Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi Ron, have you made any of those yet? I would be interested to see them and to know how well they work.

Regards, Martin.

TCLynx has.

Ah ok. Is it on her "bought the farm" thread?
I am about halfway through that one.

I think I saw it on one of her older threads. Perhaps it was on her website.

Thanks Ron. I will keep an eye out for it.

Look for the mesh they use for dehydrator trays.
I'm not buying more of it at this point. I have a chop saw now so it will be easier for me to get 4" or 6" pipes and just cut slits part way through instead of having to buy a large roll of the plastic mesh that I then have to cut then grind down the edges to make smooth and then stitch together with zip ties.

Thanks TC. Good to know.

Here are some pictures of the latest version. I'm not really happy with the results so I'm thinking of changing thing around. The basic problem is the low output from the submersible pump due to high head.

I then tried to add some airlift with an air stone thinking I could get more capacity to the gb.

So now I'm thinking of changing out the gb stand pipes in favor of a thru the wall SLO. That would save some head for the pump. Then have everything drain to a sump that is higher/closer to the height of the fish tank. Hopefully with less head to pump against I could get more flow thru.

Pie in the sky idea is some how use the empty beds as a sump. But they are at the same level as the growbeds. How to get water from the gb raised back up to the empty beds? Maybe some kind of air lift system? The grow beds would drain to a small container then water airlifted to the sump maybe some 4 inches? But that method would take alot of air and then how many and what size vertical tubes to use?

Any ideas?

Another thought would be to plumb the grow beds and the empty bed (aka sump) together at their lowest points. Then place the pump in the empty bed. In theory the pump would draw water from the grow beds and the empty tank. It then would pump water up only about 12 inches hopefully getting more flow thru.

Comments?

If everything is constant flood, then if all the grow beds are the same height, you plumb them together through the drains and fill them all up to the desired height plus a little then put the pump in the empty one and the head is only from the level of the water in the beds up to how ever high it has to pump to get the water into the fish tank.

Thanks TCL!

I'll try your suggestion first.

Just so I understand correctly. My 5 gravel beds would overflow at a constant height determined by the stand pipe. All the 6 lower drains must be connected. I remove the stand pipe in the one empty bed and put the pump in that one. So the pump then "sucks" water out of the empty tank and pumps it up a couple of inches to my fish tank. The fish tank then overflows to the gravel beds.

HMMMM! maybe I could put a small floating raft in the empty tank as well?

Also put in a livestock float valve in that tank for adding topping off water?

Well I got things changed around and I'm getting about 80 gallons per hour change over on the 50 gallon fish tank. Started washing media, what a pain in the back. I'll have to figure out how to raise up the washing station.

We have a couple of tomato plants in soil that are going good. So I'm wondering if I could just snip off a growing tip and put right into the growbed right away OR do I have to put it in soil first to start new roots.

Anyone transplanted tips before? Which way works the best?

I found that I get results when I put the tips in a seed propagator. When I put them direct in the growbed, they rot before taking root. Even in the seed propagator, only about half of mine actually take root. I wish I had a willow tree to make my own rooting hormone from...