Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

It's going to be a little more than plug-and-play. I figure I can build without lights for ~ 90 usd.

Upkeep would include brewing compost tea (easy as pie), controlling plankton population (unused dried plankton is a great additive for your compost pile),
And feeding fish. I usually just go out and catch aphids, mesquito larvae, and flys.

First one will grow spinach, beans and rice.

I'm mostly looking for input on the system design, the specifics I will draw up soon


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Welcome to the forum

90% complete

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Looks like the fish tank on the bottom and two grow beds above?

A couple of things I notice that may or may not matter to you. The clear tubing tends to grow algae on the inside. The other thing I noticed is the T on the second level that splits the pump flow. If you have enough flow it will work but might not otherwise.

Yea, I've restricted the flow so to top growbed get's a lil more flow, it appears to be pumping about 50 gallons a min

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I've sealed the leaks once and for all and optimized pump location. I also rotated the tee in the vinyl tubing so the flat side is running up and down and shortened the tubes. Getting pretty close to putting fish in.

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The pump is broken, but it's still a champ, you can kinda see the water flow coming out of the top growbed there, though I've got alot more flow going now.

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As for the clear tubing, I wrap in tape or paint it or something

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Glad the pump is getting the job done in spite of it's troubles . As far as your tubing, whatever works to block the light

Will feeding all the GBs is series deplete the nutrients before they get to the bottom?

I don't think as far as this is concerned it would be any different than having the plants all lined up in a long growbed. Plants, like electrical appliances, should only draw what they need. As long as there is enough nutrients entering at one end to supply everything, then there should not be a problem for those at the end of the line. Of course if the plants at the beginning of the line suck up everything being supplied, then that is bad news for those at the end of the line.

Hmmm.... after rereading this, can anyone confirm that this is really true?

As soon as I reread what I wrote I had visions of overdoses which would contradict that a plant system only draws up nutrients it needs. My guess would be that it depends upon the nutrient. Perhaps some ARE overdosable and others not, kind of like where humans cannot really overdose on Vitamin C because it is water soluble and the body flushes the excess back out, but others like Vitamin A can cause serious problems with an overdose.

Okay, so rather than delete this post which starts out with a hypothesis that I cannot prove, I went ahead and sent it to stimulate discussion. I suppose there are plenty of other examples showing where those at the feed trough first get the fattest and the runts are more likely to get runtier unless they too get equal access to the nutrients.

I suspect it is a generally good idea to fill all growbeds equally from the nutrient source as much as possible, but unless one is doing something like a per-plant drip, then there are always some closer to the fountain than others.

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Sam

This is a tough one, there might be a difference in growth with it rigged in series but it's hard to say for sure. A lot depends on how much fish waste is going out to the plants. If one of the nutrients is low there probably won't be much by the time the plants further down the line get it. That might actually be a good thing since you can tell that something is wrong instead of having all the plants looking the same but being deficient .

So there really might be some merit to doing a "rim manifold" type of distribution for nutrients as is commonly seen with official BYAP installs like this one. It makes sense that it would provide for a more even distribution of water and nutrients.



If this were a significant issue, I'd expect to see more about this in the "lit" from those with LONG beds. Forgetting about the fish poo for the moment, the UVI DWC troughs look like they are at least 9-10 meters long. I didn't find the exact dimensions with a quick google, but one would expect they would have noticed a difference between growth at one end versus the other, except I'm pretty sure they started plants at the nutrient inlets and harvested at the other end as rafts got pushed on down. So maybe that in itself provides higher nutrients for younger plants which might need them more and tapers things off slightly for older plants that might not need so much.

Just where are the scientific studies on this when one needs them...

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Sam

Absolutely as Joel and I, as well as others have mentioned before. It's not a big deal though and I don't use them in my grow beds because over time you get a reservoir of nutrients in the grow bed. If that weren't enough many plants are capable of sending roots out to get the nutrients they need if the bed isn't too big. Finally the nutrients are usually in excess because it doesn't take very many fish to grow the plants.

I do believe that in the very long beds most people put in a faucet every 3 feet or so. So every one gets a fair chance to get feed. Seeing that the setup you have is so small, you will be able tell quickly if the third tier is hungry by just looking at them. I could suggest that you place at least 1 of the same plant in each bed as a visual test to compare. If #1 shelf is great and # 3 is half the size, you have a problem feeding them. If you don't want to grow 3 plants then just drop in 3 carrot tops and see what happens to each of them.
Have fun!