Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

stage 4:

well the pagola is in place and am now onto the next step of the project.

this stage will involve digging of tanks half way down. as you can see in the pic the first tank is in.

i will be keeping my tanks seperate from each other rather then plumbed together. i don't like the idea of having to dig up a tank beacause a pipe is leaking or blocked. i will have pumps in every tank and have the growbeds above, draining directly back into the tanks.

i am thinking of putting a heavy duty steel mesh over the tanks, on top of this modular growbeds filled with expanded clay balls. this way i can make use of the space above my tank and still access the fish easiely when needed.

please feel free to throw forth you critisisms and advice as i want to learn.

thanks

Nice work BF.

I have been wondering (Muzza or other pump gurus)? - is it possible to plumb a pump in such a way that the intake goes into piping, which is then teed off and plumbed to multiple tanks?

I will be getting a couple of these same tanks and will be burying also, and also don't like the idea of digging to resolve leak issues. Cheers.

do you mean a large un-submerged pump that has a pipe pulling water through the pump from the tanks and into the garden beds?

perhaps someone like muzza can chime in on this.

Not a pump guru (not even a guru), do you want to suck the water from multiple tanks using the one pump? (and send to GBs)

If that's what you are trying to do - not sure how you would go about balancing the flow back to the fish tanks

Hi one pump 2 tanks no balance pipe almost inpossable you will realy need a balance pipe

Yep thats what I mean BF and Ell, yeah, now I'm thinking more about it there would be problems distributing water evenly back to the tanks and over time their levels would probably be different. hmmm.

worth a try

One way to balance would to be to have a pipe as a siphon both ends low in the tank so no air gets in and let nature/gravity take its course

whats a balance pipe Food&Fish?

thanks

Hmmm, how about this... Pump intake plumbed into pvc with non return valve, to T junction, plumbed into the tanks deep below water level. That way when the pump is in operation it self primes the pipe, pump stops and you have the primed siphon tube to keep the levels right. Would it work I wonder...?

(My head has been in the sun all day so let me know if this is stupid)

ok got you ekb

now your starting to do my head in. i would have to see it. perhaps someone has done similar here?

Use a 40-50mm pipe so you get a decent transfer

yes a balance pipe is a conecting pipe just under the water level when my system pumps down the balance pipe comes out of the water i also have a pipe conecting to a manifold then into the pumpwith taps so you can pump one or the other dry fore maintance see my thread under members

To much sun dont think it would work but mite be wrong have been before