Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Is this possible? I want to grow it like a bush (branching out)

http://img8.imageshack.us/i/firstapbuil ... rning.jpg/

- Approx. 25 Gallons of Grow Bed from cutting a 55 gallon barrel; Dimensions after splitting the barrel are 22" in diameter, and 18" deep
- Grow lights, I'm not sure how many watts. The maximum distance I can keep between the surface area of the growbed and the light is probably 4 feet.
- Max height in my room: roughly 8 feet

Unless I can find baby Moringas at my local greenhouses, I'm going to have to order from http://echobooks.org/product_info.php?p ... 76a7a1d764

Anyone know if Canada imports Moringa seeds?

I suppose it could be possible. However, moringa is likely to need extra supplementation of potassium and Iron.
Moringa also normally has a big tap root and Aquaponics might not be the best way to grow it. However, up in your climate, indoors probably is the only way you will grow moringa so you might as well try with aquaponics.

Echo is the only place I've found in the USA to order moringa seeds and I don't know of any places in Canada for them though I've never looked since I'm in Florida.

Ok, I think I screwed up. I did some more reading in these forums under "Useful Information" and I got confused about the growbed to fish tank volume.

I think I am still confused...

So I plan to have a 22.5 gallon growbed. The confusion:

I originally I planned to use a 22.5 gallon fish tank, apparently I misinterpreted the ratio. I just thought 1:1 ratio would work paying no attention to the ratio of gravel to water inside the grow bed. http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum ... =11&t=4622 So it's actually: The total volume of the water in the grow bed(s) has to roughly match the total volume of water in the fish tank.

Not quite.
Total volume of the growbeds, water and gravel should match or exceed up to twice the volume of the fish tank.
Once you fill the beds with gravel they will only hold about 40% their volume in water.

So, a 20 gal ft will need 20gal of GB minimum. But that 20gal of GB will only hold about 8Gal of water, because of the room the gravel is taking up.

If you don't use a sump, then your ft will decrease in volume by 8Gal or 40%. if you have 40Gal of GB (max recommended) then ft will decrease by 80% leaving only 4 gal for the fish.
This is one of the reasons we often use a sump.

Hmm, okay got it. Sump capacity = grow bed's water volume when filled with gravel.

Also, when the grow bed is filled with gravel and water, should the water equalize with the height of the gravel, or should it be a couple of inches below the surface of the gravel? If so, how many inches?

Another thing I'm wondering about: If the water pump inside the fish tank is delivering 25 GPH to the grow bed, why can't a secondary pump, pumping 25 GPH back to the fish tank, be put inside the grow bed eliminating the need for the sump?

Ok, looks like you are trying to over think this a bit.
Deep breath.

the ratios people talk about like 2:1 or 1:1 are talking about the grow bed to fish tank total container volume. So if you took a 50 gallon barrel and cut it in half and used one half for a fish tank and the other half for you grow bed you would have a 1:1 system. Don't let the amount of water that can be put in the grow bed confuse you about the ratios.

You can have a system that has equal size fish tank and grow bed. Keep in mind when you flood the grow bed, there will be about 40% less water in the fish tank while the grow bed is flooded. For this reason it is not really feasible to have a 2:1 grow bed to fish tank type system without having some sort of sump tank or other way to deal with water fluctuations. The 1:1 system can work provided you choose fish that will still be ok in the amount of water left in your fish tank during the grow bed flood cycle.

How much fish can you put in a system is related to the amount of filtration you have and the amount of aeration you have. If you have 25 gallons of grow bed, you might be able to support as much as 5 lb of fish (or 3 kg per 100 liters of growbed) provided those fish will still be comfortable in the amount of water you have in the fish tank and you have enough aeration for them.

Water flood height in the grow bed should be about an inch below the surface of the gravel (for moringa a couple inches below the surface of the gravel might be better since root rot can be a problem for moringa.)

As to the idea of pumping from the grow bed at the same time as pumping from the fish tank, well that would not allow for flood and drain and if one pump gave out, you might wind up overflowing one while the other ran dry.

Now there are options If you would like more height to grow your moringa. Do some searching and reading about CHIFT PIST.

You could place your fish tank right next to the grow bed and set up the fish tank to overflow into the grow bed. Then the grow bed could drain into a sump tank on the floor and if it were a kinda large relatively shallow tank then you could have the grow bed lower to the floor. Heck, you might even be able to make the sump tank even larger and fill it with gravel and call it a sump bed and perhaps even manage a 2:1 ratio without having a separate sump and grow bed. Just make a place in the corner of the "sump bed" where a pump could go to pump back up to the fish tank.

good luck in your research.

Hey Lynx, thanks and I'll definitely be looking into CHIFT-PIST set up.

BTW, I brought home a 55 gallon barrel today. I just realized something though, I shouldn't of had cut it in half.

So the optimum depth of the growbed is 12", since I cut the barrel in half I could of had an extra 10 gallons in the fish tank.