Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Version 2.0


The original AL was just not pulling anything from the bottom and with all the uprights, messing with the rotational aspect.



Silkies are hatching, she has 8 of them in there somewhere.

Adam

Hmm that looks like AP work... But it doesn't sound like AP work... Bottom drain? Must not be a fish tank? I do like the surface skimming being included (although it would probably suck out a lot of food that would go to waste...) But what is this with a bottom drain?

BTW, awesome hatching chickies the old fashion way... I want to eventually build a second coop so I can keep a rooster and meat birds separate from the rest of my girls so I can control who gets crossed with what, but that has taken a lower priority than other projects...some day when I run out of other things I need to build...

Using an IBC tank to get things rolling again. I saw some video where someone used an IBC and had no issues with SLO, punching holes, adding bulkhead, etc.

With the surface skimming, I can quickly add a small piece of PVC into the drain to get above the water level so all food has a chance to be eaten. If I forget to remove, it will not greatly impact my flows since it is all be fed by gravity until it reaches the sump and then pumped back.

Drain 1.0 was AWESOME for surface debris, but sucked for pulling anything off the bottom.

Picture above: 2.0 pulls great from the bottom, but not from surface.

2.5 gives me the ability to just skim the surface. Guess I think of it like a siphon. The water rushing by from bottom drain pulls from the top for it is not always submerged and draining........?

Looking @ a culture tank so I can do it right, but that is so more permanent solution and house is still for sale.

The math for my vertical manifold puts my overall tank volume about 15 gallons shy of where I want it to be. Think I'm going to enlarge the holes 1/32 bigger to see if I can get there. But I am up and cycling (pulling water from old system to help seed).

Started clean up of old system, there will not be any pictures of that disaster. Let's just say, DWC from here on out.

I have not completed Ryan's school yet, BUT, I think I have it nailed down to 240 square ft of grow beds with 60 fish. That puts them @ roughly 1.7 lbs and only using .25lb/gal (next home is going to have a HUGE feature to house all of my wife's Koi. If not, then bring on the Tilapia!

Not enough time in the day for me right now.

Adam

Adam,in Ryan's course he shows how he uses the flat plates both in the RFS and fish tanks,you can use the same ideal for the bottom of your slo,it has the effective of accelerating the water and particles as they get closer to the pipe. Also I think it's a mistake to try to surface skim and remove solids from the bottom with the same slo,you will loose velocity up the slo,your surface skimmer needs to be separate.
Also make sure you have a minimum of 2fps velocity through the slo,this will make sure solids make it out.

This is my attempt to work with materials on hand to limp along until I get to a new place. But I am coming to the realization that more money will need to be spent to make make it something that works the way it was designed and not with a backyard mentality. I just did not want to leave such things behind to probably go to waste by the next owner.

The fish are coming with because my wife says so and I am sure that will be another expense in itself when it comes time to transport to wherever the new location is at......thankfully, I am only @ 30 right now and still manageable. @ 6-10 inches long.

So, going back through wks 2-4, I am having the answers come forward for issue that I'm currently experiencing.

With drain pipe. Flow outputs. overall design. etc. and it is FUN for me right now because I get to see an actual use instead of just learning about something. School is FUN!

Adam

Are you adding a vertical pipe outside the tank to set the water height so it doesn't all flow out in a power outage?

I assume by flat plate they meant like a shower drain... thats what it looks like in the bottom of Adam's picture, just turned sideways, something that would normally be recessed in to the floor for a floor drain.

I'll get pictures of how I got things set up. This was a concern I had (earlier in the thread) where I was afraid of the same thing. Because I have the outlet coming up from the bottom, I can easily adjust the overall height to where the outlet is about 2-2.5" below the waterline in the FT coming into my swirl filter. If the power goes out, I lose upto 46 gallons until the water levels equal out and stop the flow of water.

I did use a shower plate, but it does not give me the desired result. It needs to be truly a center drain and THAT would require me to punch a hole in the bottom of the IBC tank and other plumbing items to address.

I'll get some proper pictures of my current system today for everyone's viewing..... Like I said, I'm going to have a better system than what I originally put into the greenhouse, just not the most optimized (until I move......)


Adam

Just spent the entire afternoon trying to find/round up my horses. Did jot get any of the things accomplished that I had set out to do except score a 10' section of 8" sewer pipe.

Always tomorrow, Lord willing.

Adam.

Particle trap plate - it's a piece that extends out on all sides surrounding the drain and increases the flow along the bottom.

http://paeswater.com/eco-trap.html

So, I have gone through version 3,4 and 5. Final version tomorrow and last. Still have yet to punch a new hole in anything and I'll have a drain for the surface water (but not in the center of the tank and I'll install an emergency overflow with a return back to the sump.

Today was lost to travel and material run and the am tomorrow is harvesting dead standing timber and splitting some wood before I can make the final version.

Ill also take some water readings to see how the cycling is going.

I am then ready to start DWC construction X2 4'x23'x12" with added Dutch buckets and maybe some towers. Then I'll worry about making preparations for a dedicated fish house/filter/mineralization tank so I can decouple during the winter and not have to spend as much/worry about being too cold.

Adam

So, version 3 just ran it with nothing inserted into the outlet. Solids still gathering close to the center but my vertical manifold has to be dialed down b/c otherwise it eventually would overflow the FT

Version 4: (required a swim) : capped off the vertical portion (around 2" remaining) and inserted it back into the outlet so that the collection point was closer to the center (previous versions allowed me to insert into the drain outlet without the dip.

Version 5: Started thinking about what Andreas mentioned about surface water skimmingso I thought I'd take the inlet that tied the existing system to the expansion and see if I could use gravity to tie its output into my swirl filter. I was thinking that if the water level was high enough, and I reduced the pipe that I could overcome the head pressure (using smaller pipe) to achieve flow. I got only as high as the water that was in the tank. Sure there was probably a minute trickle, but nothing of significant output.

Version 6 is going to use gravity from the inlet connection of the existing system (output 9.5gpm) and I am going to use a sweep or a "wye" to tie into the output of the IBC tank at the bottom (output is also about 9.5GPM but 1.6ft/sec) I am going to install a gate valve to restrict the output of the surface skimming (3.6ft/sec to get it around 2.56ft/sec) and hope that I can get closer to the desired 2 ft/sec output overall so I can run my pump wide open (I may have to do my vertical manifold output because I increased the size of the original hole by 3/100". one would think that is not a large increase, but it made a big difference..

I am trying to make use of what is already done and in place because it'll require another trip to Albuquerque to pick up more tanks/barrels if I wanted to start over (and I'll just have to get by until I get the proper equipment for the ideal scenario)

that is my AM update (without any pictures) and we shall see what today brings after the morning timber harvest.

There is still trial/error going (obviously), but it is with a more educated approach on the let's see if this works with some real numbers to base it off of.

Adam

Got to be honest I am loving the way your working through this,you have my respect and I am following this to the end....