Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello everyone. So for the past few weeks when I have had time I have been just randomly reading up on some aquaponics systems out of interest only. Now I think I am ready to begin prepping for a first time attempt next year.

I would like to build a NFT style system I believe with multiple horizontal pipes. I am trying to gauge how much 4" pvc or 6" pvc runs I will need. I understand my plant choices will be limited to leafy types and that is not an issue as I have other soil growing areas for the denser and viney stuff.

My starting point that will likely drive all the other sizing needs is that I have a ~500 gallon Hot Tub that I would like to use as a fish pond. I will need to seal up the jets etc as needed and I am aware of that much. I can't imagine that I will be able to grow fish enough in a 6 month time frame to actually use them as food. I could however I suppose use the fish at the end of the season for the soil in my garden. Not sure how PC that would be with this forum though...

So my current inventory is:

1x 500 gallon tank
1x 55 gallon plastic barrel for biomedia. Lava Rock as the media perhaps if that will provide enough surface area and I believe it should?
16' run of space that is within 10 feet of the tank.
10' from a water hose (FWIW: city water)
50/50 share sun location, ie, complete full sun for 1/2 of the daylight hours
Several various water pumps, plumbing, etc.

Disclaimer: Without knowing my ratio of how much I can grow or am required to grow based on my tank size I figured I could do 5 rows of 12'x 4" or 6" pvc pipes with 3" holes every 8 inches or so.... this is just a picture in my head and has not been evaluated as of yet.

I have searched a bit trying to figure out the ratio of PVC/Plants per gallon/fish for a NFT system but seem to still be at a loss. I am able to find the ratio's for a bed style drain flush system but just no luck on the NFT style.

Note: I am not apposed to failing in my first couple of attempts at this project, though I would like to make progress on each revision when/if possible. Point being, I have no expectations of being 100% successful on my first go and as such, I am willing to work through the kinks without being to frustrated.

I was hoping based on where I am starting from perhaps I could get some advise or links to relevant material that would be able to assist me a bit.

Thanks everyone and hoping to hear back with some thoughts or idea's.

..
Can you separate and insulate the fish tank, and thus try to keep them over winter..
I can guarantee that you can do it via BioCenosis and swirl filters etc.
Remove the solids and then feed them into the plant system.. :-)

Well being late in the season and wanted to do some testing I am going to skip the fish thing for now and just use a nutrient solution. I did a quick sketch of the basic design plan. I tried to eliminate as much need for exposed lines by running some of the lines directly through the piping. I figure this simplifies and keeps things pretty clean. I got the pvc frame all completed with slip fit and the 3" holes all drilled. I need to go back and secure some of the PVC joints to sturdy things up a bit yet leave enough of them slip fit for disassembly. I should be able to disconnect 1/2 of the unit and bring it inside for the winter and some in house growing. At least I hope to anyhow. Perhaps next year I will look into adding fish into the equation.. Will post back again as I make some more progress.

My hole spacing is 9" center to center (not in picture below). Hopefully not to crowded for greans. Total of 96 3" holes all drilled.


The diagram picture is not to scale as far as width goes, its more of what I used to base the flow of what I was going to build.

Progress update!

I came across a deal from a buddy who had a few 55 Gallon barrels I could have. I made a couple modifications to the structure to lessen the footprint by just a bit. Waiting for tomorrow for my pump and airstone to arrive so I can figure out how I am going to run my water lines still. Hoping to have the barrels halved this weekend and everything plumbed up and working. I still need to glue up the joints I want to be secure and then silicone the remaining ones that may weep some water. I do want to be able to disassemble it so I am refraining from gluing all the joints. I also added a feature I had not seen on other NFT systems as well. I cut 4" pieces of the same piping and then ran a relief split in it. This allows me to slip it over the pipes (as shown in 6 of the 8 pipes) where I can then slide the sleeve over an open hole should I remove a plant without immediately replacing it, thus covering the gaping hole that allows both light and whatever else into the system.

Items Left:
Shorten the front legs by about 4" to 6" or so. The 22.5" elbow I added brought it up higher that I want.
Split the barrels
Frame the barrels so they don't roll around. 3 under each set of pipping.
Connect all the barrels with bulkhead fittings I still need to purchase.
Run the water lines.
Flush test the system just to see were I stand.
Glue it all together.

Nice looking rig, Gnarly!

I was just going to ask about this when I went back and reread your description:


Clever!

How are you planning to run the water?

--
Sam

I am not 100% sure yet. Likely I will try a few things and weigh my options. Ideally the front down legs I would like to put in a 4" Tee in there where the side of the comes out at 2". This would allow me to then run 2" pipe right into the barrels already existing 2" threaded hole. If that fails, I may simply drill a hole in the front leg and put in my own fitting though I may have to go down to 1.5" if I go that route. If I can pull off the 2" Tee version I want, I should have plenty of room to also run my water line right through it. So basically the up piles can carry water both down and up. This IMO, keeps the design clean looking from the outside. It also reduces the some of the dangers of my pumped water from drenching my floor. If it should leak, the water should just return back to the holding barrels. This of course assumes that all of my PVC piping is leak proof.

The piss poor diagram I have below is a birds eye view of the tanks and the PVC up pipes. The red line is the flow from the pump in tank #6 going up the to the up-pipes #7 and #8 as well as the #1 barrel (to make sure my solution stays consistent between all the barrels). The water line in the up-pipes will then branch off to each of the 4 plant grow pipes. I am going to have to put some valves in the lines to equalize pressure without a doubt.

Ok, I have the tank mostly built at this point. I will leak test things tomorrow and provide some more pics for progress as well as to try and document the build. I am running 1/4" tubing for the water supply. I originally tried to use Tee's to split the water line out to each of the 8 pipes but pretty much lost all the water pressure after the 1st Tee. Plan B seems to be working perfectly though. I ran a 1" pipe through the barrels from one end to the other and I have 4 ports near my first up pipe and another 4 ports at the second up pipe. Basically a water manifold. This keeps the pressure going to all 8 water lines near the exact same amount by first pressurizing the supply line/tube. I have a screw adapter mid-way which allows me to separate the 2 sections of grow pipes so that I can bring one section inside to attempt some winter growing. I think I am overkill on my water tanks possibly. If this is the case, I can easily fashion up a second entire system and then just move one of the tanks over to it. Pics to follow tomorrow morning once I have light again.

Ok, its been rainy for a week straight but I made some progress. All I have left to do is cover the outside of the water container with some white 1/32" thin white plastic and I am done. Fully functional right now but waiting for my plants to mature a bit more before I place them in the tubes.

What is the constant height of the water in the 4" tubes?

Well that I would think is going to vary once plants start to lay roots across the bottom of the pipe. With the pipes empty of plants, its about 1/2 a millimeter deep and about 2 centimeters wide, literally a trickle. As plants begin to root, it will create a obstacle pattern on the bottom of the pipe and increase the water height in the process. Purely guessing but I would say more like 2 millimeters of water depth at a near mature plant development. This is all theory at this point as its my first attempt at something like this. Keep in mind that the the horizontal grow pipes have a 3"-4" drop or so over a 10' span so water never really stands in place in the pipes. The flow rate and root mass combination would be closest way to set the water depth. The pipes at early growth will be 99% air and as root growth develops that would reduce down to maybe 80% or so as a guess. This likely also depends on the types of plants growing as well. In my case, Bib lettuce & Spinach will be lower root growth. I also am going to try Kale and Napa Cabbage which could be complete failures but worth a lesson at least to try. My biggest fear on the Napa is that the weight of the plant may want to flip the net pot out of the pipe hole, so some sort of plant support may be needed.

I can guess my pipe drop by looking at the water level in the left most barrel and compare that to the right most barrel. Over the 20' span of the whole thing, there is about 8" of difference.

Once I bring the build into the house for the winter (actually 1/2 of it) then the water level in the barrels will be level and I will have to introduce a lean into the system by setting the left legs up on a 4" block or something. Outside where it sits, my ground already has this lean naturally.

Water flowing along a sewer line to keep everything moving, TP & T..ds, needs only a 1/4" drop per ft. Increasing the drop per ft, only gets extra flow.

Have you compensated for what your 10' sections are going to sag in time with the xtra weight of the growing plants? You will be putting extra support at the mid way point.

You also will be growing a lot of algae inside the pipes due to light penetrating the walls. To exclude algae from growing, I suggest you paint the outside flat black and then again flat white.

Why so much water storage in the 6 1/2 barrels?

All excellent points. Thanks much for the input, this was what I was hoping to gain out of this community.

My current drop is nature bound at the moment, so it is what it is.

I figured I was going to need some support after things got weighted down. Likely I will be adding some support 1/3 the way down rather than at the mid pioint as that is the best place I can place a support structure securely. So 4 vertical supports in total. I really view my setup as 2 sections rather than one large unit.

I didn't give much thought to light penetrating the thinner pipe walls so I will need to look into resolving that after my first grow run at which point I will dissembling and bringing inside anyhow. There is a bit of extra light protection as 1/2 of the piping is actually double thickness due to the cover sleeves I have on it currently.

Yep its a lot of water. This was by design. I should be able to utilize the tops of the 1/2 barrels as an intermediate DWC stage was my thinking if I so desire down the road. From past experience with all my fish tanks, having more water is just so much easier to manage the waters chemical balance and stability. I went overkill here without a doubt. If the system works as well as I hope it does and the excess water storage is not required, I hope to build a second rack and utilize one of the sets of barrels for it. They are built as 2 separate sections/tanks just for this reason. In reality, the tanks currently only hold a combined total of about 95 gallons of water due to the sloped ground they sit on. If I was just running a single tank, it would be around 70 gallons. Note: I am referring to 1 tank being equal to 3x 1/2 barrels for clarity. The other reason is I have this personal glitch where I like symmetry and it would irk the hell out of me, LOL.

Ok, so I need to clean up the electrical a bit but its now fully functional. I had more starter plants before putting them into the DWC section but they got burnt up from leaving the humidity shield on when it got hot a few days ago... I also need to finish up putting the plastic sheeting over the foam board surrounding the water tanks.

I am afraid I do not have enough growing season left to actually produce anything mature but I am this far into it so maybe I can still get some baby greens, LOL.

My goal is to seed in the net pots and then directly into the DWC, after 10-14 days I hope I will have enough root development to then transfer into the pipes.

I have an 4" airstone in each of the DWC water containers feed from a single air pump to help with o2 saturation.