Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Signed up the other day and thought i would start to share a little information about my system. After spending about a year deciding if i should try an aquaponics project i decided to bite the bullet and give it a go. I have a good size garden, but am under strict instructions that what ever i don must not take anything away from the garden. With this in mind i decide to use an area to the side of the house to locate the tank(s) and filtration. The first grow bed will be on the side of the decking at the back of the house, with two more planned running along the front of the decking.
Tank + Filter Site

Back of House

Growbed 1 Location

Growbed 2+3 Location

The parts started to arrive Friday, i was let down by one of the suppliers who forgot to dispatch my order, but here are a few pics of the components.

Tank with lid and duckweed trays

Tank with Level control Box

Some of the plumbing parts


Other bits i have include a 75 lpm air pump, 50l K1 media, 8 x 15cm by 50cm brush filters, crushed oyster shells 7m of 2" pressure pipe.
The order that wasn't shipped is for 2x220l twin bung drums, and one 120l clamp top barrel to act as a swirl and moving bed bio filter and sump.
the grow beds will be added to the system after it has cycled, i would imagine to be doing that in spring.

Not really much building work done so far, but I've made the outlet for the swirl filter, and started work on the level control box.

Swirl filter outlet, this is the bottom of a 50l drum i had spare from a previous project, i cut the bottom off about 5-6cm from the base, this was done with an electric jig saw, then sanded smooth. I cut a 76mm hole in to take a uni seal for my 2" pressure pipe, which was pushed through.the 90degree elbow is glued, however the straight union isn't so once in the filter the outlet can be removed for maintenance.

Swirl Filter Outlet from the top

And from the bottom


The Level control box will live inside the Main tank, for it to fit snugly in the corner i had to remove part of the reinforcement from the corner of the level control box. This was done with a Stanley knife and neatened up a little with a Dremel and sand paper. Then the inlet and outlet holes were drilled, again at 76mm, the bottom was reinforced in a hexagon pattern, i needed to remove this to ensure a good seal, so again this was done with a knife, Dermel and sandpaper.

Modified Corner

Modified Bottom

Unit being held in place

Looking forward to seeing more of your progress over time Edward, looks interesting...

Beautiful house and area your in. Bit more lush looking than my town thats for sure...


Good luck with your system

Just thought I'd share a really basic sketch up model of the system, the tank will be placed further away from the filters, there will be enough space between the tank and the filters to allow one additional tank and room to perform maintenance between the tanks.

This is one tank flowing into 220l swirl filter, then an 85l brush filter, finally a combination 220l bio filter and sump. I'm starting to worry that the sump will not be big enough, i can perform top ups quite regularly, but I'm not sure how much water will be lost to the plants and evaporation on a daily basis.

The parts for the brush filter have arrived.


you can see it woeing a little when filled with water here.


I'll use the stand to brace the sides a little so there should not be too much stress on the sides.

Recently i started to get worried about combining my sump and bio filter into one 220l Green drum. My initial design involved having the pump at the bottom, the K1 media would be in a 120l blue barrel inside the 220l barrel. This provided me with a way of keeping the media contained, and the pump free from all the air being pumped into the MBF.
My worry came from the fact that when a system loses water, which may be due to leakage, evaporation or plant consumption, it will always affect the level in the sump first. With the biological medial being at the top of the sump, this would mean that i have a good chance of killing off the system's bacteria if anything goes wrong. To me this seemed like a risk that i did not need to take.
This has made me change the design a little, and now i will be working with three barrels, a swirl filter, a bio filter and a sump. I've almost hit my budget for the project though, which means that buying the sump will have to go on hold for a short while. In an effort to avoid starting to cycle the system any later i have come up with a cunning plan, or at least i hope it is.
I have two 220l barrels, so i'll use what i have as a swirl filter and sump, with the flow under gravity being Tank > swirl > Brush > sump. Then i'll prepare the 120l barrel exactly as designed, but place it in the tank and start cycling with it there. Then when i have some additional funding (september) I'll get the barrel, plumb it in so it has just an overflow into the sump, then split the pump output between the tank and the new barrel, and move the 120l out of the tank and into its new home.
If that made any sence, and/or any one is still reading, here is a quick sketchup of how the design is looking at the moment, the brush filter will be standing on top of the sump.



Gravity Fed : [Tank > Swirl > Brush > Sump] [Biofilter > Sump]
Pumped: [Sump > Tank] [Sump > Bio Filter]

You're in the UK, just down the road from me. Given the rain here this is the least of your worries considering that you said you'd be placing your growbeds outside. I wouldn't worry about the sump unless your worry is about it overflowing.

I'm not sure about the placement of your beds and tank as it's not quite clear from your photos exactly where these will be located. But if you need a minimum height on the sump, then use a float tap (the plastic kind you normally find in toilet cisterns) to ensure you always have the necessary level. This could be attached to a rainwater butt which would act as your backup water storage.

The float tap sounds like a good idea, and is something i will consider adding to the system once it is up and running. I should be starting to clear the site either this weekend or next, I'm just waiting on a builder friend to supply me with the reinforcing for the concrete base and then i can really make a start on things.
In the mean time i am putting the system together inside, but not gluing any fittings, getting hold of the uniseals is a real problem for me, and one of the biggest things i have holding me back. I just can't get an email back from the global distrubutor.
The sump over flowing is a worry to me, it looks like i will have a spare plastic barrel, if i can locate that some where i may set the sump to overflow into it, 220l should provide me with enough of a buffer against heavy rain, but i think that is a bridge i will cross when i come to it.

Well if you ever want a decent weather forecast for Farnham you could try http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstat ... ENGLAND143
If you really want you could figure out your rainfall intake and evaporation losses based on the size of your growbeds. Or failing that don't bother and ensure that your designed layout can cope with what is needed. If you want me to pop over for a chat then drop me a PM. Farnham is literally just a short hop down the A3 from me.

Done a little work over the weekend, I've now got the bio filter running inside, trying to get a head start on the cycling. My Bio filter, according to the current design will be pump fed from the sump, splitting the flow between the tank and the bio filter will be a convinient way to allow me to get an over powered pump and control the flow.
The idea of having the media in a seperate container that can be lifted out and moved, is to make any maintanance that is required as simple as possible. I'll get some more pics up of it running once the media is not all floating at the top. The 75 lpm air pump looks like it will provide more than enough air for this and the tank + digester that i plan to run off the same supply.

This is the K1 Media Holder

This sits inside my green barrel

With the following stand underneath to keep the height correct

Finally here is the whole unit with the K1 in it


Some costings here as there is very little information about UK aquaponics suppliers, just to give an idea of what the costs are. I'm aware that the bio filter is very much an optional exrea in a system, but for my it provides the ability to run the system independently of the growbeds, which may be an important way of controling heat loss during the cold winter nights here.

Costings for bio filter
Green 220l Un approved twin bung Drum - £27
Blue 120l Clamp top Drum - £24
Evolution Aqua - Airtech 75 Air Pump (75lpm) - £100
Air Stones - £8
50l K1 media - £53
The Egg crate and pipe for the base were materials i had spare bout would total about £10

Total - £222

Sorry, I'm a little confused here. K1 media is designed to float. Or at least be buoyant in water. It is designed to be "powered" by air stones at the bottom. I assume this is what you intend? If so, then I think that your air stones should be in the base of the blue barrel. Putting them in the green would mean that most of the air would travel around the blue and not go through it.
You will also need water flow through the blue as well. Water likes to take the easy path and if the water is pumped into the green and removed from the green (even in different places, top/bottom, left right etc.) you will not got a lot of flow through the blue.

K1 is about neutral, boyancy wise once established. Untill the bacteria start to make home on the K1 it is floats on the surface, i believe this is reasonably well documented, and to be expected for a couple of weeks untill the K1 is established.

The Air stones are in the blue barrel, not shown in the photographs as they air line passes through the lid of the blue barrel. The logic behind having the airstones lowered in from the top is that the height of the airstones seems to have some affect on the movment of the K1. So by suspending them from the top i can change the height of them in the blue barrel as required. Once the biofilter is in position and being fed from the sump it will have the water entering the blue barrel, water then flows through the holes around the side and bottom and out the overflow back to the sump.

Its a little difficult to show how things will be in the end but i think this will provide the correct conditions for this filter to work.

Ah, now I understand. Yes, you seem to have covered everything then.