Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Rick,

Sounds reasonable. I would leave the pipe on the ground so it takes many minutes or even an hour to drain gently into the ground rather than raise it at all.

Perhaps, once you have tested the idea for a while, you could make a manifold of 1" pvc with valves so you could direct water from one spot to various drain lines.

As far as nutrients, I believe the duck waste is immediately available to plants. As far as I know, they can absorb ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, and urea fairly quickly, although some may take a little bacterial action. The reason we care so much about cycling in AP is that ammonia and nitrites are toxic to animals and must be converted to nitrates to be safe for the fish. I suppose that too high a level of those might be a problem for worms in a garden and might even kill plants (like brown patches where a dog pees on a lawn....), but have no idea of what levels might prove toxic to plants.

I've read that the highest levels of bacteria are in hte top few inches of soil and would assume that the population would adjust to the nutrients available, just as an AP growbed would. As long as it is not waterlogged and has enough moisture and enough air all should be well.

I think something like a constructed wetlands might work well for duck poo. If it can work with people poo then it can handle ducks. If this can work for people poo then it would work for duck. Modified AP..

This thread has got me thinking.....
I'm keen to have a ponic pond in my backyard.
I agree that the significant solid waste associated with ducks is too much for a F&D gravel grow bed too deal with. (without out a complex pre-filter system )

I thinking of using the pond itself as a vortex/settling tank. The pond could be constructed using liner, with a cone shaped bottom. A sump pump located at the bottom of the tank would be controlled via a timer to purge the system of solids onto the dirt garden. The timer/controller would also top up with fresh water.
If the pond is large enough the amount of purge & top up water would be minimal.

For the rest of the time, a pump located mid water would clean the water using a regular grow bed.
I think it would be beneficial to have a continuous pump in the pond to generate a gentle vortex flow and surface water.

I like the idea of locating the growbed(s) within the enclosure (but behind mesh) to supply the chooks and ducks a continual "self service" supply of greens.

hey Scott
Was that drawing done with sketup? If so, is it possible to get a copy of the original file - got some ideas I would like to try out but I feel a little lazy when it comes to recreating what you have put together

Thanks for the file mate...
I would be tempted to run the solids to a good sized worm farm (filled with something like layers of shade cloth) and then back to the pond... I ran a worm farm in my system (untill the Dengui inspectors said to get rid of it as it 'MAY' breed mozzies - not that they ccould tell me how) and it ran very wet... and the worms seemed very happy

I used to raise rabbits and the poop was a great bonus for worm growing, so I'm liking that idea. But the thought of recirculating the water back into the duck pond doesn't quite seem right. First, if it's only a 30 second burst every day (or every other), even a pretty heavy duty pump is only going to pump out a few gallons up from the bottom and up into a worm bed, so it's not a lot of water to lose. Second, that water coming back from the worm bed would probably bring as many solids back with it as were pumped out. Unless you had a crazy good filter system and the water trickled back to the pond, I'd think more about using that water to water something in the garden. Let it accumulate like compost tea in a five gallon bucket and then hang the bucket on a post with a drip line coming out (or soaker hose) and let it feed some plants, saving the bottom sludge for the garden, compost pile or back into the worm bed.

Otherwise, I like that system, and given a slightly imperfect placing of my pond liner, there is one end of the pond that is slightly lower than the other. With a slgiht vortex spinning around, I bet that enough of the solids would accumulate on the lower end that the pond wouldn't need to be shaped as a cone. Also, the pump could be moved every once in a while for a flatter bottom pond.

And while I like the idea of a food source for the ducks, any thing they will eat, they won't just nibble as it grows, they eat it till its dead. So, while I'd love to put in leafy stuff they'd eat, right now I'm doing tomatoes, squash and a few herbs. I'm betting they'll go after the tomatoes once they get slightly red and the squash as well, but I wonder. They love squash when I throw them in, but if it grew gradually, I wonder if/when they'd get it was food.

So I had a pump like that in my pond today, hooked up to a garden hose and I was pumping out the sludge at the bottom no problem (after I had spent ten minutes raking the bottom for bigger plants and leaves that folks had been throwing to the ducks as food :-). My duck sludge is a mix of duck food, dirt and sand from the side of the pond and some amount of poo. Given that the ducks have a large pen, they don't do all their poop in the water, probably just a small percentage. I'm more wondering how much good stuff there is in this water and what volume of grow beds it could feed adequately.

Good idea running the purge pump into a worm farm, however like rick, I would be inclined to drain the worms onto the dirt. (unless there was a lack of nutrients in the system)

Rick, do you have any photo's of your pond?