Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

gday guys and gals,

i have gotten hold of 4 ibc's thats safe to use, and just wondering what would be the best design for these.

any tips would be greatly appreciated.. ...

Do you want to dig one of them in as a sump???
One idea would be to sink one as the sump, one as the fish tank and 4 cut in half as grow beds running chift pist.
This would be a very robust system with 2000L gb/1000L ft

I think Richard's idea would be ideal.

Since I had no desire to sink the sump, I've gone for a variation where my sump and fishtank IBC's are sitting side-by-side with the growbeds above:
viewtopic.php?f=18&t=10452

If I had 4 IBC's I'd use 2 as the sump and fishtank, and the other 2 cut in half as 4 growbeds above.

here is a pic of mine with 3 gb's. The sump now has a modwood lid and all beds are full and planted and running, but havent got an up to date pic of the overall system.

That's almost what I have done - though I buried two, either way burry one as a sump use the second as a fish tank above it (build a deck style platform to get it above the sump at least partially and higher than the gb's) then have the sump pump up water to the fish tank ft that has a slo solids lifting overflow to pour out to the gb's - grow beds

like this (if u look closely you can see the access door in the deck - that upper cube of wood is the fish tank the far side I'd where the water pours in - the angled pipe is where it overflows out

The only disadvantage of not at least partially sinking the sump is you can't use the entire containers potential volume (as seen in his pic above) - it's more work but def worth it in the long rub IMHO - I ended up burying two IBC's and turned the first one (the side with that open door) into a second ft - from there with an overflow to the other buried sump with the pump my only regret was not renting a small tractor to bury them slightly deeper (I dug out a 5'x9'x3' deep hole in hard clay by hand eh shovel) but that's just for cosmetic reasons - my wife wants this to be as prettyponics as possible

Nice timber work. I am going to do the same with mine and have already bought some modwood for the fish tank lid
Nice work

Unless you change the order of flow - pump from sump up to growbeds, gravity down to fishtank, SLO across to sump. Sump and fishtank can sit side-by-side and you can certainly use the whole volume.

Surely you would need sloping ground to do this or the growbeds would be above your head
My system is on dead flat ground and sinking the sump made my system workable

GB's aren't above my head - but my tanks are cut-down a bit, and if I grow anything really tall up a stake or trellis I might need a ladder to harvest

Do not use the change flow suggested where the sump pumps up to the GB and Drains to FT with SLO to sump.

Reason is the SLO (solids lifting device) removes the solids from the fish tank and would dump into the sump. The sump is to be a clean water section. The sump is not a filter for solids. The flow should be from the Fish Tank via the SLO to the GB which is the filter for the system. Outlet from the GB is clean water returned to sump. It is then pumped to Fish Tank.

When you delete the sump from the system you have a pump in the FT which then has to pump whatever solids including small fish through the system. I still regret not having a SUMP. A strong pump can catch a fish and hold it against the screen even if it cant co through. Still kills fish. I have lost more than a hundred to the dam pump.

Sorry if that sounds like a rant.....But it is.

I forgot in my first post to WELCOME YOU TO THE FORUM WELCOME TO THE FUN AND GAMES

Ok there is some thing else to consider. The FT over flow level only needs to be about six inches higher than the top of the GB to get flow to the GB. Of course longer distance needs more elevation change(slope). The high level in the sump only needs to be lower than the drain line from the GB by enough to get flow from the drain. In lots of water systems the rate of change is only 1/4" per foot. More slope gets better flow. A trick about that is when you end in an open tank or sump put a long tail going straight down and it will flow better.

I'd still shoot for the max elevation possible, if you only have a slight slope you aren't going to get much flow thus can't pump very fast from the sump to the ft without overflowing ur slo (speaking from exp) also I'd def use a 3" pipe to drain from the ft - mine with a 45degree drop about 3' to the gb's can't handle the full power of my eh 2500 something gph pump (I'm not a fan of having the sump regurgitate water with a t valve in the sump as the less water that goes into the sump the less flow power you have to suck the solids out of the FT - and it def seemed the fish were happier with more water flow through the ft