Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Just watchout for flooding some people have had damage done when floods lifted the sump out of the ground, remember at its lowest it is nearly empty and has very little weight.

make sure your tank is covered and safe for the little people

Thanks guys, lots of usefull info there. I will be taking into consideration the inground sump of the same volume as the FT, going to cost me $250 per IBC down here or wait 3-4 months and pay $100 each (keep under budget). So will keep planning and see what eventuates.

Yes for sure Jaymie the inground "plunge pool" will be well covered and the whole set up will be fenced off from tampering little 2yo's. Thanks for your concern

By keeping my FT in the shed and my sump inground I figure I'm helping keep the water temp. up during winter as the only time it's really exposed to the elements is when it's flooding a GB and flowing through pipework.

Sorry for being so slack and not posting any pics or diagrams of what I have planned. I spend all day drawing on computer and when I get home it's the last thing I want to do so bare with me I'll try my best tonight to post something usefull. Maybe even a rough hand drawn sketch of the layout and some pics of proposed site? taz

Hi guys. Here's some pics of my proposed site and layout.
A little recap:

10 x 100 ltr Grow beds (only 6 of the 10 shown)
gravel medium (scoria depending on availability)
1 x 1000 ltr IBC fish tank (kept in the shed out of the cold)
1 x 1000 ltr IBC sump
Stocked with goldfish to start, with a hope to eventually stocking Trout
CHIFT PIST

1st pic is where the sump will be placed inground (sump represented by upside down green stool)

2nd pic is the GB layout. Note the window on the left is where the FT will be emptying though. Need to fill in gaps with 4 more GB's.

3rd pic is where I will put the FT in the shed. Will have to shorten my work bench a bit to fit it in snuggly.

I plan to build a frame to sit the grow beds on to keep them level and allow room under to plumb up the drain at an angle back to the sump. Will be using the same size drain set up as Food&fish uses, the stand pipe with elbow and 6mm hole (nice and cheap and efficient). F&F what size pipe, elbow and bulkhead fittings are they? My only other question at this point is what size pipe work and ball valves will i need from the FT to the GB's and from the drains back to the sump to keep even flood and drain times. I hope to only have the sump pump running 15-20min on and 45-60min off.

Please any suggestions and comments are greatly appreciated. Taz

Wow... love that big white fish tank... complete with fish viewing windows... who makes them...

Hi tas to have only the fish tank in your shed you will not have a benefit one pass of the water through the grow beds and sump and the water is the outside temp,[ and a waste of space think of all the wasted storage] i would put the grow beds and sump where they are then mount the fish tank over the sump just a little to one side [you only need a small access to the sump] also see if you can put another fish tank there[ when you cull the trout in summer you will need something to carry on the plant load ] ether silvers or gold fish
then run 90 mm chift pist [like my fish tanks] then where you come out the side drop to grow bed height in 90 mm then reduce to 50 mm [see mine or mizzie bendigo ] 20 mm taps or 15 mm taps to grow beds in one end out the other [stand pipe ] then at least 50 or 90 better back to sump
just a short note if i was doing it again the whole thing would be different [mine works but i would do like i explained to you in 2 years you learn a lot] go with the flow tassy is cool hense trout and gold fish heating and cooling costs dough

Hi Jamie

+1 for having the tank and sump close together, less piping, more efficient pumping, less power usage. Keeping it outside and insulated from the weather sounds like a great excuse for building a leanto greenhouse off the side of the shed and less backyard to mow:lol:., that was the excuse I used

Hi F&F, thanks for the advice on the pipe sizes, I had a read through mizzie44's thread and it all makes sense now .

Storage space isn't really an issue, it's more secure to place it the shed (it's actually the garage, but it fits the car quite easliy with room for a FT or two plus room for other stuff). What I mean by secure is from the kids and makes for a tidier set up outside. I guess it can always be moved later if need be.

I see what you mean about the water cycle spending most of it's time outside! So the idea of the FT temp. being kept up by leaving the tank in the garage is not a factor.

As far as culling fish at the end of the season and having an overlap of another species so as to keep the nutrients upto the plants! What is the general proceedure for this? Do you start with say, SP fingerlings (in a smaller seperate tank) a little before the end of the Trout season? Then once the Trout are all eaten the SP should be moved into the larger tank and the cycle continues? Not sure if the Tassie summer is long enough the grow out SP? Any ideas? If that is the case I might just plumb up a blue barrell for the new fish and keep that in the garage next to the IBC fish tank.

Lastly, because I'll have 1000 ltrs of GB's I should only require 400+ ltrs for the sump (I know I can hear everyone already saying 'but you'll expand later', I'll worry about that when the time comes). So I might have a look around for a 500 ltr sump as opposed to an IBC sump, it means I only have to dig a half a cubic metre hole to house it. Lazy I know haha. Figured I'd only be using half the IBC as a sump.

Rupe , if only building a system was that easy. 1. take a pic. 2. paint brush over it. 3. walk outside and start the pump all done, haha.

taz

Taz in my setup i have 3 fishtanks one for trout one for small silvers and the last for large silvers ,silvers useualy take 2 years to plate size [depends on what size you get them the first lot were 6 to 8 in the last lot were only 2 long they are now 5 in long] and yes i heat my baby silvers over winter

And dont be lazy go for the 1000 sump its easier to do it once

I don't plan on doing any heating or cooling at this stage. If I can manage trout all year round that will be good enough for me at first.

haha I like your attitude F&F . Sounds like something my dad would say to me. I haven't ruled it out all togather I just have to weigh up my options. Wait and see what my local tip shop has on offer. Taz

Taz

Im pretty sure you wont be allowed to have Silvers in Tassie anyway. With the temps that you get down there keeping trout all year shouldnt be a problem. From what I have heard you need some kind of licence (check with IFS) if you want to buy/keep Rainbow Trout though the IFS will actually give you Brown Trout for free!!

Yeah that's ok if I can't I'm not to bothered by it.
With the temps that you get down there keeping trout all year shouldnt be a problem

Thanks Troutman! I'm glad I've heard that from you aswell. I'm starting to think I might just stick with Trout & Goldies.


Yeah when I start getting close to putting fish in a tank I'll give them a call. But I'm not to worried at this point as its only early days for me yet.

Taz

About your sump size, Definitely go a bit bigger than smaller. Look at it this way, if you need 400 l to flood your grow beds and you get a 400 l bin for your sump, you will never actually manage to flood those grow beds since I don't know many pumps that can actually pump a container dry, especially submersible pumps. Remember that you rarely want to fill a tank all the way to the rim either. So if you loose a portion of the container to not filling to the brim and another portion since the pump can't pump all the way to the bottom and then you should leave yourself some extra capacity so you don't have to be topping up every single day due to transpiration by the plants and then I always like to advise people to install a top up float valve above the pump running dry level but below the normal low water mark so that you don't have to worry about topping up manually at all. Anyway, all this usually brings me to recommending that people size their sump to hold at least 60% for their total grow bed volume (figuring that 40% of the total grow bed volume is needed to flood them so the extra 20% gives you the added depth needed to function.)

See what you can find at the tip but I personally always think a bigger sump is better especially when you are talking about a CHIFT PIST system. Extra water in the system is a good thing to maintain stability of temp, pH, nutrients, etc.

A very good point TCL, you've changed my mind and I will take everyones advice and go the big sump. Thanks

I like the sound of this, can you explain it in a bit more detail or provide some diagrams or pics to show how it works?

thanks, taz