Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

After taking some measurements and looking at the space I have and what I want to set up, I am going to have to move the maple tree. Bugger! Dug a 1.5m diam hole to preparer the maple. Hopefully it is not too late (just coming out of dormancy now) to move and I don't kill it. It is a beautiful specimen and is gorgeous in Autumn. Plenty of compost going into the hole but have had to stop because of teh rain. Loving the rain, but gee wiz, when you want to do some work it rains, shouldn't and wont complain though.

Will do some drawings of my intended set-up to post later tonight.

Quachy

damn that maple was hard to move. given it a prune by a 1/3 aswell. hopefully not too much damage done. plenty of roots still intact and a good dose of seasol. Only time will tell. Now that it has been moved, the sump hole is well underway. gone down about 400-500mm so far, just another 500 to go.

Quachy

As long as you balance the root loss by removing at least as much of the tree top, all should be well. This is a good time to do some structural work on the tree (removing whole limbs that are crowding others) rather than simply cutting everything back. You can make the tree look like a better tree rather than a pruned tree, making the tree healthier long term as well as simply surviving the current transplanting. And after the tree has budded out a bit is better for maples as they can lose huge amts of sap if pruned dormant.

Other item: not clear on sump volume plans, but more is better/safer. One great thing about extra volume is that you will not need to be so exacting about keeping it filled perfectly. I see overfilling and underfilling to be very likely with three beds with variable timing. With an extra 1000Liter IBC, you could fill it roughly or you could have an automatic filler (on timer for an hour per day?) that keeps it filled to 1/2, minimum.

I agree that you want to go a bit bigger on sump volume if at all possible (I don't think the header tank will compensate, especially if you intend to grow duckweed in the header tank and want o have creatures in the sump thank.) When sizing a sump I usually say you need at least 1/2 the volume of the grow beds plus 10% so that there is some depth for the pump to operate and not suck air. This will hopefully also allow enough extra depth to put a little top up float valve down just above the pump sucking air level so that your system will top up automatically when needed without causing the sump to overflow when all beds drain. (This also gives you the option of going to timed flood and drain later if needed (if you are depending on your beds not all being full or drained at the same time, you can never switch to single pump timed flood and drain unless you are using an indexing valve.)

Anyway, good luck with it and happy digging.

My thoughts exactley seeing its so easy to dig the first hole enlarge it to take 2 ibc/s
you said you wanted to put more grow beds so with 7 or 8 beds you will need the extra sump the second one can go 1/2 under the grow beds
Just join them at the bottom
remember its easier to get it right the first time
Our mate around at the junk yard has ibc/s that have had mollasses in them for $120 so theres your second sump

the overwhelming consensus is for a bigger sump. hmmmm more digging!

Quachy

Here is a plan of my intended system.

Currently digging the hole for the IBC sump and will also use a tikley tub as a sump, so total of 1500-1600lt sump. Will try to grow yabbies in the 500lt sump as there will be no way for them to escape from this tub (?). The sumps will be linked via a standpipe type setup with this tub emptying to the 200lt mark only, to give the yabbies some water to swim around in. I don't think the big fluctuations in this sump will affect the yabbies too much, they are pretty hardy buggers.

I do eventually want to run some NFTs as well, but will wait for everything to go up to work out where I will put them.

Anyway, please comment and criticize as you see fit and yes Milne, I know you're going to say bury another IBC as a second sump and this is still an option, just playing around with what I know I can afford and have at the moment (at least on order).

Thanks for all the comments so far everyone, keep 'em coming!

Quachy

Hire something that runs on diesel.

thought about hiring a digger or stump hole digger, but trying to keep under budget, which at the moment is a pretty tight.

A little digger like plumbers use would be a worthwile investment I reckon. Your looking at a couple of hundred $ for a weekend.

I'll see what the bank manager says in the morning. My guess is she will look at me and the hand me the shovel, just after saying, this was your idea

Yeah, I know that feeling.

Then she gets sad and says that I spend too much time doing AP. Then I say that if I had a digger I would get it done so much quicker.

After that I have to go to marriage counselling

But seriously, digging the hole with a machine is a heck of a lot quicker. It takes ages to dig a big 4 x IBC sized hole.

I noticed you have pulled the tanks out of their cages. Any reason for this? I was thinking of leaving it in the cage.

Quachy

Well digging big holes is pretty easy here in our sand, at least where there are no tree roots to deal with. However, then you gotta deal with the high likely hood that the sand will collapse in the sides of your sump.

To your design. Is there room to move between the bbq and the fish tanks? I've usually cursed myself when I don't allow good access.

I see 6 GBs in the design, how big are they? I know you are trying to conserve budget but by making the 500 l container that is part of the sump only able to drain down to the 200 l mark, you have reduced your sump volume from 1500 liters down to 1300 liters and you need to remember that most pumps can't pump out the last 5-10 cm of water from a tank without overheating.

I see 3000 liters of fish tank listed there. If you were to do only a 1:1 ratio with 3000 liters total of grow bed then I would say the bare minimum of sump tank you should have is 1600-1700 liters (and that is fully usable sump tank volume don't count sections of the sump that can't fill and drain because of a standpipe or something.) Remember with a 1:1 system, you have to keep the fish stocking lighter and balance the number of fish to the amount of flood and drain media. If you want to do a 2:1 Grow bed to fish tank ratio with a CHIFT PIST system, then the sump tank should equal the fish tank.

Make sure the plumbing from the fish tanks to the grow beds is really big. And I would advise that at least one grow bed or perhaps some other type of filter have no restrictions on the inflow into it since the pipe feeding the grow beds is the overflow for the fish tank, if you have to restrict the flow into all the grow beds, it might be very easy to overflow the fish tank with a strong pump and there is a drawback to overflowing the fish tanks back to the sump (then it is no longer a clean water sump.)
When I switched my big system over to CHIFT PIST, I ran 3" DWV pipe from the fish tank to all the grow beds. The first 4 beds have ball valve so I can adjust the flow to each. Then I ran the pipe up a bit and placed a T so there is an air vent then the water can run over this "overflow" and feed down to my monster bed which has a float operated sump pump so it's inflow rate doesn't really matter and it can take the excess water that the other beds don't need and it's sump pump will run as needed to keep things functional. I should probably take pictures and do a diagram of the new layout and plumbing scheme but haven't gotten around to it yet.

Yes, leave them in the cages, and line the outside of the cages with some old tin. If you dont, the dirt will collapse the IBC's (even with the cages on). Mine lasted around 4 months before I just pulled them all out, and built one big lined tank.