Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

thanks for the detailed info LOL.....

being very new to this... I will print it out and read over it, again and again and again

the drawings are not to scale... yet... will be measuring the greenhouse to see what will fit and go from there...

thanks for the info....

JT

thanks tcl

so much to think about and so little time LOL

jT

Would it be easier to have the drums standing up behind or at the end of the GB. Then you feed the water from the FT into these and have them overflow into the GB's. This would create 3 swirl filters for your system and you'd have better access to them. To help with space you can dig in the sump under the GB's.

Hey all...

thanks for all the suggestions and info....

these drawings are to scale.... I have basic numbers and shall see where I stand

I have to make this fit the existing greenhouse, so I have added the GH Border

the GB is 3' x 14' x 1' which is 314 gallons - 1188 liters (without media)
the FT is 3' x 5' 10" x 3' deep which is 392 gallons - 1480 liters
the ST/Fingerling tank is 2.5' x 3.5' x 2' which is 131 gallons - 495 liters

I figured the gravel/water ratio at 50/50 so actual water in the GB when full
is 157 gallons - 594 liters

so very little of the FT water will Be used when filling the GB...

I put the ST on the end, to make it easier to get to all the GB...

because of my existing GH design, I think this will fit

the GB is 24" to the top so still have 6' of vertical grow space... and
have room to add two more GB's with space between to get to the main
GB

next is to figure out the plumbing, how many fish I can put in there...

question: with a sump pump in the FT and the plumbing coming from the ST going to
the bottom of the FT, will there be enough vacuum to pull the water easily...

any suggestions on piping, pump placement, etc would be appreciated..

thanks
JT

You're clearly going to have you pump in your sump, so unless the intake is VERY well grated, I'm not sure it's the best place for fingerlings. Long ago somebody coined the phrase 'fish confetti'. It has stuck with me ever since. Fish seem to LOVE investigating pipes they can't swim back up.
Sizes all look good. A 50/50 water/media mix is VERY conservative, so you've left yourself room for expansion.
The sump tank will not be of any use being higher than the bottom of your GB. If you fill the sump drawn there to the top, your GBs will remain flooded.
I would suggest you make the sump footprint bigger, and decrease it's height.
For the purpose of future expansion as you will no doubt be interested in, push most of the sum under the GB. maybe even dig it in deep, (are the 55gal barrels still under there? they're semi sump anyhow.

thanks...

might have to dig the ST in a foot or so... would be easy enough....

I will be insulating the tanks, the sides and bottom of the GB and I may wrap the pipes in
insulation to help keep the water temp as stable as possible...

no the drums are not there anymore.... with the ratio I have now.. I shouldnt need them..

maybe I should make a ST and a seperate Fingerling tank.....

still alot of design ahead

thanks
JT

If you leave a drum standing at one end with a little flow going through it you can put fingerling's in it. And turn it off and drain it when not needed.

If you are planning on the fish tank staying a relatively constant depth (CHIFT PIST) your pump will have to go in the sump tank (or draw from the sump tank if an inline pump.) To make this work, the sump tank needs to be able to hold all the water from the grow bed when it has drained, plus enough water so that when the grow bed is completely flooded, the pump has not run dry plus a bit extra just so you don't need to worry about topping up every single day to keep from burning out your pump. Remember that most submersible pumps can only pump down to a certain depth so you usually don't get to count the bottom several gallons of water in the sump tank since the pump can't pump them out. And then don't forget about future expansion beds that will require sump volume as well.

Anyway, by your calculations that you listed, your sump is too small by about 30 gallons and one should always make the margin of error larger for sumps. What happens in my CHIFT PIST systems if the sump tank runs low of water, the grow beds fills up as much as it can and the pump runs dry and it just sits there. The problem with a system running on an auto siphon is that if the pump runs out of water while the bed is almost full, the water just sits in the bed rotting the plant roots while the poor pump burns out. The Best way to deal with this is to have you sump big enough to handle all the water from the grow bed plus a fair margin into which you can install a float activated top up valve. This way, when the water falls below the normal low point in the sump, the top up valve will add just enough water to keep your pump from running dry but not so much that the sump will overflow when the water auto siphons out of the grow bed.

+1
Crap I missed that!!! yes sump MUST be larger than max GB volume. Preferably twice that for reasons TC listed above. Your system will run dry with the sizes mentioned.

my two (euro)cents:

first a sketchup tip:
draw some or most of your components in translucent materials for better understanding

next on the design:
build your sump parallel to your fish tank, with the same length as the fish tank, but lower so it fits under the growbeds

this way it will serve as support for your growbed on that side
and reduce pumping distance

adapt sump width to what volume is needed
This will be considerably less than it is now
which will facilitate growbed access

footprint optimization:
to have better access to both sides of the growbed, center it on the fish tank, or better, align it to the imaginary line connecting both doors
with good access to both sides of the growbed it can be made quite a lot wider,
up to say 7' (but in your case you need to allow for an access corridor on the back side, so that would be about 5' growbed width)
the fish tank and sump can cover the whole available footprint width,
you would still have good access to them right next to the door and on the end of the back corridor

partitioning the growbed will limit water level fluctuations, but then you need a device to avoid simultaneous draining

having a small but deep overflow tank (this can be a partition of your sump) right after your fish tank with a double overflow:
one from the bottom, leading to the growbeds
the other one from the top, overflowing into the sump
will allow you to use a continuously running pump, thus ensuring continuous and fast solids removal (which will settle and eventually go to the growbeds) and continuous (much needed) better aeration
cheaper and more efficient (for both purposes) than the blower you would need with intermittent pump switching to ensure aeration
a pump ensures both solids removal AND aeration.

if you have i.e. floating PE or PP beads (cheap) in this compartment, it will also serve as biofilter, converting ammonia into nitrates
(other types of biofilter inserted in the top overflow to the sump can be applied)

this setup will allow you to raise relative fish density (= kg fish/m³/hr, which is what matters) compared to the much used absolute fish density (=kg fish/m³, TMHO totally irrelevant)

(I expect I will get some flak for this)

lastly: siphons are good, but not the only solution

fast flood/slow drain is another one (achieved by a smaller drain hole than the inflow in the growbed) could be considered too
but again you need a device to regulate this
this could be achieved simply by adding a second -timed- pump located in the bottom part of the overflow tank which would replace the bottom overflow to the growbeds

having not one, but two/three (depending on the number of partitions in the growbed) small extra timed pumps will solve all problems and allow for complete control

hope this is all a bit clear to you

frank

thanks for the input frank..... being new to this, I am absorbing all the info I can..

All the help I have been getting will make the system the best it can be....

the original GH was not designed for AP so the south wall is slanted...to capture more
light

just went out and took some measurements and I think I could move the GB over to be
inline with the edge of the doors.... which would make the southside of the GB a little
easier to get to... the inside of the GH footprint is 9'-6" wide x 19'-4" or 2.9m x 5.88m

I played with a ton of different designs, and because of the limited space I have, looks like im back to the 4 - 55 gallon drums, buried half way in the ground to keep the
GB lower....

with the 4 barrels, i will have about 220 gallons - 832 liters as a sump... my GB is 179.5 Gallons - 679.5 liters (using a 50/50 ratio of gravel to water) so I have about 40 gallons - 151 liters to spare.....

I think I have decided to use an external pump with a 1350 gph/22 gpm (5110lph / 83lpm) so the bed should take about 8 minutes to fill....

I had a suggestion of putting bell siphons over each barrel, which seems like a good ideal to keep the water mixed up... will be testing the whole setup a few times to get satisfactory results....

will post the newest sketchup layout when all the plumbing is done...

one question: what size should the output pipe be if using CHIFT PIST? I will probably have 2" (50mm) pipes between the drums, pump and FT any calculations for output with the flow rate of the pump?

thanks
JT

What size pipe fitting does the pump take? whatever size the pump takes should be the size pipe you use for the feed into the pump and the feed from pump to fish tank.

For the gravity feed from the fish tank to grow beds, go at least a size or two larger than the pump pipe. Water flowing under pressure from a pump will be far more water than will flow out the same size pipe under gravity. To avoid overflow always size gravity plumbing much larger than the pressure fed pipe feeding.

Pump sizing. If your fish tank, almost 400 gallons turns over once per hour or perhaps an easier way to put it, if the pump you use pumps as many gallons per hour (at the needed head or height) as you have fish tank (assuming continuous running of the pump) then the pump is probably big enough. You might want to go larger just for some extra flow but you probably don't need to go much more than double unless you are leaving yourself capacity to add more system beyond your current greenhouse.
Now if you are planning to hook up a timer and only run the pump say 15 minutes every hour, then the pump does need to be powerful enough to move about 400 gallons in 15 minutes at the height you need. It is important to look for energy efficient pumps that can handle the environment of an AP system. A pump appropriate for use around fish that can't leak oil is important and one that won't corrode is also important. I had a cheap sump pump that I used for about 4 months before it gave out due to corrosion, of course that was one month past the warranty. Sometimes it is cheaper to spend more money on the pump in the first place.

On the toppic of the bed and having multiple drains. I really don't think you need to do that if you are going to use auto siphons. An 8' long by 3' wide 1' deep grow bed drains just fine from one siphon. I'm sure a larger one would work too but the plywood I got was 8' long so that was an easy size for the beds. I found that the main limiting factor for draining a grow bed seems to be the flow rate of the water through the gravel or the standpipe holding the gravel back from the drain. One tricky thing about this though is that the inflow of water to the bed has to be fast enough to start the siphon but slow enough to allow the siphon to shut off when the bed is nearly drained. If you get a pump that is too powerful, you might be wasting some energy on extra flow that is overkill and it will make it difficult to balance the siphons. I don't know that multiple siphons on the same bed will work very well since you would have to get them very perfectly alligned for them all to kick in at once.

The idea of diving up the bed into multiple smaller beds so you can use multiple auto siphons might work but it will also cost you more liner, more lumber, more plumbing fittings and will allow less gravel volume for the same footprint. I don't know if it would really be worth the trouble.

now if you decide to skip the auto-siphons and go with a timer and slow drain. A more powerful pump is a good thing. If you want to do multiple drains from a bed in such a system, that is probably fine. Just remember that every standpipe is space you don't get to put plants and gravel and you spend a little more on some plumbing.

I'm still recommending the lined sump under growbed idea perhaps with a little barrel or tank plumbed in next to it a little deeper so that the pump has a good place to be. This lined sump under grow bed (I was kinda assuming the grow bed is lined) would be pretty easy just get double the length of liner that you need for the grow bed. A little insulation under it, line the sump as you build the growbed support. hook up plumbing to the little side pump well and then build the grow bed overtop. Saves on space at least and you get a huge sump for the space allowed. Main drawbacks I see to this is the lack of easy access to the main portion of the sump tank. But it would be easy to plumb the main grow bed to the sump.

Yep, if you're going with the blue barrel sumps... then no sense in having multiple siphons... or partitions IMO...

Just go for a timer based system 15on/45/off... with standpipe drains into each barrel...

True they take up a bit of room... but not very much... and they're simple and bullet proof... especially in your design, with multiples....

Virtually no chance of the growbed overflowing even if one standpipe was to block...

If the growbeds are fed from a chift pist arrangement... then even a pump failure in the sump leaves you pretty safe... as there'd be no overflow from the fish tank to supply the growbeds...

thanks again for the input.... the more Ideas I get the better it will be to make the system easier to build and maintain..

thanks all

jT