the pump before they get to a media bed filter or some other solids filtration, they might be easier to filter as larger chunks rather than finer particles after being whipped through the pump. Fish tank SLO draining into media grow beds which drain into a sump which pumps back to fish tank has something that just seems so almost perfect about it -- if it is feasible within your layout, etc.

Something else to consider is to convert one or more of those fish tanks into 2 more grow beds each. Assuming you are using split IBC's for grow beds and full IBC's for fish tanks... Converting 1 of the fish tanks into 2 more grow beds would give you 5 fish tanks and 8 grow beds: 1.6 split IBC grow beds per fish tank. Converting 2 would give you 4 fish tanks and 10 grow beds: 2.5 split IBC grow beds per fish tank.

What are you considering for fish and what are you considering planting?

--
Sam

Thanks Sam, don't know how I missed those

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Qtiger, either you have enough filtration in the grow beds for the fish in the tanks or you don't. If you don't you will need the biofiltration you show and likely some additional solids filtration before the biofiltration. Without knowing the volume of the dampened media grow beds and the number of fish you have I can't say if you have enough biofiltration to filter all the fish waste. You should be able to figure how much grow bed media based on the link I gave you earlier .

Dears. Mr. scotty435, Mr.Petesake & Mr. nosliwmas

Thanks all for kindly replay and supporting
Let me attached the updating Design as per your Advice

Best Regards

Looks good . A Radial Flow Filter would remove solids a bit better than a Swirl Filter.

You have the options Sam (Nosliwmas) mentioned and you could also process the solids from the swirl filter/radial flow filter using a Mineralizer (to get some of the nutrients back into the system). Basically just aerate the solids and bacteria will break them down. Then filter what's left to get any dissolved nutrients so that they can be returned to the system.