Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Instead of raising the FT you could put a small pump in it to pump to the header tank.

I don't understand why you want to sequence the grow bed fills. Is your pump in the sump to small to deal with them all draining at once? Either way you do need to make sure the water going to the GB's via the header tank is 100% FT water.

Good luck.

Burns. If you want to keep the ft depth close to constant,
then it helps to have GBs sequencial

I hope I didn't miss something

Makes sense

Added bonus , basically removes the need for a sump.

Yeah.... the reason for the sequential filling is because the sump is too small to have them all draining into it at once (think the Westfield Primary school setup.)
Also yes I want the FT to be always full for as long as is possible. I'm tired of stressing the fish out because of the fluctuating water levels, it will always be constant height - I don't ever want to change that.
I'm currently looking to buy a float switch so that the pump in the sump will run only when it's above a certain level in the sump.

And the pump definitely wont be too small... it's got enough power to pump more than 2000L worth of water at 1 metre head. Good enough for this system.

SO the points to consider when viewing my system are thus:
1. the fishtank will always be constant height, overflow into GB or sump doesn't really matter but it will always be a overflow from a constant height.
2. I want to use only ONE pump, not two small ones... ONE.
3. the header is still something of a consideration.. I'm attached to it because I like the idea of flouts and already spent a bit of money on this little bit and then modifying it. I probably can use this in the cubby when I'm fixing that one later, so this one can be taken out, I guess.
4. Finally but not least - my sump tank's water capacity is only 220L, and I don't think the weather will allow me to dig a bigger hole than that until sunny Spring. So I have to work around my "tiny" sump tank and sequential the growbeds to dump their water at different times.

Thanks for all your help!

Jen, with a good pump in the sump with float switch we have had no problem with having the small sump while system is running but we are doing slow drain not via siphons. In the case of power failure though the sump does overflow until the grow beds are empty, this can mean we can loose up around 700 litres dependant on where the system is at at the time of the power out. However, with our FT size and stocking density it is not a problem.

Can you post a picture of your header tank as I would like to see how you are using it to sequentially fill? I can't imagine how one tank with four flouts will work to allow sequential filling.

Jens , you never did reply about soil temp question.
I was trying to help , not trying to be ambiguos?? spelling?
I would guesstimate a temp around 17-18C. Almost perfect for trout.
Coupling your system to this natural heat sink may well answer your problems regarding temps. I understand you do not want to dig , not many people enjoy digging. But whatever pieces of your system that can be buried or at least partially buried will help and help substantially. The other issue is BLACK ,, yes I know every woman should have her little black dress for special occasions ,, but if you are looking for heat reduction black is bad.Even white plastic shopping bags can help here.
From my point od view anything you can do to increase contact with the soil at 17C and minimise heat from black , will easily give you a system ready fro trout ..... in fact it would have been ready for trout months ago.

cool about the heat Chappo, you and Faye totally obliterated my fears the first time round, I'll try to do the temperatures tomorrow, I kinda got carried away today... but for now there are no worries about the temperature. It's just the water distribution and the piping.. it's kinda complicated and stupid.... kinda like my personality.



a solar panel with battery is also on the horizon for me so I wont have to depend on something that someone else doesn't take care of well! anyway, photos for your information....

Overnight the ground temperature went below 10 degrees. This morning at about 9 to 12pm it was between 12 and 16 degrees. After 12pm it went up quickly to peak at 26 degrees and then went down quickly again. At 3pm it was at 17 degrees. and today's a sunny day!!
I redid the flouts and had a fiddle but concentrated mainly on the fishtank as I had doubts I might even use the header tank anyway.
I drained the FT and raised it by 2 bricks. I think even if I raise it to 3 or 4 bricks it will not be high enough to overflow into a header tank so I may have to take it out even if I don't want to. There is just no possibility of it working.
I'm a little bit disappointed and am not sure how well the system will run with such a small sump. I'm hoping that the pump will would be strong enough to compensate.

Jens, was that surface temp?

Got to be surface ..... 6 inches down it should have been a fairly constant 16-18C , well it is at my place (south side of a fence)

Yeah surface temp I just stuck the thermometer in the ground and that's what I got. I didn't dig it down to 6 inches!!

Thanks for posting the header tank picture, nice neat flouts I am still confused as to how you were going to use them for sequential filling though. In my mind, as that header tank reached peak capacity, all flouts would cut in at the same time filling all grow beds partially at the same time, I don't think you would have ever got sequential filling.

I reckon you should pipe direct to the grow beds from the FT. Pump half the return water from your sump to the header tank and half back to the FT. Use the four outlets on the header tank to feed into four lengths of hydroponic channel that you can grow lettuce basil etc in. Situate the lengths so they are between the header tank and the FT with the low end lying over the FT so they drain directly back into the FT. This will increase your plant capacity and increase aeration.

How big is the header tank? Could you link the header tank to the sump tank to increase your sump capacity enough to do a simple CHIFT PIST and just have the fish tank overflow into the grow beds and the grow beds drain into the sump. That would solve the whole solids building up in the sump tank issue and gooping up the pump, (my main personal reason for liking CHIFT PIST so long as the water goes through grow beds before getting to the pump.)

I know, it would be at least temporarily wasting your "flout header tank" but you could probably swap it out when you can dig a proper size sump tank in for the system.

I didn't finish the flouts.. and the flouts are not the only things going in there... I've got a modified version of a cuebox... one that should fit in the header. every time a heavy ball falls into a section in the cuebox it "opens" a pipe of that section to the water and puts water into one flout making it heavier than the others and starting the siphon while the others simply floats down.
If I didn't have an alternater or cuebox I'd have to attach all the flouts together with a stick or something because if they weren't all attached only one float will go down at a time and the others will just float at the surface all the way down. Pictures will come when I'm finished. I've decided to keep making it since it'd just be disappointing to leave it around and I have every intention of using it somewhere, just not necessarily in this system.

I've decided to overflow from the FT and pump from the sump tank, figured the GB's will have filtered out all the solids. Your idea of the NFT inclusion with its own pump is terrific! I've forgotten to say that I was thinking about something like 320mm PVC pipes for that... but definitely think about using hydroponic channels. Last offer I heard from a shop was 50 dollars per channel... hmm!



As above about the header tank. It's only about 50L capacity meant only to send small amounts in intervals and it was going to be pumped into continuously anyway, but I don't think I'll do that now. I've already got flat tanks under the GB's for growing duckweed and azolla, so I've incorporated that with the sump today.
and about the CHIFT PIST avoiding goop in the sump tank when the pump sends clean water to the FT, totally agree. it's one of its coolest aspects.

Today I managed to raise the FT so that the overflow is about a ruler's length above the growbeds so that the fishtank will overflow straight into the growbeds. I've put in the piping from the GB's to sump, no probs, I've fixed up the pump ready to install, will do that in the morning and start pumping.. I'm also going to fix the piping from the FT to the GB's in the morning.
I'm just taking everything in small steps and its so hard coz I'm getting so excited... can't wait to see if it all works!!