Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hey all....

here is a sketchup (nice little program) layout of my draft design....

It will be a F&D design... CHIFT PIST,

instead of having a large ST, I will use some 55 gallon (208 liters), not sure how many
yet, have to figure the GB volume and FT volume....

will use a siphon at the end of the GB....

I will be running two sump pumps because the GB is so big.... but again these
are just the first stages of design....

you can see a small opening to the left of the FT, this is an overflow....

the reason for the long thin design is because its going in my existing greenshouse which is 10 x 20 feet (3.048m x 6.096m)

any comments are greatly appreciated.... again this is just the beginning....

thanks
JT

I like that
possible to have diff fish stages and or Crustacia
... a bit more work to make access easier
Critical joins being the barrel connections
you should still get it all with one pump

I was just worried about getting the big GB to fill and drain quickly....

will work on the numbers this weekend and will have some more info

thanks
JT

CHIFT PIST me thinks
elevate your FT more ...
Nup can't see the gravity thing removing enough solids
from the FT.

Good work JT, I disagree that the solids won't be removed. If the drain tube goes all the way to the bottom of the FT (with a gap at the bottom) and the water circulation is strong enough then solids should come out of there OK, although with the long bed you may want more height to give the water enough oomph to get to the end of the bed OK.

Think about sinking everything down into the ground to maximize how much plant material will fit in the greenhouse. Ideally the AP system shouldn't be much more bulky than raised beds but that would take some careful design and a lot of digging.

Maybe the sump could be a shallow lined bed like the gravel bed but without gravel, to maybe house mussels or other animals, fingerlings, fry, etc.

You can also have beds or other above the fish tank, supplied from the sump, draining down to the FT. So it could be pump, beds, FT, beds, sump.

hey

Im about 4 feet above sea level here in wilmington, nc... southeast tip of NC...

so digging would be easy, but would have to form everything up....

but will give it some thought.....

the GB's would be right down on the barrels, to make it even lower, I could cut the barrels in half length wise

still learning and planning...

thanks for the input

jT

here is a sketchup of the expansion GB's to be constructed after main system is
stabalized....

first design, will be refining it over the next few weeks...

thanks
jT

In a bed that size you might want another drain or two...

Mights as well put in a drain into each of the blue barrels below ...

Not only helps with the drain... but would also mix the water better...

would reduce anerobic areas with the draw from more 'drains'

thanks all..

here is the new sketchup with some more drains and draining into the barrels...

again.. this is just a rough draft and is not to scale...

havent figured out how to do that yet in sketchup...

thanks
JT

.... figured out more than I have.... looks pretty good to me...

.... figured out more than I have.... looks pretty good to me...[/quote]


Thanks...

ive done alot of design work over the last 35+ years...

jT

if you're planning a timed sump pump, with slow drain this'll work well.
If you're planning on bell siphons, I'd cut the big bed up into smaller compartments, with only 1 drain each.
otherwise looking good.

by my guess, a 55Gal drum is at least a yard tall.
your growbed therefore looks 5 yards long, and 1 yard wide.
this means at 1 ft depth your gb will hold 331Gal

when it fills with water, the water will take about 30%, and the gravel 70%
so you're looking at a fill volume of 100Gal

This means your sump will have to be 100 Gal in order to achieve chift pist, and not run your sump dry.

As you plan to expand with what looks like 3 x 1 square yard beds, your gb volume will increase by 3/5
making it about 530 gal
with a flood water volume of 160 Gal.

so your minimum sump level must be 160Gal

I would suggest it be 300Gal, so you've got room to move, a safety factor and the ability to weather evap and transpiration of your water. (especially relevant if you topup with rain water)

From your drawing, your sump looks to be smaller than a 55Gal drum.

Hope this didn't confuse you, just thought it might help with your planning of sizes and space.

Looking good.

An option for the "sump" would be to frame up and line the space under the grow bed with more pond liner. It could be pretty much the same foot print and depth as the main grow bed and would therefore hold about twice as much water as the growbed filled with gravel above it. This could allow you to lower the grow bed even more if it would allow for more plant growing space above the growbed in the greenhouse. Then if you wanted to add the barrels cut in half (either way) as the other grow beds, you could and there would still be enough sump capacity to handle them.

You could also let the fish tank go all the way to the ground so long as the top of the water is a few inches above the top of your grow bed, the solid sucker drain (or whatever we re-named the venturi drain too) will still work for getting solids off the bottom when the pump adds water to the fish tank.

About adding extra drains, does that really work with auto siphons? I have 8' long 3' wide grow beds that drain using single loop siphons or single Flout. Heck, my 30' long grow bed has only the single sump pump in it to drain it. Now if the system was running on a pump on a timer and a slow drain, then having more drains in the bed might seem necessary to me.

Do plan on adding in overflows for the grow beds and an extra overflow for the fish tank. It is always possible for a primary drain to get a leaf, frog, fish, or bit of gravel stuck in it and cause an overflow so plan for this by installing an overflow just above your planned high water level.