Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Thanks Scotty, that was a good explanation.

1. Turn off main pump going to fish tank. Some flow from fish tank would continue feeding SUF's but the reduced flow allows the SUF to drain completely once the RFF pump goes on.
2. Turn on pump to RFF that's connected to the SUF bottom drains
3. Aerate SUF - (at about the same time as the step 2 - water level needs to be below outflow so a bunch of solids don't flow out though)
4. Continue pumping until SUF's are nearly empty then turn main pump back on.
5. Turn off air
6. Turn off pump to RFF and allow solids to settle.

The reservoir tank just holds outflow from the RFF in the volume of the SUF tanks plus some extra until the cycle is done and then the water is fed back into the SUFs using a pump or just a slow gravity feed

You're done - and of course you'd transfer the solids from the RFF to the mineralizer later.

That’s basically the same procedure as I have adopted, I flush mine twice, I open the bottom drain and let it start flowing then turn on the air for 30 secs,plus giving it a push about as well. Then on goes the pump to drain and at the same time I run the hose over the top,plus give it a push about to dislodge the trapped soli from the aeration which pushes solids up through the colum. When this is empty the pump goes off and with the hose I wash across the surface until the media is just covered with water, then the pump goes back on again to empty the barrel once more. When this is complete the hose is of so is the pump and the drain tap is closed, at this point the pump goes back on and I let the system top itself up from the auto top up. Job done for another few days, oh and I dump these solids as it’s otherwise another barrel to let the solids settle out etc etc and I can’t be bothered...lol

I haven’t been on the forum for a while, far to busy hahaha, but I will get some pics done of where Andreas Garden is today.

Looking forward to the pics

I can't even imagine what you've been up to while you are away Andy, because when you are here, holy cow, you show a lot of progress every week. Now we are dying of curiosity buddy!
Brian

Picture time, this year has been tough to many silly little cocks up which disrupted everything, we had Tilapia get into trough 1 and being on my own meant draining and removing the little pests,this after they had destroyed most of the roots, two months later and even with new inlet socks on trough 2 and 3 had a visit,it appears they were in the return pipes which I didn’t flush, as I was sure they wouldn’t be in there.
Hence the pics we have now changed over to Koi,these are 6 months old purchased as fingerlings with some of them now reaching 20cm or more in length, the koi pond is over going a revamp with new filtration ran with a airlift system so soon some of these will have a new home.

The fish house hasn’t changed much, the pump being the main one, the pump I was running was 22,000l for 50 Watts, or so I thought, I bought a watt meter and found it was pulling 195 Watts, so I made the decision about this time to decouple fish from plants. A new pump to run the fish side is only pulling 37watts so it quite a saving.
Greenhouse has lost its bug screen, where we live there is little breeze and the bug screen was reducing this further and with not having a bug issue it was removed, the change in air movment was dramatically improved.
Finally what was the seedling area is now the housing for the DWC sump which consists of 2, 120 litre barrels connected, this houses a pair of pumps,one for the troughs pulling just 7 Watts,the second runs the seedling bench,this comes on for 1 minute every two hours in daylight.

Here is the sump layout for the DWCs, in the first pic you can see the electric float switch which controls water in put from the fish side, as water is used the level drops and the switch comes on controlling a pump in the fish sump which tops up this side. In the closest barrel these are the inlet and outlet, inlet from the fish outlet to the seedling bench.
In the second pic you can see a piece of three inch pipe, return from trough one and two are joined under the ground and inside the barrel there is a two to three inch reducer, a piece of three inch is placed in this and a piece of two inch with a lump of expanded poly is pushed into it, a hole through the middle houses the PH probe for the controller, set up like this it is in direct flow and can go up and down with the level.
The dosing pump tube is also in this housing.
The three return s go into the far barrel the pumps in the other,both barrels are connected.

Top pic is a mix of Iceberg and Green Oak, the iceberg is an experiment on a customer request, we still have to see if they will head up, the first batch which takes 60 days from seed to harvest we’re all eaten or sold buy 30 days so we still don’t know...lol
Second pic is the new bench which is basically the same only made with a metal frame so beat the termites. Underneath is the electrics,blower and PH controller with dosing pump. The container under neath is the diluted HCL acid I use to keep the PH at 6.
Third are my Tomatoe starts,these are Italian plum Tomatoes I want to grow for sauce production,these are destined for my Dutch Buckes system which has still to be revamped.

Last but not least, just a pic or two inside and the last one is a new shade cloth we are trying that works really well but it’s a little on the expensive side by the time you ship it to Thailand.
If anything changes much I will update my page and as the koi pond gets done I will post pics of the airlift and filtration system, the main aim is to keep power down below 40 Watts for 14,000litre pond, the airlift has been built and it’s just a case of digging holes for the collector and filter barrels.

All looking great

Thanks for the updates DasBoot. As usual you have it going on in spades! I'm curious about a lot of things I'm seeing and reading here. First the fish? Those sneaky little bastards... Those pipes are buried correct? How the heck do you get them out of there? Could you use something like Nhibbo's avatar hahaha
Are you temporarily off the edible fish part of your setup until the Koi pond is cleaned and ready?
Okay haha I had to dig back through all the invaluable aquaponics information to relocate this little bit of socioeconomic importance "... we had Tilapia get into trough 1 and being on my own meant..." You don't mean your better half I hope?
Come on Andy spill.
Just teasing. Have a great day buddy.
Brian

I'm very impressed with the work your doing, especially the power consumption and your layouts which were always good look like they are better organized. Are you running the trough pump just a part of the time? What are your turnover goals for the pond and troughs?

Hi Brian, yes the returns were buried, to be honest I don’t know how they got in,the only thing I didn’t flush were the returns, which was as simple as just pulling the stand pipes and letting it flow. I lost so much time and produce from them, things just happened at the same time, no roots + 100%, so they couldn’t recover and also not having enough new starts to replace them. I also had an attack from Pythium due mainly to the wettest rainy season for 40 years and I got close to chucking in the towel at this point, but a three week total break when a family member came over to stay,which involved lots of drinking and merry making saw back in the greenhouse for a full revamp,which is almost finished and I got to say this is looking the best yet.
The good lady well, she has a problem with drugs, Yabba to be exact and got caught drug driving for which the judge gave her six months for her trouble, she is actually coming out today so we will see what unfolds. Thai prison is not somewhere I would ever want to go, her cell has forty women in it,sleeping on the floor on a mat, poor toilets etc etc.
My daughter is my first priority every thing I do is to ensure her well being so we shall see what the future holds.

Thanks Scotty, the trough pump runs full time as it’s main use is to have a flow past the PH controller, this gives the system stability and iam not sure what would happen if the flow stopped, maybe that’s some7i should check by turning the pump of and seeing what the ph and dosing pump does. I changed the liner in trough one and as an experiment I turned on the air but not the pump and added a good dose of Fe EDDHA at the inlet end, I then observed and timed how the dye moved down the trough, it only took effect fifteen minutes for the colour to get to the other end and roughly an hour to be a similar red throughout.
The little pump I have is rated at 1200lph and although at zero head the long plumbing run means it only delivers about 300 lph per trough but with mixing from the air it seems ok, growth is even throughout and looks good.
Fish tanks are once per hour, with there layout the keep clean and the flows not to strong for the fish although I can control rotation speed without reducing input by the manifold position. Power consumption came down for the water pumps from 195 Watts measured to 44 Watts and with a little more changing about I took a third out of the electric bill, which was pleasing. I built a system here with fish tank and filtration,mbbr, a 7 metre trough and a four pipe NFT type system, 240 plants pulling 105 Watts for water pump and air pumps, with careful planning and equipment selection reasonable power usage is capable.