Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello everyone.....

Sorry I haven't been able to post yet, and tell everyone about my project here in the States, but it's pretty hard juggling a real estate career and a medium sized pilot project at home. I am just going to try and be brief here and will start a longer thread w/ pics and more info as soon as I can.

Short Summary Of Me and My Project:
My name is Jeremy, I have lived in S. California all my life and have always been interested in Nature, a healthy environment, organic plants, economics, and renewable energy and resources, which is what spurred my interest in aquaponics many years ago. I built an 1800 sq ft greenhouse in my back yard and will be modeling the Speraneos system to start.


Problem and Info:
Using 900 gallon polytank fishtanks, connected to 6 homemade 4'x8" growbeds and running flood and drain. Was using ladder grid system in the grow beds modeled exactly after the Speraneos. By using the ball valves and standpipe method I easily get even flooding to all my growbeds, but I can't get all my grids to get even distribution, in other words I can't get the water to come out of all the holes in the grid system of the growbeds. I'm not even sure how important that is because of the flood level being set properly, and I have only ran a small setup over a regular fishtank where I didn't have that problem, so any info would be greatly appreciated. I was using 1/3 hp pump which I originally though would be questionable, then I went to the 1/2 hp pump which doubled the gpm and still didn't work completely. I then changed the grid system to model Joel's T- grid system setup which I thought would pressurize better, and it did help a lot, but still not completely. Then I downsized the pipe coming out of the quad pvc pieces in hopes of getting a little more back pressure, it helped only a little. I'm sort of running out of ideas, and I can't see using the 3/4 hp pump because it uses to much electricity, and I won't have the power anyways. So I'm basically asking all the professionals here for a little advice and guidance.

Specs:
Ebara 1/3 hp pump: 35 gpm at 5' head roughly
Ebara 1/2 hp pump: 70 gpm at 5' head roughlyl
6 growbeds attached to pump, with a head height of 9 feet, using 1 1/2in pipe and following all specs in the Speraneos and Joel Malcolms startup books. I am going to pressure test the 1/2 hp power pump because I'm not real sure it actually doubled the gpm from the 1/3, so I'm thinking maybe I got a bad pump even though its band new, it wouldn't surprise me at all. So thanks for all who can help.

I just want to say thanks to everyone here, you have all truly inspired me with the diversity of systems and projects, and especially to Joel, and the Speraneos for being the basic founders of the total waste aquaponic system, THANK YOU ALL.....

Jeremy

I'm not 100% sure I'm following you correctly, but I believe that if you are using flood & drain, it doesn't matter if your distribution grid isn't exactly even. Getting exact distribution patterns would only matter if you are doing continuous flow.

It's for this reason that flood and drain tends to outperform continuous flow. There are no dry spots when flooded.

pretty sure tamo has hit it on the head there wet is wet after all

Yep. Jeremy, in my flood and drain beds, I don't bother with a grid at all. The water is jus put into one place in the grow-bed. The worms and the flood and drain action prevent any issues with build up of solids in that one area. You will however get a build up of worms in that area .

Welcome.

Thanks Tamo, Delgrade, and Veggie Boy, thats exactly what I was talking about. I just wanted to make sure before I continued. I will post some pics real soon and show everyone my project.

Well what happened? Any pictures? Sounds like the specs are nearly the same as what I have in mind.

Dan-o

jp4x4's last visit was 11 Feb 2008, the same day of his last post. I guess he got what he needed and hasn't felt it necessary to come back.

Hurumph

*sigh*