Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

lemme pick the brains out there,would it be possible to do this with custom made 300mm deep nft channels

why not?

You'd only need 150mm deep too.

Still need to biofilter the water first though.

so would it work with normal nft

As long as the was goes through a bio filter and then you limit the amount of solids. Then regular NFT will work. Is there a reason you wanted the larger size.

Was going to ask the same question... NFT by definition is a thin film of "relatively" fast flowing nutrient solution....

Traditional trays are about 150mm x 50-75mm... the style pictured uses 90-100mm...

Why 300mm.... you'd have to flood a lot higher initially to establish the roots... means more pump volume....

If you go 300mm, it may as well be gravel filled.

Don't know what lengths are proposed... but filling with gravel means structuring support(s) to carry the weight....

True. Hydroton would make this weight negligable though.

The new NFT systems use flat bottom channels instead of round pvc. It's supposed to help with puddling and root blockage. No personal experience with it but I was thinking of using the flat gutter that is used in solar hot water systems to cover the pipe runs on the exterior of a house. It's similar to a rain gutter but both has a flat bottom with two angled sides and is much more sturdy.

could i run the water unfiltered into gravel grow beds first and then into nft gullies ie would the growbeds capture the solids and harbor the necessary bacteria for the nitrogen cycle.will probably be using a water capacity of 550 000l.how many full grow tilapia could i stock in this

OBO
Do I gather that if you use gravel or hydroton in a "grow tube" then it is treated the same as a GB? Is 90mm PVC storm water two small? What would be your guess/knowledge of ideal size of pipe filled with hydroton for a horizontal grow tube?

Rick

Pre-filtering is a must SA-Aqua.... so yep, use your growbeds first... or you'll have to employ some other means of "settling" and solids removal...



By calculator doesn't display enough numbers ....

Based on the suggested (conservative) density of 3kg/100L... that's 3 x 5500 = 16500kg... so 16500 x 1kg fish... or about 32,000 plate sized fish ...

But you'd need to run that much bio-filtration to do so.... then there's questions regarding oxygenation, flow rate etc...

And Tilapia are one of the fish that can (in a good recirc system) be run at huge densities as long as all the appropriate equipment is in place...

Just how many Tilapia do you think you'll need....

as many as i can comfortably fit,go something really big in the works

Anything less than 150mm filled with gravel is too smal IMO.

Gravel filled = grow bed.