Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I recently built my first system and I have 40 square feet of pee gravel grow bed and approximately 250 gallons of water with 10 pounds of tilapia. I have a 2400 gpm sump pump that dropped directly in the fish tank. I used a t fitting and routed an aerator using my pump. The other side of the t fitting is plumbed into a trashcan that I converted into a swirl filter/ solids removal. The water then is drained into the growbed which in turn is siphoned back to my tank. Any thing I'm doing wrong??? My plants seem to be growing at a rapid rate but do I really need the filter?? Any advice is greatly appreciated... Thanks

EvergreenMAN

Hi EvergreenMAN,

Sounds like your system is functioning well. If it's not broken, dont fix it.

My only advice for you know is to practice patience and dont make any changes - feed your fish and keep an eye on the water parameters.

Welcome to Aquaponics, the hobby that keeps on giving!

The only thing I recommend is, salt your water, if you have not done it already.

Got any pictures of your system?

Is that a typo? Or do you have your own sub-station to power a 144,000 gallons per hour pump?

Solids removal is a good thing - have you set it up with a drain in the bottom so you can easily remove the collected solids? Also you could make yourself a waste mineraliser - basically a bucket with a good airstone supply in the bottom to aerate the sludge - after a few days you have excellent fertiliser - let it stand for a few hours, pour off the liquid back into your AP system and use the solids (mixed with about 10:1 water so you don't burn your plants) out on the garden.

2400gph...lol

I do have a drain on the bottom of the solid removal can... im getting some pretty good chunks in the bucket when in open it.. I was thinking about dropping the growbed into a custom fabricated walkin cooler that I cut down to 4 feet.. just to where I can control the temperature of the growbed media along with the fish.. Im going to use a small heat/cool unit to run this.. do you think that it would help? and what temperature would be ideal for the tilapia and the growbed?

There's a thread on here somewhere that talks about tilapia in a pond with snow around it. But I think they go better a bit warmer.

A 4ft high cool room seems a powrr hungry choice. Are you sure you haven't got a personal substation?
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