Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi all again, thanks for bearing with me on some issues I have had. Well I decided to set up my aquaponic system in the small garden shed which has two clear PVC sheets over roof and some artificial lighting (fluorescent)
I was careful and measured out what will fit and had a plan of my proposed layout. I have included some photos on it's progressive stages.
Well I hit a snag, and fortunately I detected it before I put my second grow bed on line, or the fish tank for that matter. So I am now asking for possible remedies,solutions.
I had planned to have a 1000 litre fish tank at the far end of the shed and then two grow beds inline that overflow into one sump and then simply have a pump in the sump that will return the water to the the tank. One grow bed has double (approximately) the size of the other grow bed so that I may have deeper rooted plants.
Well I set the established grow bed in place and ran the water to the sump and had the pump return the water to the grow bed just so I could keep the bacteria and the plants alive whilst I set up the rest of the system. It was then I recognised my problem.

My grow bed flows into the sump and the sump is 3/4 full at the time of the flood of the grow bed.

This means that when I bring the second grow bed online and it drains into the sump, my sump will overflow.

I thought I could stagger the drainage from each grow bed and that may work? (plus I can empty some water out of the grow bed now. But in the event of a power outage (which will invariably happen) my tank would overflow

What to do??? I can have a larger sump, but that's more expense, plus means a new stand for the grow beds as I cut the one that I have down to size to have grow beds at waist height and to be be lower than the fish tank so the SLO and water to grow beds will flow by gravity

Can anyone one shed some light on what I can do, have you had this problem?

the fortunate thing to take out of all of this is that the tank s not setup yet nor the second grow bed. So no fish have been harmed in the making of this human error lol and my 5 bags of clay pebbles are still in thier original packaging

Cheers, hope to hear from you soon
Rod

Switch to Constant Flood instead of using siphons. Many people here have done this either from the beginning or in order to expand their system without putting in a larger sump.

Basically you remove the siphon and put in a standpipe without a weep hole near the bottom (many siphon systems have a weep hole to drain the grow beds if the power goes out). The standpipe sets the water height in the grow bed. You pump continuously and this oxygenates the water. Works great and doesn't create large fluctuations in the sump tank water level.

Could have two sumps underneath linked together

Not necessary to have a deep growbed however it does give you more fish capacity (more surface area for bacteria)

If you go with the constant flood have multiple water entry points to minimise low oxygen areas in growbed

Could have both beds with siphons and only one bell (siphon each bed on alternate days)

I do this all the time to help manage temperatures on extreme days plants do fine.

So during heatwaves I siphon at night and constant flood during the day (not drawing 40 celcius air down into the growbed every cycle)

During freezing overnight weather I do the reverse

In your shed you may have to pollinate tomatoes ect

You wont have trouble with kangaroos eating your veg

The above are all valid solutions.

If you want the flood and drain without increasing your sump size just set your symphony’s up so they don’t completely drain the grow bed.

I’ve seen no perceptible difference between flood and drain and constant flood but I only grow tomato’s and strawberries

Here's a thread that compares three types of systems as far as plant growth over the course of a year
System 1 is flood and drain using siphons
System 2 is the Constant Flood version
System 3 is timed flood and drain

- http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8621