Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

sigh....

tell me about it........

Here is a pic of the rock I have to build on top of ....or open up and blast. I called out a company for a quote and he asked me how much money I had! Said drill bits got chewed up on this rock. We have broken some rocks the slow way - burn - water - smash. Very slow. I have heard that burning old tyres heats the rock up very well but makes a lot of smoke and stinks.... as I said..... sigh!

Is why I have got myself excited about building with rocks on top. This area has been opened up for future parking so I will have to burn or find a good way to level them.... but for the AP system I think is best to go above ground for most of it. At least I am not short of building material!

I wont complain about digging in clay again

It's all hard work... one way or the other.

I'm the one who gets to dig in the nice soft sand. So long as I don't hit roots its like butter. Then again, the sides of a hole will cave in like putting hot corn on warm butter.


Yes the point of CLIFT PIST using a sump tank is so that your fish have the luxury of a constant level in their tank. If a system were running at a full 2:1 ration of grow bed to fish tank and you had no sump, your poor fish might be flopping around in only a few inches of water (depending on the size/shape of the fish tank) and your pump burning up while all the beds are only almost kicking in the auto siphons. Most systems that are running at only a 1:1 ratio with lesser stocking densities can usually get away with the simple system pumping up from the fish tank to grow beds that drain back to the fish tank. If there are several grow beds running with auto siphons the fish tank only rarely run down to near the 50-60% level.

Other people try to manage the fish tank levels by running separate pumps and timers for different grow beds to keep them from filling at the same time. (gotta keep an eye on the timers since they don't always remain accurate.) Some people have talked of using indexing valves to fill beds in succession, (clogging/fouling issues there.) And a few other ways. The biggest benefit of CLIFT PIST over many of these is that if something goes wrong with the pump plumbing or the bed drain plumbing, the fish tank can't get pumped dry since the pump is not drawing water from the fish tank and the fish tank stays at a constant level. Biggest problem with CLIFT PIST, it requires a fairly large sump tank.

I think that large sump tank is worth the expense. Once done it is over and can save from many costly problems later.

I want to go as low tech as possible. Timers etc... all require more careful maintenance to a system. Would prefer to avoid them if I can. I love seeing mechanical solutions in action. Flouts and venturi drains and even simple loop siphons are marvellous to me.

My system has an overflow from the fish tank into the sump, where it is pumped to the growbeds. It's not a Venturi drain, just a pipe running to the tank bottom, where the water is drawn. This keeps the tank very clean.

The difference between this and CLIFT PIST is solids go straight to the pumps, rather than the growbeds. In the case of fish poo and leftover food, I would have thought it was better to have it sent splashing into the sump, where it could break down a little before going to the growbeds.

Any thoughts on this?

Besides the overflow, I have hoses running from the bottom to close to the top of the tank and then to the bottom of the sump. As both ends of the hoses are under water, a siphon effect is created. So even when the water from the tank isn't overflowing, it's still flowing into the sump. Of course there's some fluctuation in the tank level, but it's minimal and I don't need a hug sump.

I don't really like the idea of a huge sump because it seems more water would dilute the nutrient levels, however I'm not sure if this is a problem?

It cant be diluted - its a closed system.

Any food that makes its way into the growbed dissolves very quickly, and any thing else that not soluble gets eaten by the worms.

I seem to be stuck in a hydroponics mindset, thinking in PPM. I still find this a little confusing though, because the nutrients are dissolved in the water, therefore more water would dilute them?

Hi Plachon!
2 thoughts:
1. The solids feed the plants instead of clogging up the pump in the sump
2. The CHIFT PIST design can be done in series without extra sumps
(I have personally chosen a design that goes FLUSH TANK to FISH TANK to GROWBEDS to FISH TANK to GROWBEDS.....etc.... to SUMP) I want a top FLUSH TANK to enable a flood and drain effect ......instead of just feeding from SUMP to FISH TANK and a slow leak from the FISH TANK through the Solids Lifting Overflow into the GROWBEDS.



The sump only needs be as big as the volume of water held by the growbeds..... or the last set of growbeds if done in series. That is why it is so marvellous... Constant Height In Fish Tank (CHIFT)Pump In Sump Tank.(PIST) The water is held in series at each point as the constant height in the Fish tank is maintained. CLIFT PIST... is Contant Level In Fish Tank... Pump in Sump Tank.... just a different acronym telling the same story.

I would be concerned that a sump between the Fish Tank and the Growbeds would dilute nutirent levels ..... I have already modified my design to reduce the size of the Fish Tank to make sure the nutrient levels are increased in terms of what flows into the GBs... and that water is piped directly to where needed... the plants.

I am choosing to enlarge my sump at the start because it gives me more conditioned water within the system to play with... and because of that little niggling worry... (why am I always reading that everyone wished they had made their sump bigger in the first place?) So I am putting it to a second use as well by painting my sump black and using it as a solar heat water trap too.... I would not want all of the sump water removed each time the system cycled........ keep some heat.

Its still the same amount of nutrients, regardless of being in 2000l or 500l. Dont get hung up on theorising about nutrient levels.

100 fish with a 200 litre sump, make the same amount of nutrients as 100 fish with a 5000 litre sump.

+1

Hi OBO and F&F. I think it does make a difference. This is really hydroponics with fish solids as the nutrient source. X amount of nutrients carried by less water means higher nutrient content delivered to plants PER CYCLE than if there is further water dilution.

Is why I will not put a sump between FT and GBs.... extra dilution....
And why I have modified my CHIFT PIST design with smaller Fish Ponds..... more concentrated nutrition....

More fish in less water is now my aim so that each cycle has high nutrient delivery. So more about delivery per cycle ....

Opens up the question about what is the optimum cycling of a system in a day. I want mine off at night as you do OBO.... and max nutrient delivery during day when growth is effected.

You seem to be concentrating a lot on the nutrients for plants theory. You are not changing your plant ratio, so the amount of nutrients that can be taken up per cycle will not change much regardless of nitrate 200 or nitrate of 2. The same amount of plants will take up the same amount of nutrients.

Consider the health of your fish. If you have less water, and the same amount of fish, your water parameters will not be as good. Plants will grow.

If you have more water, and the same amount of fish, your fish will be happier, you still have the same amount of plants so the nutrient uptake will be the same - hence the nutrient levels will not change. Plants will still grow.

The only difference is the time it takes to reach a certain nutrient level. The same quantity of nutrients will be available in either design.

Less water = less stable system. Those of us who run both a small, and large system know this well.

got it in one

i'll try and take a picture of some of the rocks they are pulling out of the new estates 20 minutes north next time i drive past.........try the size of bobcats and tractors...............

I agree, the extra buffer of more water in a system is a good thing. It may take a little longer to build up the initial nutrient count but a system can run very happily with way more water than needed for the amount of fish. Especially if you initially cycle it up fishless and therefor start out with a good amount of nutrients anyway.

I'm currently re-working my aquarium and quarantine wing of the system to be a cascading CHIFT, Grow bed, CHIFT, Grow bed, Water Bed, sump. The sump is between 40-50 gallons and while that wing of the system is hooked into the main system, the sump is just and extra tank of water. Not a problem to have extra water really.

The only time I would say that having a huge amount of water in a system is a "problem" is when you need to salt to a high level due to disease or do massive water changes due to disease or very poor water quality. With a really huge amount of water you are far less likely to see the poor water quality problem unless something happens to kill off all the bacteria suddenly (contamination by chemicals is the only reason I might fear this.)
To salt a really huge amount of water takes a rather large amount of salt, would definitely be prudent to keep new fish in a smaller quarantine that is easily salted to the appropriate degree for a period of time while looking closely at them before moving them into the main system.

As OBO says, more water is more buffer, helps keep the system stable.