Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I am new to aquaponics so I am going to have a lot of questions. I am working on a design for my system right now so once I get it all drawn out I will post a picture of it on here.
I have a plastic 55 gallon drum that I plan on having stand upright and filled with about 50 gallons of water. This is where the fish will be.
I am going to have a stand pipe for the water to drain from the drum. The stand pipe will be in an "L" shape so the water exits the drum on the side rather than from the bottom.
For the plants I am planning on having sections of PVC pipe with holes cut in the top where net pots can be set down into these holes.
These sections of PVC will be on a stand next to the drum and a little higher than the open top of the drum.
The water will be pumped from floor level up into these sections of PVC where it will flow through the pipe and exit via smaller PVC or tubing and will flow directly back into the 55 gallon drum.
This system will be set up in a basement/garage. I am planning on using fluorescent lighting over the system with a timer on it to correlate with the rising and setting of the sun, so the plants get adequate light.
I also plan to have an air pump with some tubing and an air stone on the end of it to help aerate the water in the drum.
I am hoping to use Tilapia but I'm not sure where to get any yet so if that does not work out I will use Bluegill or some other Sunfish or use goldfish for a test run.
I guess this system is not as big as most of the others listed on here but I am limited by space and funds so I won't be able to produce that many fish but I want to try it out anyways.

My first few questions are:
1. Does it sound like this system will even work the way I have it written?
2. Will fluorescent lights work or do I need to use something else?
3. When the water exits the tank do I need to have it go into a sump and then pumped up to the plants, or can I use an external pump with water running from the outside of the drum straight through the pump and up to the plants?
And if I need to have a sump, which would be better a submersible pump in the sump, or an external pump next to the sump on the outside of it?
4. If I grow say lettuce or herbs, how many plants would I need to grow?
5. What size of water pump and air pump should I get?

That is all I can think of right now. I'm sure I will have more questions in the future. Thanks in advance for your advice.

Yep, if you use the growlux type which emmit the correct light spectrum for plants to grow - normal fluro's dont do that


THis would be a personal preferance thing IMHO... as long as you use a good float switch both should/could work.


That would definately depend on the number of fish you have stocked in your system... somewhere on this site there is a formula regarding this ... hmm, now to try find it...

If you have good airation going (waterfalls etc) thn you might ot even need an air pump... but I would need to see a drawing to 'guestamate' better

What is a float switch and what does it do?

Hi Trox. You're fish barrel sounds fine in size to set up a mini system.

Budget is a restraining factor for most of us here so don't let that bother you.

I've never had much luck with pvc pipes for aquaponics. The lines are a bit small they clog, flood, leak and get diseases etc.

Take a day or two and examine a few of the systems around this site. There are as many differing ideas as there are people. This will give you a wealth of options, then throw a design together.

For simplicity's sake, if your growbed is above your fish, let gravity return the water. Pumping from your fish to your beds which flows back to the fish.

What is the alternative to pvc that can be used?

Trox, just a little note.

I couldn't tell from your description if you were going to have the net pots in the pvc with or without any gravel or media in there. It can be done either way, but if you don't have any media in the pvc pipe then i'd have a bucket full somewhere in the loop to provide substrate for the bacteria to live in, and it will help act as a filter too. The gravel / media in your net pots will help, but i don't think it will be sufficient. I think AA has quoted 8 litres of media before

Here is my current design. The description at the top of the first page should explain it pretty well.

Never gave figures on pipes only DWC Steve. Didn't like the results at all so never continued. I'm sure I typed the DWC wrong somewhere too. It's the Aussie translations confusing me American education.

The actual DWC figures I ran zero waste for two years were - 1 lb fish, 2 gallons medium, 4 sq feet foliage cover (1 bucket).

Translated to Australian the ratio is ...

1 kilo fish, 15 litres medium, 0.743 m2 foliage (2 buckets)

The medium was a combination of gravel with undergravel filter in the fish tank and expanded clay in 2 x 20 cm netpots.

The figures were for DWC buckets. Eggplants are premium here 8 months of the year - Find an indeterminate strain and I'm in!

Sorry bout that sidetrack Trox.

Check out the other systems here, there are towers, barrel beds, grow beds of all manner of shape and size. I'd recommend a growbed system to start with. It is simpler, inexpensive if you scrounge for parts, and easier to make.

Fiddly bits of plumbing don't mix well with aquaponics they tend to get clogged. I had a lot of grief using PVC pipes but there's plenty of other options here.

Perhaps I just suck at growing with pipes...

AA, i just figured that your figures ( ) would still be viable as if he wasn't using medium in the pipe then it may as well hjave been DWC for the bacterial purposes. Know what i mean?

Steve

So trox, will your PVC pipe just have the net pots in them and water running through it?

Trox floow AA's advice To start with anyway.

I've created a new post under announcements to help get the newbies started with my opinions on a fail safe starting point.

Yeah and the net pots will be the only thing with gravel in them. But from your comment in a different topic I guess I need to add in a bucket of gravel somewhere in the system.

I have made some changes to the design of my system. The new drawing is below. The only difference between this one and the first design is that with this one there is a bucket of gravel in the sump. The bucket is raised up off the bottom of the sump and the bucket has little holes drilled in the bottom of it.
The water comes out of the tank and into the gravel bucket, seeps down through the gravel, drips into the sump, and then is pumped into the growbed where it then flows back into the tank.

Olny mod i would make is to immerse the growbed exit pipe down to the bottom of the tank. other waise there will be a "short flow path" for the water and not much mixing inside the fish tank, might end up with quite depleted o2 levels near the bottom,

Steve

Trox - you will have to be really, really regimented with water top-ups otherwise at times you will have insufficient water to feed the beds (if I am understanding your design correctly). A fair bit of water is lost through evaporation and transpiration. Daily top ups may become a part of your life, which is something that would give me the shits - but that's just me.

You're right VB, just realised how small the sump was compared to the tank. Increaing the sump volume would help this scenario.

Trox, just a note on the lights. I thnk it was AM that mentioned the growlux lights? He is correct, but you can get away with standard fluro for a while after germination. Thats all i have over my strawberries, and they are doing much better than i expected. Then again, they may have done twice as well under a growlux! If you can get your hands on a 150W MH lamp then this is the ducks nuts. the closest thing to sunlight and intense.

So this design pulls water out of the top surface of that tank through the standpipe? You might consider pulling closer to the bottom to pull debris that settles out and will circulate oxygenated water from the surface down to the lower depths. Also, the lower pipe connection will have to be very water-tight with 50 gallons of water weight on top of it, maybe it would be better to route a pipe from the surface down to the bottom and pull up from that so you aren't cutting any more holes in the barrel (except the top).