Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

The fabric is filled with hardwood charcoal, which should be inert although dusty. I had thought about rinsing it but didn't due to time constraints. If this works out OK it could be made at home, if there is a source of wood chunks of some kind for cheap then why not?

Here is a diagram, been too effing busy to get more done on it during the weekend.

Instead of burlap I'm using landscaping fabric for the filled trough and plan to use plastic for the drain.

This one is only on the bottom because it's simplest. You can also place them on opposite sides of the screen to make multiple rows on each side. Imagine three rows of corn on each side of the screen - the mind boggles!

Is it a GB or a filter?

It's a burrito! Makes the corn plan sooo appropriate...
Way cool Dave.

Rick

A grow "bed", the green squiggle is a plant. I.e. I will be planting all along the screen on both sides.

Burrito is an awesome term sminfiddle!

One thing that's not visible in the cross section is that the water will come in from one end and the plastic gutter will direct the water out the same end (or the other end), so you can pump to and drain from the same end even if the screen were several feet wide.

Powerful concept.
A fabric-based bed (-rrito) can be curved, go around corners, even spiral or come back full circle if one is careful with the level. Would take more support points than a straight line though. Maybe one leg of each frame-V could have its foot movable: IN=Up and OUT=Down.

Around these parts a black fabric hammock burrito would absorb so much heat that it'd affect the whole interior... my black stock tank bed has some tomatoes planted near the edge (easier to trellis was my thinking) and they don't like it there compared to ones that are at least 150-200mm away from the hot black side. Painting it (increase the burrito albedo) comes to mind, but making more of them sounds even better - one shading another and the sunward one gets big-leaved (Taro) or heat-tolerant (eggplant) plantings.

Makes me go Hmmmmmm...

The landscaping fabric is the same stuff that eco bags are made out of (shown in the graphic), so you could get some in other lighter colors to taste. Or, a layer of something could shade the top. I'm going to try to get white plastic for the drain gutter.

Bed-urrito, lol

wow, that looks really interesting. I'll have to keep tuning back in for more pictures! I'll be interested in how it works. . . I'm a firm believer in simplicity.

Nate

Well still no fish and plants, I did finally use one of the Uniseals I got from DDM, cut a hole in the 180 gallon tub and filled it with gravel, mostly from our front sidewalk, which we are going to slowly remove and fill in. Have probably 240 gallons of gravel volume now. This is a good home for some lucky fish and plants right now, so I'm itching to get some life back in this system. Right now it's a trap for birds looking for water

Looking for a source of blue gill and/or channel catfish around here. Have been putting in some ammonia every other day.

The bed burrito/screen hasn't yet been hooked up. It tipped over in the wind the other day and I've taken it down. I think the screens are good as a couple feet tall, so that they can be stacked up and/or removed in a modular fashion. I am going to figure out how to set two up at 90 degrees on the front corner of the pond.

The AP system is on my mind a lot ATM, have been too busy to do anything with it until this time of year, which unfortunately is getting cooler by the week. I think the plan for now is to get something in there, run some plants until the frost kills them, and consider putting a cold frame around the beds to keep alive later into the Fall.

I want to have a mix of gravel beds, screens (burritos), and hanging net pots with attached funnels (need to show a graphic), that is the goal. The last two don't make sense without cover so that is something I'm devoting a lot of mental power on right now.

I like it! The burrito hmm Interesting concept Dave, look forward to see the prototype. I bet you aren't sleeping well at night dreaming about it!

Thanks Faye I'll try to get things humming again and keep everyone updated!

Thinking about trying this.

Cool.
Longer contact time with media/biofilm the goal? (not to mention all that aeration)

To keep as much out of the weather as possible (my pond is in the ground, this would keep the gravel at water temp all the time), without building a full greenhouse (just need to cover the plants and a minimal lid over the fish). Less energy usage might be possible with just several air lifts on a single air pump. I want to get some trout which require an air pump on battery backup anyway so might as well use it to do multiple duties.

It would be very simple to do an air lift into the center of a round planter in the fish tank, with holes on the outside so that the water and solids start at the center and are filtered outwards through the planter. I'm imagining something the size of the cheap round laundry tubs you can get at Walmart etc., maybe with charcoal instead of gravel so you could float the bed in the fish tank. The air lift inlet could be on a flexible hose so that it worked like a vacuum on the bottom.