Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

A summary of my thughts on autopots:

Advantages:
0 power required. They are gravity fed.
Less water used (they are enclosed and there is almost no water flow, so little chance for evaporative loss).

Disadvantages:
No water recirculation, so you need to run a seperate biological filter - ideally one that also aerates your water.

Given my widely-known views about the future energy problems - the 0 energy requirement was what drew me to them.

A quick explanation of the biofilter:

The biofilter is an old carpet rolled up inside a 1.25 liter drink bottle, with a pipe feeding water into one end. The carpet gives the bacteria lots of surface area.

Much of the biological action occurs in the system not in the filter. I add duckweed regularly, the lettuce and watercress have a root system that grows straight into the tank (more surface area for bacteria), and I encourage "green water" or "Suspended Sludge". The feed into the biological filter works with the tanks natural thermals to encourage sludge suspension.

One question................

HOW HAVE I MISSED THIS TOPIC???!!!!!

Do you have any links to autopot and its operation principles?

Thanks for the topic.

Steve

HI steve autopot@bigpond.com www.autopot.com.au try that

is there also a web site? ..........yes VB, i'm being lazy again

Der! How dumb do i feel

Don't go spending money on autopots - I can probably get a good discount from the inventor.

When you contact an inventor and tell him you like his invention - and you spend $1000 to prove it - he tends to offer real good discounts.

He studied Aquaculture at University, so when I told him what I was doing he was fascinated. Now that I have proved that it works he is excited, he is even talking about setting up a system of his own to do more research.

Steve/Aeldric see similar system and idea I posted in Jims post

Hi Aeldric,

I also have a set of AutoPots and, as clever as the concept is, there is one disadvantage that you've overlooked. For aquaponic purposes, if you don't filter the water very carefully, fish poop will block the smart valve.

Also, while I applaud your innovation in using recycled carpet in your bio-filter, I'd issue this caution. All manner of things end up on carpets.......carpet cleaners, deodorant powders, pet piddle, cigarette ash.....most of which your fish would rather not get too acquainted with.

If you want a cheap bio-filter media, you might think about shadecloth. Bacteria will grow on plastic very successfully and aeration will be excellent. Throw a handful of composting worms into the filter when it's got lots of bacteria-laden fish waste in it and you'll have an excellent bio-filter.

I like your willingness to have a go and that your designs acknowledge that not everyone has a lot of money to put toward food production.

Gary

The smart valve sounds to be something like what I am looking for ...

for filtration ... in the wheelie systems (no vegetables growing at the moment) I have been using river sand, pea gravel and polishng the water with some dacron fibre and nylon socks.

I imagine that the smart valve would cost something like $ 30.00 a pop?

I would love to try one.

Hi alderic
I was using autopots 12-13 years ago, they used to do a cheap setup for beginners in a styro box with a smart valve you just cut the number of holes you wanted in the lid and away you went as i remember you could get a single valve to service as big a container as you wanted(Grow bed?). I never had any probles with it in 3-4 years continuous use with tomatoes,but gary does have a point with biomuck blocking it up i think.

Les, quick! As the retired bloke thas good with his hands you have the job of sourcing and modifying an auto pot to grow bed size. serious.

Thanks Steve (I think) - serious!

I had a look at a smart valve today.

The smart valve thing looked a bit fragile, easily broken maybe, ie.. it was not exactly "heavy duty" considering they are about $ 30 a pop....

and I think a good in-line filter would be necessary in order to minimize blockages. It is not as if there is continuous flow though the system, so a good reticulation filter should do the job with no probs.

I only got a quick look, so I couldn't quite figure out how it works.

(I was thinking, I wonder if it would be easy to make something like this from easily obtainable materials... it looked to me like they used some sort of double float system.)