Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi Everyone,

I have been thoroughly stuck by the aquaponics bug. You may have seen my other post regarding my proposed system. It will be a few months before I get my big system done. So to ease my AP addiction I have spent most of this weekend on a small AP 'add-on' to my existing gold fish pond.

The basic system will constist of two 55L storage crates, in a continuous flow arrangement. The pond is approx 300L and have about 10 goldfish in there. Its been running for a couple of years now with no problems, so it will be well suited to this purpose. The reeds growing in the top pond are growing out of control.

I can now sympathise greatly to all the gravel washers here... I washed about 50L Sunday afternoon on an old flyscreen door over one of my crates. I had the water going into a bucket with my pump pumping the water back up to wash the gravel. I did a bit at a time and it seemed to work OK. I will have my work cut out for me for my big system.

Unfortunately I ran out of light to fill the crates up with the gravel. I have been pondering the whole continuous flow idea and the issue of dry spots. I have included a picture of how I think I will run the setup, any thoughts would be appreciated. More pictures tommorrow...

Welcome Tim. If you are going to use continuous flow, you will need to have the water enterring the grow-bed through a grid on the top of the gravel. If I understand your diagram correctly, you are actually using a fllod and drain type system (or maybe just flood and flow ) where the water is flloding to the point where you have some holes in the top of the standpipe and then just draining from that point. This would mean that the grow-bed is full of water at all times. Perhaps your diagram does not properly explain your intentions.

TimC, added to VB's comments - reasons for letting the flow move down through the gravel, rather than on the bottom:

Waste of pipe to have it plumbed to the bottom of the bed
gives slight aeration to the water
allows the solids to dissipate through the bed easier, each successive flood will break them up further

Ell

I should have explained the picture a bit better. It is basically a cross between a flood and drain and a continuous flow system. If I had the water entering the top it would simply drain away through the drain pipe leaving old water at the bottom, if I left off the drain pipe the water would not evenly distribute. Because this is only a temporary system the waste solids, which would be only very small, would not be a problem. The extra 50 cm of pipe doesn't bother me.

My theory that the up flow would cause a movement of nutrients up to the roots of the plants rather than down and away from them. It will also leave more room for plants at the top.

I thought the definition of continuous flow was that water is always cycling through the system. It doesn't specify where the water enters.

Does the water drain between flood cycles?

No, water is continually flowing up through the system... The water level will remain about 2-3 inches below the gravel surface.

Tim, understand what you are trying to do now, it is different to what most are doing so will let others with more experience discuss the pro's & cons and take in the knowledge

Ell

John - is like deep water culture with gravel. Problems you will have with this method are:

- providing sufficient oxygen to the plants
- ensuuring that there are not anoerobic areas within the gravel due to the water flow not reaching all parts of the bed.

I'll try it and see how it goes. Nothing wrong with experimenting. This is the way I have always built my sump filters. If it doesn't work as well I can switch to flood and drain.

yeah, give it a go - we will all learn from it!

Hopefully I won't cop too many "told you so's" in the next few weeks. But yeah its a good learning experiment, and to get AP out of my system for while.

that's one thing I have never come across here - improvements/adaptations/tongue in cheek remarks are plentiful tho

no told you so's at all here (hek, you know we are thinking it so why say it )
But it does help prove a point or even disprove a concept which is strongly held - disecting why it does or does not work is part of the fun.

I think AA was doing a feed from the bottom drain from the top system as well. It is out of the normal but thats what we need, creative thinking.

Just get it going mate, especially if its a temporary system! It will give you something to seed your bigger system with