Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Crazy Question:

Is it possible to run a small system without a pump?

For instance, simply taking the water out of the fish tank every evening, and taking water from the plants, and switching them.

??

For example, let's say I have a 30 gallon fish tank, and I remove 3 gallons per night, when I get home from work, and I pour these into the grow beds for the plants. (with media to house the bacteria). Then at the same time, and before I pour the fish water into the plants, I take 3 gallons, or as much as is there from the plants, to be poured into the fish tank.

Would this work?

Just curious, as I don't want to run a pump in the house where I am going to be putting a fish tank...I think the gadgets that I purchase for the tank itself will be making enough noise for my neighbor.

Not that I care that much, but we'll see, for now, I am exploring this question before I even buy a tank.

later,

jeff c

Are you going to have air pumps?

As long as there aren't that many fish in the tank I think it will work. My bro has a 55 gallon with probably 20 or so tropicals that he has not run a pump/filter on in years. His underwater plants provide oxygen to the fish. You won't be able to grow much without lots of fish, though. I would consider a small 60GPH pump. You almost can't hear them, they are less than $20, and only consume 8 watts or so. Is this outdoors?

I do something similar with my breeder tank because it is not hooked up to any aquaponics. Once a week or so I empty half of the tank into my aquaponics system and then refill with water from my aquaponics.

Indoors.

Oh, yeah, I should look into underwater plants, as that would be the way to go.

Interesting, what kind of plants should I look into for that?

If the plants growing underwater provide adequate oxygen, then no, I won't have any air pumps.

This is sounds better and better.

Later all,

jeff c

If you put in enough plants to produce enough O2 for the fish they may take all the Na out of the water as well.

What if you just have the tank for fish and the grow beds at the same level, and let the water go back and forth easily...by positioning them very near each other?

So the grow beds basically become an extension of the fish tank. The concern would be...is there enough circulation to allow proper cleaning of the system of nitrates. But as the nitrate concentration grows wouldn't osmosis force the water to 'migrate' the nitrates to the plants? Or would the concentration have to get to unmanageably high levels for this to happen?

Oh well, just curious.

later,

jeff

The plants don't add oxygen to the water!

A small pump doesn't make enough noise to worry about the difficulties that not having a pump would create. Even less if you put it on a timer to fill a flood and drain growbed.

Oh, and the water wont circulate just because of nitrate build up - your theory wont work at all. Unless your a sorceror.

Even some large pumps don't make much noise. I can't even hear my 4500 litre per hour pump.

i find the S-3000's are that quiet i have trouble telling if its running or not i have too check for flow....

If it wasn't for the splashing water I wouldn't even know mine is running.

I've found most tiny air pumps tend to make more noise than a small water pump. As long as you make sure the pipes don't vibrate against anything the pump itself isn't likely to cause a noise problem.

Now the sounds of trickling water can bother some people (sending them to pee more than normal) but if you are going to be having fish in the house, you are going to have the sound of water unless you only stock an incredibly small amount of fish.

I don't think you are likely to find a good balance trying to do aquaponics completely pumpless the fish need aeration and water plants only provide that during the light hours and as noted, if you are growing enough water plants to provide all the oxygen then you may not have enough nitrates to support any veggies in the grow beds seeing as managing a planted aquarium to the point where you don't have to aerate means the fish load is so low that you wouldn't need to do water changes either.

Probably far easier/cheaper to get a small efficient quiet water pump and do it the old fashion way. But if you are really interested in tinkering and trying different things, let us know what you find out. The danger with simply having flooded beds hooked to the fish tank is that the circulation just wouldn't be there and things would get anaerobic.

Is your neighbor next door or in the next room? I guess some people are very light sleepers. For most of our size setups, a submerged pump you would not hear. You might hear the water going from one container to another though depending on your setup. You can usually angle outlets to be quieter if need be.

If you added some extra tanks into the mix, it would, in theory, be possible to have it so the water trickled through by gravity from one part of the system to the next, and just switched the tanks at the ends when one got empty and the other got full. Not practical, but possible.

(I admit, I've been toying with this idea for a micro-system, less than 2 gallons total. But it's still just theory right now)