Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Ryan

Thanks for all your information and photos. We have been attempting to set up a better filtration system for our trout tanks and your use of rubbish bins seems to be the answer we have been looking for, so thanks again.
And whilst we are on Happy Christmas and merry New Year.
WD and OH.

Quick question that is sort of related. Would you be able to set up a raft tank from water that had been through a normal growth bed? If the bed was only lightly planted it should work and have enough nutrients left for the raft bed? Or it could not be planted at all and only have worms in it to help break down the fish poo.

Indeed Rob.... as the water supply to a raft needs to be filtered... feeding from a grow bed which performs that function... is an optimum solution that negates the need for solids removal...

Welcome Ryan!

Pretty pictures!

WOW! Quite the set up Ryan. What part of Florida are you in? I'm not too far from Orlando, actually up near Mount Dora. Most of my stuff is gravel beds with only a little bit of NFT add on and this past year some towers and now I've added a raft bed.

Anyway, looks good. Where did you learn/pick up most of the info you used to help you create your system?

Cool, look forward to seeing more as changes are inevitable.

Let me ask RMCPB's question again and in a different way for those who are more experienced than I to answer.
Fish water hits grow bed, filters through the gravel or media, feeds the raft/NFT, runs to the fish tank.
Now, granted, this is not the setup that Ryan has (sorry for the possible hijack). I believe that RMCPB and I are asking if the gravel bed will be sufficient to clean all the water without using a clarifier.

Then after the gravel bed, will the water have sufficent nutrients to feed the plants in the raft/NFT?

Reason I ask... I'm heading in that direction with my (far off in the distance) system and want to find out what would work for my system.



Yes indeed, where did you gain all your knowledge? This looks very well thought out. Congrats

Mr Bill,
Short answer yes!

Flood and drain gravel beds make very nice filters. Now I won't guarantee the water will be as polished as it is coming from Ryan's bank of filtration bins, but I've been sending water filtered by gravel beds to my NFT (well sort of) pipes for over a year and the water is definitely clean enough for that (and from experience I can say sending fish water directly through an NFT pipe does not work and becomes quite nasty.)

Will there be enough nutrients to go around. Well that is all about balance in an aquaponics system. If you are stocking with a minimal fish load and you have twice as much gravel bed volume as you have fish tank and it's heavily planted out and you go an add some big raft beds, well you might find that you don't have enough nutrients to go around. However, since the nutrients are dissolved in the water, it won't be like the gravel bed gets all the nutrients before they can get to the raft bed. If you find that you have not enough nutrients, you can get more fish or remove some greedy plants. I've got a fairly heavily stocked system with a 2:1 gravel bed to fish tank ratio and I still have plenty of nutrients to add on towers and NFT pipes and soon I'll add more plants into a raft bed as well.

Now don't expect a single little half barrel gravel bed to handle filtering the water for 2000 liters of fish tank or something like that. It would clog up.

Sorry for the Hijack but perhaps Ryan can shed some light as I think he probably has a pretty good handle on the idea of filtration even if he didn't use gravel beds for his filtration.

You're welcome WD!! Glad you guys could get some use out of the build pics



Thx Lynx, Im out in Clermont so not to far:)
As for my AP knowledge/know how, I come from a background in Biology and ive been experimenting for 5+ years now(hydroponics 12yrs). I read everything/anything I can get my hands on and I also work in the aquaculture industry so I have had a lot of hands on experience with many different aquaculture/hydroponic/aquaponic endevors over the years.

There is a lot more information out there then people realize if you look in the right places. University online banks of research papers are one of the biggest resource as they have a lot of specific studies on stuff that people arent usually talking about. Most of the books out there in print are more geared towards the begginers but I still usually find a few good ideas out of them. Of course, you will find other books(and several E Books) where the author just throws out wild claims with no scientific evidence to back it up...I try to avoid those books

As you said, changes are inevitable so I try to stay as open minded as possible to new ideas and ways of doing things.

First, I would say everything would depend on your stocking density of fish. Ive seen numbers tossed around like TCLynx put out there of a 1:2 ratio and I am sure a 1:2 ratio works in some situations, but it will depend on the stocking density and feed ratio. There will be a direct relationship between feed input, size of gravel filter, amount of worms and ambient temperature (however I do not have hard numbers in order to create a formula).

As I see it:
-The downside to a filtration system thats consists purley of a gravel bed is that you loose your ability to manipulate the amount of nitrates in the water. You could cut down on fish feed for a while but that slows fish growth which if done commercially, would throw off your harvest schedule.

-The upside is the fact that the worms create worm tea out of the waste they consume which suppliments the micro nutrients in the system...nutrients you're not going to get from fish waste. Also that you get a large amount of bacterial growth on the gravel which aids in bio-filtration.

I have 3 gravel beds incorporated into my system at the moment but I choose to remove the solids first so that I can control the available nitrogen. Fine detritus still makes its way into the gravel beds which is enough for the worms to survive on but not so much that I have to worry about the bed clogging.


The gravel bed wouldnt directly effect the available nutrients for the trough unless you planted it out with veggies. If you used it strictly as a filtration tank it would just be producing nutrients. Again, the answer would depend on stocking density and total growing area.

Ryan, you are a fabulous resource!

+1

Not much available hard data just makes me want to create my system so I can provide that hard data for someone to figure out the formulas. Not real good with math, but can create charts and simple spreadsheets to keep track of items. Drives the wife crazy. LOL.

Like how you set your system up. I'd like to do something similar to that in the future, hence the questions.

Keep the info coming. And more pics.

So you are drawing off solids from the filter to reduce the nitrates in the system?

A couple more pictures:

Big Chard harvest for Christmas Dinner with the family(4 grocery bags full)


Flood and drain beds(where my tomato bins were in the past)


Garage full of tropicals(Dragon fruit, Miracle fruit, Orchids, Henna, Plumeria, etc)


Covered Tilapia tanks(if you open the tarps steam comes out...stinky steam! lol):


Frozen Kohl Rabbi


Frozen Celery:


Celery the next day after it thawed looking perky again:


Brussle Sprouts getting big:


Tiny sprouts developing:


Broccoli stalk getting massive:


More broccoli and Romenesco in some other flood and drain beds:



Leeks:


Snow peas(looked a little fried after the hard freeze we had over the last 2 nights)


Mixed greens bed that was completely iced over yesterday morning. Thought they would have been toast but they pulled through fine.

Thanks Ryan. Sounds like as long as the nitrate levels are limited and phosphorus is available beyond this you should get good bloom. Whether to run a nitrate level above zero as opposed to adding additional plants to use up all the nitrates basically boils down to growbed space limitations and/or the need to be certain that nitrates are not limiting growth (more important for a commercial operation I would think). Your system gives you the flexibility to change the nitrate levels using the solids, which can be very useful. Most of us have to add or remove fish, plants, or water to do the same but with slightly less maintenance I believe, so thats the trade off.

Good to see your system doing well in spite of the frost. Thanks again.

Love to see plants this late in the year!