Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I am in the design stage and was thinking about the plumbing.

1. Am I trying to add the Fish solids from the tank as fertilizer into the grow beds or only the water. as this makes a large difference to how I design the plumbing

2. I understand that the reason for having the grow beds above the tank is to prevent to tank from draining(syphoning) to the level of the beds and the mess around the grows beds from when it floods.
I'm just wondering if anyone has the grow beds below the tank water line and what unexpected problems I might expect

Thanks
Ron

getting the solids out of the tank would be ideal as bacterial action and insect action will break it down and release nutriento to the plants...

if you place your growbed below the level of your tank it also means that you would have to have another pump to pump the water from the sump back to your tanks... you would then want a sump large enough to hold almost ALL the water from your growbeds should your sump pump fail as has reciently happened to one of our members

Yes as I had figured that in I pretty much, I have the beds --> sump--> tank sorted, I can use my current HP sytem and expand on that. It's from the tank to the grow beds I really need to design. I was thinking would I need to pump water to the beds or could I use the syphoning effect to my advantage
Thanks
Ron

From the tank to the grow beds

Another Question
how many have there fish pen under cover and Why??
Reason I can think of 4.
if it rains heaps it might flood the pen at minimum and worse case the whole lot.
The rain water upsetting the balance of the system.
Evaporation
Tempeture balance
Protection from predators ( birds Cats ect.)

and Against
Free top up tank from rain water
Natural light
Supplimentry food force from flying bugs

Ron,

Yep solids are pumped into the growbeds where they are trapped and slowly break down and make phosphorous and potassium available to the plants. Many members including myself have found numersus worms in the grow beds, i'd guess that they aid in breakdown of both dead roots and solid fish waste. From what i have seen, commercial setups that remove solids have trouble growing fruiting plants.

My tank is out in the open. My thoughts on the matter are thus;

i'd like to have it covered to reduce sunlight getting to it
Last winter i found that by putting a mini green house over it i slowed that rate of heat loss from it (i had a small cont. flow bed above the tank)
Now i doubt if it would make any difference, as i find that the most heat gain / loss is effected by the water F&D through the bath growbed, it acting as a large heat exchanger. My thoughts for the comming winter are enclosing both the tank and grow bed in a green house and possibly turning off the pump after dark.

Rain has topped up my system over the last few days, but unless you live in a HEAVY rain area i doubt it would cause major flooding. Easy to work out though, add together the combined surface areas of your tank and grow beds. work out the ratio of this number to your tank surface area, then multiply by the weekly rainfall. It will give you the rise in mm of your water level. If this is above what you'd expect to loose as evaporation and plant transpiration in winter then you have a problem

Eg: 1sqm tank, 2sqm beds = 1:2 = multiplication factor of 3
20mm rain would rise the level of the tank by 60mm

Eg: 0.5sqm tank, 2sqm beds = 1:4 = multiplication factor of 5
20mm rain would rise the level of the tank by 100mm

I know the maths looks wrong, so some one check it, but i've tried it and it seems to work

Steve

Some of us have discovered that our fish are 'happier' in a somewhat darker environment too - I am gathering materials to 'darken' my tank by +- 50% after noticing that my barra try to hide behind the smallest of things (sometimes I feel they are carring on like an ostrich, burring their head and thinking no one can see them because they cant see anybody - )
The covering in terms of keeping water out, well, it is good in some ways to controle the ammount of water entering your system as a sudden flush of fresh water would dilute the concentration of nutrients etc in your system, but like steve said, it would have to be a heavy downpour, or an extended period of rain.
My systems have all been out in the rain and I only covered them in winter to leep the temp up, I was not worried about too much water getting into my system.

Using the rain as top up probably keeps the system MORE in balance.

any evaporation will increase the conc. of dissolved solids, topping up with rain water will resore the original levels (better than grid water will anyway)

Yep, it was grid water that killed all my ornamentals that one time I forgot to turn the water off while topping up my system

Hi ron [my 2 bobs worth] i find the fish like it dark it also stops algie also look at fish farms they pump water into there fish tanks and it overflows taking solids with it this way all you need is a sump that holds your grow bed volume and one pump a bit os fiddling around but i could be done its still hard to beat the grow beds above the fish tank level then with power or equipment failures the fish tank is always full and the grow beds can lookafter them selves for 2 or 3 hrs after that a bucket of water will keep the backteria alive

Thanks for your input
I will take what I can remember into consideration.
When I have finished drawing up the plans I'll post them for further scrutiny before scrounging\puchasing the parts.
Thanks again
Ron

Good a few good places in bendigo bendigo trailers near the show grounds and eaglehawk tip recycling just tell them mal sent you

dropping names hey...

Ron- Michael F has his beds below the fishtank level. (see his system thread) He has a large sump that can hanle the runnoff if the power cuts. He then has a pump that pulls the water from the sump, spins the water to aereate it and separate the solids, and the drain from that tank into the growbeds aereates the water again and gets the solids first. Quite ingenious!

Thanks greenedo
yes MF has a great looking system thanks for the Heads up