Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

It's about time I put my cards on the table and submit a basic diagram of my proposed system for your scruntiny and criticism.

It comprises 2 baths, 1 blue barrel, 3 pumps (in barrel), 8 towers, 8 brocolli box type growbeds (brown) and 4 wet-pot beds (grey) for seedlings. Each tower set is fed by it's own pump and the growbeds on a separate pump controlled by timer. The drain from the 8 growbeds keep the wet-pots full. It will be mounted on a northfacing wall and topped up by a 14,500 rainwater tank.

Baths will contain fish and rafts, barrel contains yabbies and mussels.

Blue pipes are supply, green ones are drains. Dark blue pipe is a balance pipe between tanks, pink is tank top-up.

I'm still a newbie but I think I understand the basic design requirements. Practical application and construction will be the real test.

cheers
Derek

p.s. A wet-pot is an unglazed terracota bulb that slowly releases moisture.

Looks good Derek - my only comment would be that the more containers and things you have, the higher the risk that one may clog and overflow draining the whole system. Sometimes I think it is best to keep these things as simple as possible. I do understand though that you are probably trying to grab anything you can to increase grow-bed area/volume, which is an issue we all have.

I agree, what isn't depicted is an overflow drain on each growbed.

thanks

derek-I am a newbie to this as well.
another variation could be to reduce the sump height
to collect via siphon not pumped, hopefully requiring 1 pump and a
DC backup pump for blackouts.
Well that is what I am aiming for-I have 3 ponds that drain to the (obvious) lowest, which is the 'sump'.
My pump delivers continuous flow and timed 15 mins hour irrigation.
But I used what was here and there are many crew who will help.
check other topics for what ever your creating.
Good fun!!and edible..
C1

I like the 'safety tray" over flow............thinking ahead. You gotta be an engineer Nope! just checked

I like the idea of reusing the draining water from the grow beds. I am thinking of doing the same with 2 tiers of barrel grow beds. This way I am not pumping to much out of the fish tank.

I would even suggest using the draining water from a tower for each grow bed. This would reduce the need for the 3 pumps.

Engineers don't plan ahead.

We had 'the bridge to nowhere for 18 months. No roads to or from.

To cover this glaring mistake, they spent 150 million on roads to connect it.

BigRed, directing the Tower drain water into a grow bed may mean I need to pump higher, hence a much larger pump head is required.

I may include taps to allow cross feeding between systems. That way, if a pump fails I can still keep water flowing through all systems even if it's a reduced volume. That's my aeronautical engineering background coming out (same concept used in fuel supply systems).

Guys

Here's my first attempt at building a system. It's similar to the picture first posted but is only a stage one implementation. It does not yet include towers but these can be added later.

Apart from all the extra poly fittings (Tees and elbows) , it was built from bits and pieces I had at home. I sacrificed a water level I had sitting around for the syphons, the dexion shelving was spare from the shed and the brocolli boxes were given to me some time ago.

I used a stepped syphon arrangement to fill from the top down to the middle tier then it drains into the tank. The left most auto-syphons on the middle tier worked best. I also preferred them because I found the other ones were suspectible to leaks because the fittings were inserted at the bottom of the box - silastic helped there.

I used a 3000 lph fountain pump to give me adequate volume (1850 lph) at a height of 1.8m. I also plan to refine the drainage system using a manifold but this was a trial. I run the system with a 15 minute increment HPM timer I got from "B" for $5. I run 15 minutes on and 30 minutes off from 04:00 to 20:00.

Generally, I was happy with what I produced but refinements are necessary. One side effect of AP, the sound of all that running water has an effect on certain bodily functions.

cheers
Derek

Very nice. You show what can be done with "stuff" thats lying around.

You know, every time i'm out side mucking around with my AP system and a Police chopper flys over head i laugh Seriously, there must be some mention of the number of these new "curious outdoor hydro systems" cropping up mentioned in their monday morning meetings?

Nice setup mate.

What I have found with siphons in my systems:
The smoother the curve the better, elbow bends inhibits overall flow through the pipe and as a result, the initiation height is higher and the drain rate is less.
Having the outlet on the side of the tank as opposed to the bottom also seems to make initiating the siphon easier. I have three identical tubs (besides the outlet point) and the one with the outlet on the bottom needs to have the top of the siphon adjusted down around 5cm in comparison to the others, it fills way too deep otherwise.

I reckon if you tried the top configuration without the elbow after the outlet it would be pretty reliable.

Simmo,

I agree. The right most syphons on the middle tier with the elbow underneath have a smoother curve and start easily and reliably. The foam boxes are prone to leaking hence my preference for the outlet midway up.

cheers

I like it alot Derek. Demand for blue barrels must be soaring at the moment as everyone builds their systems LOL
I think anyone who gets the syphon thing working needs extra brownie points. Personally I haven't even tried yet, maybe next system...

The bottom level is home to a worm farm and I will add an intermediate shelf for grow beds serviced by wet pots from the drainage manifold and propogation trays. Maybe next weekend...

I plan to let the system cycle for a week or more before I add plants and fish. I'll start with gold fish because my father has some to give away. Their gold fish are breeding and he has nearly 100 little ones. I want to grow Yellow Belly because I come from SW QLD and they are the local fish. All in good time and when I graduate from Gold Fish school.

p.s. Using a Perlite/Vermiculite mix also means I don't have to wash gravel.