Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi Everyone. So today was day 1 of many days of AP for me. I built a Grow Bed out of wood that I'm going to line with plastic. The medium will be Hydroton, river rock, or another volcanic rock they have her in Costa Rica the nursery is telling me about. The grow bed is 340x120x30 or 1224 liters. Tomorrow I will be building a stand that is 1 meter high to set the Grow Bed on. Today I also poured the foundation for the fish tank. I'm building a fish tank out of concrete that will be 250x120x80 or 2400 liters. From my reading the ratios are off but I thought maybe one day I would take out the dirt half of my garden who knows. So below is a picture of today's work. So now I have a few questions and would love to get some opinions.

1. Will a Submersible Pump that pumps 100 liters per minute will that be enough or is it too much?

2. I was thinking that I would use PVC pipe from the pump to the bottom of the GB. In hydroponics I have a fill plug but with that fill plugs it seems like that would get clogged with fish matter. Is there something else I should be using to avoid this. Or do I have to just watch it and keep it clean? Or am I just thinking too much?

3. Now Air for the fish? I was thinking of just running another smaller pump that does 1500 liters per hour in the tank for the air. I'm also trying to find some airstone but no luck so far. I will just order them from the USA if I have to and if so does anyone suggest what I should be using for a 2400 liter tank and 30 Tilapia?

So those are the main questions for now I know more will come up. Other ideas for my system. I plan on growing Tomatoes, Peppers, Strawberries, Jalapenos, Cucumbers, and a few different kinds of lettuce. Well I look forward to showing my system with everyone and would love some feedback. Thanks.

Just make sure you build your stands to hold the weight... you'll have at least a tonne of weight by the time you get your media + flood in there...



That's 6000L.hr.... at zero head.... wich is more than enough... but it might depend on your pump sepc as to how much volume you can actually pump at what ever head you end up with...

If the flow is more than the growbed can handle... just put a tee in on the riser pipe from the pump outlet... and run it back into the fish tank for extra aeration...



Just change your thinking slightly... AP uses a "flood & drain" ... as opposed to hydroponics "ebb & Flow"....

Fill your growbed from the top, above the media... and drain from the bottom...



You will probably find that with the water draining back from your growbed... and/or excess water from your pump... that you may have enough oxygenation anyway... although I would always recommend an air pump in addition.

Always, always always have an air pump capable of supplying enough air to keep the fish alive if the main pump fails.

Preferably running from a battery.

Thanks. So with the Flood and Drain. How do I get all the water out of the grow bed? Can I just put a drain plug on the bottom? But if I do that I don't see how it floods. I'm really missing something here.

Yep stick a drain waste in... and either use an overflow standpipe, if you're going to be using a timer based pump cycle...

Or a siphon, if you're going to be pumping continuously...

I think you need to do some extra reading before you get too far ahead of yourself. The Basic info and Useful info sections of the forum can help you a lot and are not too long. Then pick a few Member system threads to read through.

The stand for your grow bed should be something that termites won't climb up to eat into your grow bed. (I built a stand for my wood and liner grow beds out of very old posts. I just had to replace one grow bed due to termites eating into the liner.)
Also, make sure whatever plastic you use as a liner is heavy duty enough not to get little holes in it from the gravel. I recommend high quality liner for grow beds since gravel is really rough on plastic.

As to air pumps and air stones. You will probably need something like a 60 watt air pump to keep that much fish tank in good shape. (With tilapia you may not need as much aeration but if your main pump dies, tilapia can still die from lack of aeration. I got a friend who has kept avoiding buying an air pump for his system and if for whatever reason the water pump fails overnight, he still gets lots of dead fish regularly and he has tilapia.)
Here is a link to a site with air pumps, I'm sure you can find many more on the internet.
http://www.aquaticeco.com/subcategories/1022/Whitewater-Linear-Air-Pumps/air%20pumps/0
Model number LT24 would handle your system easily and have air left over for another smaller tank too. Make sure to get big high quality air stones that are rated for the amount of air you want to push through them.

Hi Everyone. So here are some photos of the little progress. So I have the tank completed decided to go alittle smaller with the tank than original but I think plenty big. I went with the wood frame for the tray because that is what I had. Oh please termites say away. I have ordered my pumps, pond liner, and air pumps with air stone and should have those in the next 2 weeks then I will get to start running some water through it to see if it works. I have tons of questions still but I'm going to get one thing finished at a time and then will ask and also keep reading the site.