Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi everyone, I've been lurking and learning on here for a while.
Thank you for all the good advice/tips.
I'm planning on starting my first indoor system at work and was wondering if you could take a moment to have a look at my ideas before I start spending company money.
My fish reservoir will be a 520 gal square plastic tub that will be sitting on the floor.
I'll have a 1100 gal/hr pond pump (With diverter) with a 1" hose out that will run to my first DWC tub.

Grow table plan.
I have a 8x4x8 grow tent with a Kind K5 XL 750 LED (light foot print 4x4). The light will be mounted on a automatic moving rail system so it will double my grow area.
I'll have two 4x4x1' tray inside the tent. First tray I'd like to grow leafy greens on a floating raft system. I'll have 4 air stones in that tray for added oxygen. DWC tray (Sitting 5" higher then tub #2) will then flow out and fill a Flood/Drain system where I'd like to try all sorts of things. Tray #2 will be filled with hydroton and empty back to the fish tank through a 1" bell syphon.
I'd really like your expert opinions on this set up to see if I'm missing anything.
Thank you!

Thank you for your comments.
I just got the system up and running yesterday. It has a 8 min cycle with 3 min to drain my F/D grow bed. Here are some pictures.

Looks good.

I missed your thread earlier or I would have suggested making the media bed the higher of the two with it's outfall going to the DWC. Try it out the way you have it, the agitation from the air may be enough to prevent suspended solids coating the roots. There is a good chance it will work as planned and the roots won't die. If you see this issue, the best solution is to reverse the order and have the media bed first in line. Mineralization would happen in the media bed this way.

Another option would be to add filtration such as a Static Upflow Filter but then you miss out on some of the nutrients unless you also add a mineralizer or put some of the solids back into the media bed.

A third option is to cycle the FT through the media bed more often than the DWC so most of the solids are filtered before they reach the DWC.

Hopefully none of this will be needed, the information on what to do if it's not is here if you need it

Thank you for your input. Crap!! Now that I think about it, that's right. I hope the air stones will keep the solids suspended enough to make their way to the grow bed. I have 2 x 3/4" outputs off the DWC tray that lead into the grow bed. (thought's please) I could 90 deg down one spout to the bottom of the DWC tray to help move solids from off the bottom? I'll play with it and see how it goes.
Thank you again, this forum has been very helpful.

Angling down one of the pipes probably won't help. Suspended solids are those that don't settle easily so they won't be on the bottom. Media beds aren't really that good at removing them either but seem to be good enough for most people with a media bed DWC combo. The easiest thing to do is probably the last option I gave you - essentially cycling the water through the media bed several times as a filter, then pumping to the DWC. It does almost the same thing as putting the media bed higher. Some suspended solids might get through but shouldn't be too bad. Easiest way to do this would be using two pumps (make sure the grow bed outflow can handle the combined flow).