Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Greetings everyone!
I am a little stuck as to how I should feed my GB's. I was planning on continuosly pumping (actually spraying) water into the tanks to have 'em swirl and also save money on an air pump. The water coming out of the overflow to go back to the biofilter would then, by gravity, feed the grow beds which would then be loop-siphoned back to a sort of sump tank where the pump is located. The only problem exisisting (in my mind) is that when the GB's are being filled, the pump would run out of water to pump back into the tanks. Would a ball valve help? It would reduce the flow to the GB's and let more flow to the biofilter and sump. Any other solutions? I know you veteran aquaponic dudes have better ideas. Thank you very much for your time once again!

Cheers,

Michael

As long as your sump holds enough water to fill the growbeds you will not run out of water. This sounds like a normal CHIFT setup; unless Im missing something.

If you size the sump tank to hole 50-60 % of the total volume of the grow beds (I am assuming here that the grow beds are some sort of media filled flood and drain grow beds with siphons draining them back to the sump tank), then flooding and draining the grow beds should not leave your pump high and dry. For instance if you had 2000 gallons of grow bed, then you want at least 1000 gallons of sump tank. (otherwise you need to get into some form of sequencing.)

As Dan said, sounds pretty much like a CHIFT PIST system and yes having the pump constantly splashing/spraying water into the fish tank is a good way to keep aeration for the fish as well as circulating the water.

The only point of ball valves in this arrangement might be to balance flows to different parts of the system (for instance if you have a few grow beds being fed from the water coming from the bio-filter or fish tank, then you might want a valve on the feed to each so you can balance the flow among the grow beds to get the siphons to work right and make sure that each bed is getting some flow.

Thanks again Dan and TCLynx! I will post photos as soon as possible. I just ordered a pump and grow beds. I will be setting up very soon

God bless!!!

Have you thought of letting the GB's drain back into the fish tank? My first system had the sump pump and I found I liked skipping that step.

Joyce, draining back into the tanks is a good idea, but I would have to be pumping water up instead of letting good old gravity take care of it. I suppose the build might be more simple, requiring less pluming.
I do have a 700l/h pump, could that work?

Oh, and just incase anyone happens to know anything about plastics, do the GB´s have to be made of food safe plastic? Say I wanted to have my sistem tested by the government to be able to sell my stuff as organic. Would plastic get in the way?

Thanks to everyone once again!

Best to yes HDPE or LDPE

The only problems I've had with using small pumps and doing the simple system where the fish tank is lower and the pump lifts water from fish tank to grow beds and grow beds drain back to fish tank is that small pumps often get gunked up. Don't get me wrong, this method can work just fine provided the pump involved can move the water/solids involved without building up to much gunk in the lines and slowing way down.

I've had much better luck with the CHIFT PIST design (with only the one pump in the sump tank and having the filtration between the fish tank and the sump tank fed by gravity.) This has allowed me to go more than twice the time between pump cleanings on my big system.

On my smaller systems running smaller pumps, I've had the pump flow get down to almost nothing just due to gunk build up even in a system with almost no fish. This is with constant running pumps that are though up to the gallons per hour needed for the system, they are still small and the gunk/bio-slime manage to reduce them to less than a trickle. With a different kind of pump, this might not be an issue.

Going with food grade and potable water grade materials for your system would probably be a good idea if you are hoping for certifications to sell the food. As to being able to get organic certifications, that will depend on the country you are in and the certification agencies.

Thank you soo much for the info!!! I am currently setting up my system and am working out all the kinks. I will go with a CHIFT PIST design, for ease of construction. I will probably use the 700l/h pump for a seperate NFT system which be exclusive for lettuces. The trays I ordered can be used for planting and other domestic uses...so says the little sticker it comes with. I will take some photos as I go. Thanks again to all!