Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Thanks a ton mate, that helped a lot!

You're talking about a SLO (solids lifting overflow).



You set the water level by adjusting the height of the horizontal part which comes off the 'T'. The vertical part of the 'T' allows air to be drawn in, thus preventing any siphon action which would empty the tank.

The diameter of the pipe needs to be balanced with the flow of water coming into the tank from the pump: Too small a diameter and the water will arrive faster than it can drain out and overflow the tank, too large and there wont be enough suction to carry solids from the bottom of the tank.

There is heaps on the forum about using SLOs.


Scott

Well after a few hours today I have finally grasped the concept of the system. Got up fairly early on my day off (8am) and read a ton of threads

Thank you for the patience!

I have officially narrowed it down to two set-ups:

use a single IBC (1000 liters) for a fish tank, another for a sump tank (which will become the new home to my friends alligator gar) and 4 grow beds which will be 2 IBC's cut top to bottom.

Use 2 IBC's as fish tanks and linking them with a pipe line along the center, pump in one tank floods all 4 GB's which gravity feed down and back into both tanks.
Seems to me like the less complicated (cheaper) way. Maybe raise different breeds in either tank.
(see attachment)

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Any suggestions, idea's, comments?

I'd have a SLO in the right hand ST to pickup any solids in there and deliver it to the left hand FT where the pump can send it to the GBs.

OR

Have the interconnection between the two IBC at the bottom , for the same reason.

It might only be the drawing, but I'd also have the pump discharge coming out from the top of the IBC (less cutting, less leak potential)

In either case, I'd only drain into the right hand IBC to allow water and solids back towards the pump.



Scott

+1 on Scotts drawing.

My future system will be something similar. Believe I've given up on the idea of a water bridge or any other type of connection on the outside of the bottom of the tanks. One leak, crack, or break in the piping, and you just lost both breeds of fish and all that water.

Yea the interconnection between 2 FT's is a failure point in so many ways... even if you are successful with the actual connection you still face issues with the partition of fish. If you go with a fine mesh to seperate the species you will need to maintain it to prevent blockages... you go too big with the mesh and you run the risk of fingerlings getting stuck (I have learnt this first hand).

Fish are very inquisitive and try and get through and into every nook, cranny and hole... I recently have been finding my SP sitting inside my pipe cut offs in my FT (suppose to be yabbie hides)... one of the pipes had a blank on one end so the fish swam in but got stuck in there as was unable to turn around.

Silly buggers..


Even 2 seperate systems is a good idea as it gives you a better option of species seperation. I did this during my first build. I wanted to expand on my first and had nearly gone ahead with the option Bunson posted... I ended up setting the expantion up as an independent system and Im glad I did. If I had any failures... it was only in one system.

Just food for thought but this is what it looked like

OKAY. After even more! deliberation.. I've decided to go with 2 seperate systems. Each having a single full sized IBC fish tank and 2 IBC grow beds(cut in half). It will be buried for gravity utilization.

Questions comments concerns?

More importantly.. Tips or suggestions?

I like the two separate systems idea better. I wasn't wild about the pump in the FT instead of the sump (easy for the fish to cause problems with the pump - with the AG in the sump wouldn't have made much difference though).

Simple designs, robust; allows for different species or different sizes of same species growing at same time.

One "problem" is the cost of running two pumps compared to one pump; but it does allow you to perform your own side-by-side experiments (so I'm jealous as I'm not "allowed").