Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Here it is. In all its glory. My first Aquaponics system built from scratch. Using only what information I've gleaned from here and videos on Youtube.
I don't have anything growing in it yet, the seeds are still sprouting and won't be ready for transfer for a while yet.

Let me know if you see any glaring errors I've made.

Here's what I started with. Your bog standard IBC.



Here it is finished. it looks a little lopsided at the top because the light isn't hanging straight.
The potted plants are a couple of tomato plants I picked up at the garden center for 99 cents each. they're just there for the grow lights. I'll see if they can be transfered to the grow bed when I move the seedlings I've got going.
The power to the lights goes through a GFCI plug for safety.
The power for the PLC and pumps is 12 volts DC. coming from a 10 AMP 12 volt bench power supply.

The tire rim is there to stand on.



Here's the top of the bell siphon.
I made a breather for it using the butterfly valve from an air mattress. So far it's working flawlessly.



Here's the bottom of the flow line. the siphon drops down into this L shape I made. the horizontal bit has a lot of holes drilled in it to aerate the water as it goes into the main tank.
This seems to be working. the goldfish are doing fine. It's just like rain.



Here's the water flowing from the pump.
It's a 2000 gallon per hour 12 volt submersible pump. It uses about 5 amps.



Here's the submersible pump with a cover I made. The cover is to keep the fish from being eaten by the pump. it's a plant pot with lots of holes drilled in it. and a piece of iron weighing it down. it was all I had handy. I'll get a rock or something later.



Here's the particulate filter. This only runs when I want it to. It's a 250 gallon per hour 12 volt self priming pump. connected to a house filter with a 1 micron sediment filter in it. The foot valve you can see there is the intake for the particulate filter. this pump uses 3ish amps.



Here's the brain of the system. it's an automation direct DL06 PLC. I work for an automation company and we had a spare.
It controls the lights and the submersible pump. the lights turn on at 7 am and off at 11 pm. the pump will not run when the lights are off.
There's a level sensor wired into the PLC as well to keep the grow bed water level from going higher than it is supposed to.
The lights are 120vac grow lights in standard fixtures controlled by a relay switched by the PLC. all wired to the GFCI.
The pump runs for 60 seconds with 15 minute intervals.



I'll be picking up some Tilapia in a few weeks, but in the meantime, I've got 4 goldfish in the tank. I bought them to see if it was safe for fish. They seem to be doing fine. Anyone know if Tilapia will eat them? or will I have to find them a new home once I get my stock fish?

I've got some bacteria culture starter for ponds to start the nitrogen process which I'll add to the grow bed in the next few days.

That's it. Any questions?

You're a mad scientist. Nice PLC.

The only thing that I would be changing is your lighting if it's to stay indoors. Flouro's just don't cut it for PAR and lumens/intensity, Your plants are going to become spindly, stretchy and terribly scrawny. Switch to a 400W HPS ballast and light to suit (digital would be best for power consumption) you can get retro globes for MH spectrum without changing control gear as the HPS is mainly suited for flowering. Run your intense lighting for a minimum of 6 hours a day (10-12 would be best for production but questionable on electricity consumption) Outside would be best if it wasn't frosty where you are.

All in all though, nice creation there, I bet you're chuffed.

Kri.

Well, it certainly is an interesting project. I know there's a few things more I have to do. Like I need to get more gravel for the grow bed, but I've been putting it off. cleaning it is such a pain in the ass.
The well water turned out to be alright, the fish are in it now. the PH is still a little high, when I first tested it it was over 9, it took a whole bottle of PH down to get it down enough to put the fish in. still sitting above 7.5. I'll have to get another bottle.

Rainwater collecting is still up in the air(ha ha). I collected some last night, and the PH of the rainwater is over 8. I thought rainwater was more neutral than that.

I think I'm going to go with more goldfish for now. and install an underwater webcam.. They'll grow pretty big in this environment. Should be interesting.

This is more of an experiment for now. I plan on buying some property in a year or so, and will work towards a larger setup when I have more room. So I'm going to play with the configuration and try some different things. And you're not the first person to call me a mad scientist..

I would see about setting the pump to run day and night. At least I would do that when you have lots of fish nearing harvest size. Might not be that big a deal now with only a few small ones.

That particulate filter is probably not needed, I would say don't bother with it but you already have it on there.

Do you have any sort of air pump going? If you can't arrange to have the water pump do it's cycling 24/7, I would definitely add a fairly good sized air pump to the system. Tilapia are forgiving but they always grow/eat better when the aeration is good.

What sort of water temperature are you going to be able to maintain in that location? If you can't keep it over 70 F year round, tilapia might be a waste of time. Tilapia grow best with tropical water temps between 80 and 86 F but many have found they will grow adequately with a steady water temp of 74-80 F and the plants mostly like the 74 F water.

If you won't be heating the water, then you might be better off with Catfish or Blue Gill. I'm in a totally different climate than you but I've learned that with an indoor air temperature of 78 F the indoor aquarium system without heating would normally run 73 F so if the air temp where that system is normally runs below 75 F, you will probably need heating to make tilapia happy.

Oh, and I kinda agree on the comments about lighting. Florescent lighting can work for plants but you have to have the tubes about an inch from the leaves and if you are growing a variety of size plants, that don't work too well. I've grown lettuce successfully under florescent lights but tomatoes would be a challenge (could be done but a major challenge.)

It's in an industrial bay, and the heater points almost right at the tank, so keeping it warm won't be a problem, I'll be insulating the side closest to the door when the time comes. If necessary, I can put a heater in it as well. that's not going to be an issue. I already have the elements I'll need to make one, controlled from the PLC.

The particulate filter is for me, I like to see what's happening. most of the setups I've seen the water gets pretty murky.

I'll be keeping a close eye on the fish, if I see any signs of stress, I'll add an air stone, but the sprinkle method seems to be doing the trick so far. none of the pipes are glued, so if they clog I'll just pull them off and clean them out.

As far as the lighting goes, I'm going to play it by ear. want to try a few things, and I have to start somewhere.

I think I'll be making an underwater webcam just for fun. Going to buy some more goldfish this afternoon. I'll post it here when I get it going.

Well I do agree with the "mad scientist" comment. Luckily I do not have easy access to automation equipment (ie. it would cost me money to buy them), otherwise I would be tempted to automate the system too. Are you going to connect the PLC to the network? Change parameters remotely or view the fishes over the internet via the webcam??

But after having done AP for a year, I realised that the simplier the setup the better. Less things to go wrong. I would for starters make sure you have an timer override button or something similar so that you can run the pump (on manual) continuously in instances that you require it.

Also don't worry about a pH of 7.5 . Any pH below 8 for a new system will do just fine. As the system cycles, the nitrification process will lower your pH naturally.

Here's the mobile view of the PLC that I can view from any web browser.



And yes, I'm checking around for a video relay service that I can use to repeat the video stream. and trying to figure out ways to waterproof a camera.




It's easy to override the relays on the panel to make the pump/lights run when I want it to.
My companies primary job is to automate oilwells, so you don't have to remind me about reliability. It's the same PLC that we use on those.



okay, I'll keep an eye on it.

I presume there isn't a need for SIL then since I don't believe the Koyos are SIL certified. Apart from the water industry, I have not seen many Koyos used in Australia. At least not in the Oil and Gas environment.

Our PLC panel is installed in general purpose areas. Only the sensors we use go in the Class 1 areas(what we call it around these parts) . so we don't have to worry about that kind of thing. It's low voltage(12 volts) and run off of battery so it lets us avoid a lot of regulations that apply to the bigger stuff. Personally, I hate the damn things, but that's what they were using when I started working here so I'm stuck using them.

The return from the GB, if you take off the end cap and put in another L to go back up a bit. This will allow the flow to keep going when all the holes get blocked with biofilm. When you see water coming out of the end of the pipe its time to clean out the holes.

Update:

Once the ammonia cycle kicked in the sprinkle method couldn't keep up, so I added an airstone. Lost a couple of goldfish. the rest perked right up once I added the airstone. maybe it just wasn't a fine enough sprinkle to dissolve enough air fast enough. might play with it again later.

Got some plants sprouted and planted in the growbed. They're doing quite well. growing like crazy. The fluorescent lights are making them grow high to reach the light. So I'm adding a 75 watt high pressure sodium light to complement the FLs. We'll see how that goes. Got it cheap, so it'll do for now. really freakin bright. I got two of them, going to start with one, see what happens.

I am very impressed. Looking forward to seeing your fish streaming live with a webcam in the future.

I am not sure on all tilapia, but Blue are supposed to be herbivore only, and they would leave your goldfish alone.

But let me also say what we told people who were buying fish when I worked in a pet store. "if a fish is big enough to get the other in its mouth, it will probably eat it." If there is a huge size difference, there could still be a problem.

Pleco

+1 on what Duff said about the holes clogging with biofilm, they look too small.