Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi from newb!

i am starting up my system in the spring, I will be using a 300gallon tank for fish, and optimizing beds accordingly. I am using similar to zip grow tower, but not including foam in tower, Instead i want to use something like this:

http://aquaponicsplan.com/wp-content/up ... lter-4.jpg

but i wonder what media I should use?
my target is for least volume required
will pay a bit more

but i wonder what is best to use and find it hard to calculate how much i need for my 300gal tank?

any advice could help
thanks!

A gravity fed solids filter (swirl filter) would have been better thinking that you can take out the solids and that is the best fertilizer for fruit trees. 2 birds with one stone.

More experienced members may add to this, I am only just got out of newbie status (I think), so take it with a grain of salt ahaha.

Ok so most people will probably want more info, like are you doing anything other then towers for plants (i.e. media beds, and then how much what type), what fish, what stocking density, etc etc. so any plans you have thus far will help people answer better.

Heaps of info on filters, search is your friend.

My two cents is have a RFF (Radial Flow Filter, sometimes called RFS radial flow settler) first no matter what you go with second, as this takes out bigger particles, and lessons maintenance/cleaning on your bio-filter. Trust me, you want to have the least amount of maintenance possible. RFF and Swirl Filter are very similar, with my understanding that RFF has been proved to be more efficient by some smart university types. But much of muchness.

If you are doing towers with no media, and you aren't doing media beds, then you also need to have a bio-filter as well as a RFF. Albeit if you are doing media beds, remember you don't have to have any filtration. My opinion is it makes life easier having filtration, but definitely don't have to if you stick to GB guidelines in terms of feeding and stocking.

Options for bio-filter are fairly large, most popular (in no order) being bird netting, onion bags, shade cloth, plastic bottle caps, old fish netting, etc etc etc. Essentially you are looking for anything with surface area. Of course K1 media (and there like) are the official and best option, but get pricey. I think bird netting would be most popular, depends on what you can get your hands on. I personally currently use half shade cloth (I got off-cuts for free from a shade cloth guy, otherwise he would pay to dump them). The other half is plastic bottle caps from milk bottles etc (I run a cafe, but some recycle shops have them too). This has worked well for me. As my AP is a showcase in my cafe, I get a lot of AP visitors, and most experienced AP'ers comment on my water clarity which is tops! To clean, I fill filter with water, and "hand wash". Once I have enough milk bottle caps I will be getting rid of shade cloth, as it is much harder to clean. Caps just get moved around and water drained, whereas shade cloth needs some manual scrubbing (as I assume bird netting etc would). The surface area of bottle caps I would assume is less, so when I do this, I will keep an eye on parameters, and possibly it means having more bottle caps "space" then I would have shade cloth.

Hope this helps, its probably as clear as mud ahaha

I have planned for swirl filter, and using no media at all.
also i dont want to clean chunks from swirl filter, i feel chunks are plant food too, and should go through blender then get reintroduced to system to minimize waste.

my friend Google , returns lots of grey and mixed messages.

I know it is required, thanks for confirmation, but i need to know quantity of what i need.

I intend to use floodgate type filter system with layers of filters of different sizes, to aid for cleaning purposes.

my friend mentions that i need a specific surface area per gallon ratio, but most sales dont elaborate on the SA of their plastic bits, and zip-foams, just a guess but wouldnt these be better than k1?

I want most size efficient as oppose to cost friendly. This leaves me to believe that for my smaller filter i will use either zipgrow filters, regular aquarium filters, or kitchen scour pads.
But how do i find out what the sa/vol of each of them are, so i can estimate volume required?


which leaves me to the question how much volume do i need?


Ballpark math is fine by me, but please notify if vals are min!
thanks!


also here is a lazy side question!:
what if i use towers, no media, but leave dead roots planted in tower, would those dead roots make good bio home, or worm home, in the tower is where alot of heat collects anyway eventually roots would decompose and disintegrate out, plus will stay moist from bell siphon feed line, making room for more from next batch of root:)?

Also it could be very helpful if there was a way to do physical test SA/vol ratio on house hold materials

if it comes down to buying plastic bits i can print them with pla plastic, I attempted to make better plastic bits but the cad tools i have now dont make it easy.... however that doesn t eliminate the option of duplication