Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi all,
Well, after my little schoolroom adventure with a geranium over a fishtank (which boomed and the kids loved it) I'm starting to think seriously about my own system at home... pretty seriously, I have the tomatoes shooting and a big ol' trough! LOL

I think continious flow might be the way to go as I don't have a sump tank and the fish trough is pretty shallow already. Return flow will be gravity fed.

I'll attach a plan of what I am thinking of (yay for microsoft paint). Please let me know if, in your infinate wisdom, you see anything which is dodgy.

I have heaps of questions but I'll save 'em until I get some feedback on the basic plan.

So, The hardware will consist of:

2 growbeds 170cm x 30cm x 40cm (I think). They are poly long troughs for sheep... a little bit like this one but without the stand and it has corrugations I want to use the clay balls for media if I can get some trucked out here, I have no idea how much I would need.

A cut off 120l drum for a yabby tank

A round trough for the fish tank 170cm x 40cm deep

Various PVC and garden irrigation pipes and fittings.

Whoops, forget to attach the plan

Um... and I decided on the continious flow system instead of flood and drain (in case you're wondering whats with the title of this topic LOL )

Interesting... I would place the yabby (if possible) after the fish - they would eat most of the waste from the fish tank)

Glad to see the AP condition is spreading

Sorry aquamad I am only learning, but can clarify your statement.
I thought the fish waste was fine to go into the grow bed. Is it better to be filtered out, or as you say given to the yabbies.

the fish waste is fine to go straight to the grow beds, but what AM is suggesting is to put the yabbies after the fish so the yabbies can get some extra feed from the fish poo. This may save you some work feeding the yabbies.

I would not use all of the taps - they are expensive.

Use 25mm pipe from the pump, up to the two growbeds and along them, then use 25-13mm t pieces into the growbeds. Short sections of 13mm off the t piece will allow you to direct the water better.

A return tap is not required, however is a good thing to have. Allows you to flood the growbeds as high as you like - helpfull when you want to pump all the water out of the fish tank for whatever purpose.

Here's an update. I went and measured the growbed troughs. There are two of them at:
147cm long x 47cm wide x 22cm deep.

They should be ample for the tomatoes I want to grow (and maybe add more later don't tell my other half)

I'll also float some lettuce in a foam tray on top of the fish tank.

My next question is... How many litres of clay balls would I need to fill those troughs? I think I can get my hands on some.

Also, would the balls be suitable for a CF dripper system? I think I'll leave a shallow constant flood in the bottom of the trough to maintain the damp as I'm not sure the drippers alone will be enough.

Comments much appreciated

This method should work but you may not get as much bio-filtration from the volume of media as you might in a flood n drain set up. You can think of it kinda like modified nutrient film technique with media in the troughs to provide support for the plants and some solids filtration.

Now if you wanted to try for flood n drain, perhaps the yabbie tank could double as your sump, just an idea.

Sounds like something I would say. A Lot.

FWIW I'm using taps on each bed so I can harvest one bed at a time while the system continues to run.

For water distribution within the same bed, use different size holes, i.e. smallest closet to the inlet, and largest furthermost away (or you could just do all one size hole, scrape some gravel out from underneath and just enlarge holes that aren't flowing enough).

I've changed it to adjustable drippers.... cheeeep (but pretty )

sorry, but drippers WILL get clogged - been there done that

Arr... rats.

My artner did say something about putting in holes and having a poly sleeve which you can slide up and down to adjust flow (just a bit of slightly larger poly over the smaller pipe) but it sounded messy to me so I argued the case for drippers. Might have to swallow some pride here and go with his sleeve idea.

About 150ltr.... that'd be near to the top.... if you get the 45L bags... then three should do... i.e 45L x 3 = 135L

Could just take the covers off the drippers (free flowing)