Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

When I had my system running I had 600 litres of growbed volume and 800 litres of sump. There were times during summer where my pump would only be partially submerged due to all growbeds being almost full at the same time and some evaporation.

I would have to regularly (weekly) top up my water. Bigger is better with a sump.

The worry about sump levels lessons greatly if you run constant flood. Then only topups due to evaporation are needed. My systems all run CF and I have float valves in the sumps connected to the town supply so they automatically top up. The small amounts needed for constant when needed topups will not hurt using chlorinated water

That is not fair skeggley as Bullwinkle has not said a word here yet. After he does you can get him good.

Okay what if i just leave the ibc FT Where it is and dig it down into the ground all the way so a 1 metre hole and then just have all the GB's on bell syphon's and leave them where i was going and have them drain into the ibc n get rid of the sump all together ?? let me know what you guys think cheers

Without a sump you will have to consider the water level variation/fluctuation in your fish tank when running flood and drain (siphons).

ok so say the tanks 600 litre how many fish would that be approx

Finally Got The Hole Dug

And Here's Some More photo's

Few More...

Have you had some rain or are you wetting down the fence as a precaution?

Yes Had Some Rain What Do you think of the setup so far

Looking quite neat. The old billboards come in handy then.

Now I want an icecream...

Running constant flood rather than flood and drain will possibly make your life easier. I am setting up mine without the two small drainage holes in the standpipe so that my beds stay full rather than overflowing the FT. But I have 1000L bed, and several hundred litres of water would make my backyard a little damp to say the least, so I'm taking a small risk to avoid a big catastrophe I figure. I don't have the room in the space I'm using for an appropriate sized sump so it's a compromise. It might work for you too? More room for growbeds in any event, which means more fish [WINKING FACE]


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yes i was thinking of doing that myself but with the two holes a guy on facebook has a similar set up oh btw if you have facebook i can tag ya let me know

For my drain I'm going to have a 20 or a 25mm stand pipe with a 100mm gravel guard in the 20 or 25mm stand pipe I will have 2 small holes in the bottom of the stand pipe and then have the pump on a timer so every hour the pump comes on for 15 minutes then the top if the stand pipe will act as a over flow and when the timer stops the two holes in the bottom of the stand pipe will allow the grow bed to drain so the beds will have a 45 minute drain time