Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Slight change to the original, a compromise if you like, between the missus and myself.
This will be constant flood during the day and timed by night, I have to consider making it as simple as possible as I am away most the time.

Blue pipes 3 inch.
Orange 2 inch.
2 inch drains to the ST.

The fish tank common outlet (from SLOs) to the GBs's caused me to dither a bit.

Any criticisms are welcome.

Sounds interesting. Nice layout. Have you tried switching between Constant Flood and Timed Flood and Drain before, with this sort of system? How are you planning on handling the water to the sump. I can think of a couple of ways that would work if you need suggestions. Looking forward to seeing this built

Hello Scotty,
No experience with any AP stuff before.

I'm going to follow Das Boot's, method of constant flood by day and timed F+D by night, high temperatures are a major concern with regards to the fish (mind Nov/Dec saw unusually cold temps here) hence the big volume of water, the four sumps will be pretty much buried.
I know the rule of thumb is about 30cm of GB depth but when I cut the IBC's I'll do it in half, my logic being again more volume, more stable water temps.

Water to the sump will be through a gravel guard and 2" drain, nothing too fancy. Please expand if you know of something I should try.

I was dithering about one or two common lines to the GB from the FT, as you can see (unless advised otherwise) I have opted for two.

My wife is also looking forward to it being built, with the hundreds of pipes and fittings bought and lying around in the garage, she rolls her eyes at the expense! haha

I suspect all will be forgiven when the food starts rolling in!!

I think what you have diagrammed out will work. I might have put a header for the flow to the grow beds at the front between the grow beds and fish tanks (probably would have just extended the line the tanks drain into for this purpose). Then I would have done 4 lines parallel to each other, one for each line of grow beds. Six of one a half dozen of the other, I really don't think it will matter but it saves a little pipe and a couple of elbows.

As far as the sumps, you just need to be sure they hold as much water as can drain from the grow beds after the pump stops for the drain cycle. Usually that's figured by taking the volume of media your flooding and multiplying by 0.4 (basically your figuring 40% - the spaces between the rocks will be holding water). I think you're safe with the sumps you have but if you use that number you can verify it. FYI - there's some fudge factor built in - A portion of the water never drains out of the grow beds and you can always move the drain hole higher up on the standpipe so no big deal even if you're a bit shy on Sump space.

Cheers

Thanks Scotty,
I was thinking of the 40% rule, I intend to buy builder's gravel of the 19mm or so size. I know washing it is a good idea before introducing it to the GBs. I presume there'll be a slight effect to things like pH, I can easily charge the system up with 50% rain water which is collected in traditional water containers. (Ong yais). Tap water here is just over 8 on the scale.

Ramadan and my incompetent personnel dept means I have to go back to work two weeks early as all the immigration offices in KSA will be shut so more frustrations!

Make sure the gravel doesn't contain any limestone, otherwise this will push the pH up and you'll have difficulties. On the sump volume I have a small correction -

There are ways to keep the water in the pipes if you don't want it draining back into the sump.

Hope you get the system operating sonner as opposed to later

Cheers

Of course, I want it running 'yesterday' as the saying goes Scotty.

My wife and her family also want to see what the kerfuffle is all about, the shed I've had built is larger than many people's homes around here.

And i expect built to a much higher standard..... Rainy season is kicking in up here,some pretty impressive thunderstorms on an evening,hope progress is going well..

It's ticking along thanks Das Boot, only 3.5 days of freedom left!
The rain has started here too.

Impressive,puts my bamboo and shade cloth to shame.......

Thanks Das Boot, I'm lucky to have a bit of land to use and thought I'd get the build done in a 'oner'.
It'll have some shade cloth on the sides, at least until I can get some trees growing on the outside to cut off the strong sun.

Here's the rain again!

Looking forward to seeing it come together mate!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Nice plan. I can't wait to see it in action.

Unfortunately I've been roped into a longer trip, it's going to be 11 weeks away. (think of the money - I'm told)
What price to be at home with my wife, 5 month old daughter and my lovely garden?

Anyhow - solar pumps, I've been making some enquiries and my experiences so far with with several online solar pump/ power companies leads me to believe all their profits are in the batteries/inverters, for as soon as I say I don't want batteries (timed flood and drain by the mains power at night) all correspondence stops.

The search continues!

That's me back for a short while.

Here's some pics of 2 days of work, started the IBC cutting, maybe I'll get that bit finished tomorrow.
I've only 9 days left before I'm back to Saudi so I'm debating whether to employ some help with the digging for the 4 sumps I need, the exercise would do me good of course!

Doesn't the corn in the background look lovely? There's about 2 hectares worth, I'm sure the wife is hoping it will pay for my expensive hobby!