Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I have 4 of these. What would I need to make them into a aquaponics system?
50 gallon tank, 52" L. x 31" W. x 12" H

Welcome Randallponics!

Janet Pelletier used three of those Rubbermaid 50 gallon tanks for grow beds, and had a 150 gallon Rubbermaid tank for the fish. The 50 gallon tanks are probably a bit too shallow for food fish, but you could have teeny ones in there generating nutrients for plants OK if you want to experiment.

viewtopic.php?p=56923#p56923

What do you need.......
You could probably manage a starter system with those, some plumbing fittings and pipe, a pump, a load of river gravel, and some goldfish.

Since those are kinda shallow tubs I would suggest you research CHIFT PIST on the forum. You could use one as the fish tank that would drain down to two filled with gravel as your grow beds and let them drain down to the 4th one as your sump tank.

If you use auto syphons (yep another things to research sometimes also called auto siphons loop syphons or bell syphons or any combination there of) you probably only need a pump that can lift between 50-100 gallons of water per hour to about 3 feet.

If you use a timer to manage you flood and drain of the grow beds then you probably need a pump that can do 200-300 gallons per hour. You might also want to get an air pump and air stones that would be adequate for a 50 gallon aquarium since there will be periods of time when water isn't flowing into your fish tank.

This would make a nice fingerling quarantine system.

There is a lot to learn. Get your system working and drainage flow timed correctly before you add fish.

Heck, I strongly advise fishless cycling too but then again, I run a pee ponics system.

thanks for the replys. Ive been reading as much as I can about ap and this is what ive come up with.
I dont understand 100% the standpipes, Are they like the aquarium Durso standpipes anybody know? Are they quiet?
Also what sort of pipe would I use? Regular white PVC? For the Pump to Fish tank, what sort of pipe should I use there? Hydroponic polyvinyl tube would work ok?

My pump is a ViaAqua 1300 370GPH 6 ft Max head

I uploaded a plan I have for the tanks. Please give me your imput. Am I missing anything?

Looks like you have the basic idea there.

I would recommend improving your support for the fish tank and grow beds a bit but I suspect this is just a concept picture.

The stand pipes people are usually talking about in Aquaponics are the ones for the grow beds which is a kinda different thing than in the fish tank. In the grow beds you usually want some sort of thing to keep the gravel or other media away from the drain and also allow you to access the drain for cleaning/adjustment. In that "standpipe" you might install a bell siphon or you might have a loop siphon external to the grow bed. There can be some noise from auto siphons but it should not be constant, it is usually only as the bed is drained and the siphon needs to slurp up a gulp of air in order to stop.

Most of us use regular PVC pipe for many things and the hydroponics tubing is probably just fine to go from your pump up to the fish tank provided it is the correct pipe size for the pump. Always let your pump dictate the size piping that feeds off of it.

You should make sure that the pipe from your fish tank is larger than the pump tubing by at least a couple sizes since that overflow is gonna be gravity drain.

Your pipe from the fish tank will want to be like the "drains formerly known as venturi drains", ya know, I never did get anyone to tell me what they decided the name should be, something like bottom sucker drain or solids lifting drain. Anyway, all it really means is the drain is actually near the bottom of the fish tank but you put a T above or at the water line so you can't syphon your fish tank dry by accident. You can have the pipe actually exit the fish tank at about the water line or anywhere below the water line and set your water level by the highest point of the pipe.

Do make sure to put some sort of grill or netting over any pipe openings in the fish tank as the fish don't know they shouldn't swim into there and might have trouble getting back to the fish tank once they find themselves in your grow bed.

One last note, always add fail safe overflows since a clogged drain (simple as a leaf or fish blocking the normal drain) could otherwise spell disaster for your pump if the tank or a grow bed stars overflowing over the side.

Good luck, I do think you have the idea!

Ya know, if you were to turn the growbeds/sump combo 90 degrees then you might have an easier time balancing the flow to the grow beds and might not even need the ball valves (though they are handy to have). What I mean is if you can come out of the fish tank and T off with an even amount of pipe on either side of the T to the grow beds, the flow of solids and water will naturally be more even. (I've found that the grow beds on the ends of my feeds get more of the solids than the ones that T off sooner along the pipeline.)

This change might also make running the pump tubing up to the fish tank a little easier/shorter.

Would this work better? Do I need to buy and drill for a bulkhead? Would I need to plumbers tape all the pipes? I dont want any leaks. I want to plant this out so I know what I need to buy. Can you think of anything els I would need?

If you can get ahold of a taller tank such as an IBC to use as a FT, those rubber maid tanks would make a great set of matched growbeds.
But it seems you have the general principal down pat.

Be aware that your sump needs to be big enough to fill your GBs, lest you run out of water before they start draining. There can be a serious time lag between turning the pump on and the drain beginning to flow.

Also be aware that gravity is not strong when moving water.
The flow into your GBs will not be quick, as the differential head is not large; and the smaller the pipe you use the slower it will be.
I would use 2" pipe as a minimum.
if it doesn't flow enough though, you could always raise the FT some more.

I made a small system out of a 50 gallon bathtub much the same dimensions as your tank, I use a 12 gallon sink as a grow bed, I have 6 large goldfish some minnows and freshwater mussels and all is going fine, I have a 300 gallon ph pump that runs 1 hour on 1 hour off 24/7, link to construction here viewtopic.php?f=18&t=3599

How big should the stand pipe bulkhead be?

Cool pictures. Reminds me of Elvis's system.