Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello Backyard Aquaponics Community!

I am excited to get started on my first aquaponics system. I have some specific questions, but if you have any general feedback or concerns with my design, please let me know too!

For reference, see the below diagrams. I'm looking to build a small indoor system with a 20-gallon fish tank. I want to build vertically because I don't have much space in my apartment. I plan on using six 3.5-gallon (7x8x30 inches) planters as the grow beds, hanging them in front of the window so they get lots of natural light. The beds will drain from one to another before returning to the fish tank (or sump tank?). I will have ornamental fish in the tank, as it's not big enough to grow edible fish.




Questions:
1) Is there enough grow bed to filter nutrients adequately? It is approximately 1:1 but does this mean I should filter the water before returning to the fish tank? How sparsely/densely should I populate the fish tank so that the plants would filter ammonia and nitrate fully without a filter?

2) I know this has been discussed a lot on this forum, but I want to ask anyway for my specific case: constant flood or flood & drain? If flood and drain (which I am leaning towards), should I have a sump tank, or will it be ok to let the water level in the fish tank fluctuate? The grow beds filled with grow medium (clay balls) would probably take 7-8 gallons out of the fish tank at peak. Will this stress out my fish? And does this also affect how many fish I put in the tank? On the other hand, if I use a sump tank, do I have to worry about all of the solids falling to the bottom instead of circulating? Finally, if constant flood, what are the best methods for keeping the water oxygenated?

3) How important are worms for solids breakdown? If they are essential, should I just add them to each grow bed? Going back to the constant flood vs flood&drain issue, the worms wouldn't get enough oxygen from constant flood, right?

4) What pump would you recommend for this system? I read that a third to a half of the water should circulate the system every hour, i.e. 7-10 gallons/hr (if constant flood). Also, since I'm going vertical, I need something that gives about 6 or 7ft of lift.

5) Recommendations for types of fish or types of plants?

6) What are best practices for actually starting the system? Plants before fish? Fish before plants? I know it's very important to develop the right bacteria in the grow medium -- what's the best way to do that?

Thanks so much for your help!!!
Gabriel

Sorry we missed this post glp.



Go to the ratio thread, and work out how much media you'll have all up, and base how many fish you'll need off that.




In your case, it'll be a nightmare to try and get flood and drain working properly with them cascading into each other. Just go with constant flood.

I like the sump tank one better, it allows for mistakes, but if it's constant flood, the levels should be pretty steady, so it's your call. And the water falling into each bed & FT will add oxygen. But you can add a air pump if you want.



If you add worms to one bed, they'll circulate through pretty quickly. They are good for eating up the roots and so forth, but no studies that I know of show exactly how much good they do. I figure they can't hurt, just don't try stocking heavier because you think the worms will eat up all the solids.



It should be circulated once per hour, so work off that.



Goldfish, but anything you want really, as long as it's within what your filtration can handle, and whatever you like to eat with plants, but I'd go herbs & lettuce to start off with. They aren't as light hungry.



Start the plants first, they'll take up some of the ammonia/nitrites (some, not all), and it'll help it all get started.

One other thing to note, please before you start, see how much direct light is actually coming into this window. If it's a couple of hours a day, it won't be enough for most plants, and you'll just have problems.

Constant flood if you are going to have them cascade into each other. Timing gets weird on mine some times when I adjust flow rates.