Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi All,

I am new here and new to aquaponics. Since visiting a friend who had one set up my hubby and i have been very keen to get one set up ourselves.

We live in Southern Adelaide.

We have bought a 1000Lt PLastic Tank - the ones with a cage around them.

We have cut the top off giving us an 800Lt fish tank and a 200Lt sump.

We have bought 15 plastic rectangle tubs.

I have been reading through the forums but thought i would post a thread on what is the best way to set all this up.

How do we connect it all, what connects to what?

Sorry for the questions but after reading so many threads i have become confused.

Fish Tank - Sump - Garden beds ?? Which way does it all connect ?

We are also looking for a pump what would be the best in any of your opinions for this size system.

Any tips and hints??

Many Thanks

This seems like a great informative website.

The 15 plastic rectangle tubs, how big are they?

I personally like the CHIFT PIST method of hooking everything up. (you should be able to look it up with the search function)
I would have the fish tank overflow into the grow beds and the grow beds would drain into the sump tank where you would have your single pump. With only a 200 liter sump tank though, you will be somewhat limited.

(personally I might push you to get another one of those 1000 l tanks and cut the top off the way you did the first one. Then you could have 2- 200 liter grow beds and use one of the 800 liters tanks as the fish tank and the other 800 liter tank sunk part way in the ground as the sump tank and then you can keep adding what ever containers you get your hands on as grow beds until you reach as much as 1600 liters of grow bed (1600 liters of grow bed with 800 liters of fish tank is what we call a 2:1 ratio of grow bed to fish tank, the sump tank is there to absorb the level fluctuations and help stabilize water quality and temperature.)

Basically, you should only put as much fish in as your grow beds will be able to support as the fish grow out. 100 liters of flood and drain grow bed can support up to 3 kg of fish in a well balanced system if there is enough aeration. I don't know how big those rectangle tubs are so I don't know how much your current plan can support.

Now your question about how to hook it all up. Well from the fish tank to the grow beds (if you do CHIFT PIST) you might want to look up venturi drain or SLO (solids lifting overflow). For this you need the water level in the fish tank to be a little higher than the tops of your grow beds and you can run the pipe from the fish tank to feed to the grow beds. I often put ball valves at each grow bed so I can balance the flow. Then from the drains of the growbeds you need a pipe that leads to the sump tank so the bottoms of the grow beds need to be above the top of the sump enough that water will flow from the grow beds into the sump tank. Always choose really large pipe for SLO or venturi drains as well as for any common drain line that the grow beds feed into. Like, my pump uses 40 mm pipe to pull water from my sump tank up to my fish tank so I made my SLO from the fish tank to the grow beds 80 mm pipe (it splits off to 25 mm at each grow bed with ball valve with the last grow bed getting free flow of what water is left in the 80 mm pipe.) My grow beds drain back to the sump in several ways but if their drain isn't falling directly into the sump, then it falls into a 80 mm pipe that then goes to the sump.

Just a note, with a 200 liters sump tank, you can probably not flood more than 400 liters of grow bed at a time without having to go to a two pump system. In a two pump system there is a pump in the fish tank to take water to the grow beds and the grow beds drain to the sump tank. In the sump tank there is a pump on a float switch that will return water to the fish tank whenever the sump tank is full enough to trigger the float switch. With the two pump system, the fish tank level will fluctuate.

Hi enjoy the Ap ride check out Newfarmers system theres photos of pipe work [chift pist excelent work ]

Thanks for the replies, i am sure to have many more questions and lots more to read before it is all up and going ..

Many Thanks

Saph