Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

You're excused for not showing the gravel going into the beds...

But only because you show the gravel washing...

Still a bit of colour coming out but that cleared up in two days!

Added a small hole just after the bend which services as a venturi, works very well!







right that was the pics for stage1 now on to the Grow tubes!

and the worst thing about it is that i have had the drum Open twice
and didn't get a single Pic ................idiot!

I shall redeem my self by showing the building of Drum Filter Mark 2
which i shall be building soon as i have gathered more ideas since! you know how that is!

OK Questions!



No not Tall Grow Bed! though thats a good idea for small fruiting trees!

Now i have to go fine More Pics got them on the camera i think!

Ok. Some points I have noticed from your Photo's..

so it Looks Like you have made some thing Similar to a Pressure barrel Filter..

ME thinks that there are a Flaw in your system..
The things that come to mind..
point by point..

I hope I'm wrong..

1 - Water into the barrel via the pipe from the side of the barrel to the Bottom..
You could of gone in thru the side and then a pipe to the bottom with a T on it and maybe some short Pieces of Pipe to distribute the water..
Your manifold at the bottom is to complicated..


2 - Your Water return would of been Better with using a larger Pipe from the Side and Not pressurising the Barrel..[Something will have to Give]


3 - I can NOT see a way that you can get Air and Water thru the barrel to Clean the crud out of the media at the same time..


Here is a Brief Description of a basic S&G filter..

With a Sand a Gravel filter very Similar, But there are 3 layers of material in it..
- Water enters at the low Point.. Can be Pipe down to that point or enter Via the Bottom..
- it rise up thru the media dropping / filtering all the Crud out..
- enter the pond Via a low pressure flow.. maybe via a 50mm exit to pond..


To Clean..

Drain Pipe is uncapped and allowed to flow out of the system to Sump.
- air is blow into the Filter to the Bottom of the barrel via a manifold and the Bubbles Boil the Water moving most/[if not all CRUD] UP and out to the waste Line/sump..
- You only need to Boil the system for 30sec and then wait for the water to clear out before you cap the waste line and allow the flow to go to the pond..

You will lose about 200lt of water on average depending on the size of the filter/pump..


I'll Grab a few Photo's of my S&G Filter to show you the layout..

Juergen

Ok Found one Picture with lid off!

thought i'd flush some of the dust off before running it back in to the tank!

I'll Answer shortly SnowT

i'll just upload some more pics which may help show what i'm doing a bit more!

This is the inside of the drum lid

as you can see this is when i added the second outlet for back flushing



And this is the Seal for the drum, only wept water for two or three days, and has NOW sealed, water tight!

And here is the NFT Tubes!

This is why i am going with a pressurised Filtration system,

water travels from fish tank via Filter to the NFT channels and then back to fish tank!...

as this is a test system i will be adding a second filtration Drum which will be a fluid bed filter



Drains for channels used a rubber seal called a Top hat seal!

just a few pics of the drains being installed

Ok..

When you inject air into the system to clean it you also need to inject Water into the system..




Pipe at 12 is the Inlet from the Pump..
Pipe at 2 is the Pond Return and is higher than the waste Line..
Pipe at 6 is the Waste Line, the Valve[Blue Handle] is a precaution so I don't drain the pond..
The Pipe in the centre is the Air inlet point for When I flush the system out..

- The Waste pipe is Lower than the pond Return pipe..
The stuff you see is the Shell Grit..
the water is nicely Polished[Clean] with not allot of suspended matter in the water..

Juergen

is your filter gravel with a layer of sand on the top for polishing as well as shell grit?

And if there is sand on top is it agitated during filter operation?

Ok here are the layers in the system from the Bottom up..

[BOTTOM]
Air Manifold
Water Manifold
--- Grating -- Similar to yours
20-25mm - River stones, Can use 20mm blue stone [About 150mm deep]
8mm -- --- pea gravel [About 150mm deep]
No2 shell Grit [ 150-200mm Deep]

[TOP LAYER]
-- Waste Layer here --
-- Pond Return --

Hope this Helps..

Also the sand which you see is not sand, But No2 Shell Grit..

The Filter will need a clean which I will do Once I have some water to top up the pond..


During general operation the sand is not agitated.. If this was a Full size system[200lt] it would handle 2000gal/hr[8000lt/h] easily..

My filter system is only about 80lts volume and the pump is 2000lt/h

Juergen

OK so everyone will have a full understanding of the operation of the system, I’ll break it down some more.

Under current configuration:
Water is pumped from fish tank through Drum filter water travels Bottom to top of filter
Water then travels from filter to a manifold which has 8 4mm pipes which feed the NFT channels which drain back to fish tank

Additions to follow
Aeration: 2x Air pump (1 as redundancy) and diffusion ring in fish tank, this will be a 240v air pump, powered from a 9000watt Inverter Charger Solar Ac to DC (eBay job about 4 to 5 hundred dollars)these units charge the battery bank while supplying 240v when power goes out the inverter kicks in to run the pumps till power is restored

Backup: will be provided by above configuration, non-return value will be installed between Fish tanks and Filter to stop filter over flowing fish tank
At this stage there are no Gate valves, but I will be installing electronic valves which will be controlled by a PLC control unit, this unit will control the back flush cycle as well as other aspects of operation e.g. water pumps, air pumps, and valves.

Back flushing: during back flush the Water pump will be switch off and the fish tank feed line shut off, The back flush valve will open and air will be injected into the inlet manifold in the Filter which will dislodge and or disrupt the sediment (theoretically) after 10 – 30 seconds the air will shut off and the water inlet valve will open and the water pump will start and flush the filter for 30 more seconds then it will switch back to normal flow

Why am I running a sealed filter system: Is control, I spent 11 years building cooling systems in the plastics industry, balancing water levels in tanks at different heights with plastic particles blocking pumps was not what I would call fun,

The only open part of the system will be the fish tank! And at a later stage some grow beds but these will all over flow to the fish tank, I don’t have to worry about balancing the flow to the filter or making everything gravity feed correctly, or sediment in the grow beds (though from what I have read not really a problem!) yeah I a control freak sue me!.... hahaha yes and I’m a little OCD as well

And as stated before I will be building a new filter based on more filtering research (this is being based on commercial filtering systems), again a seal system, fluid sand filter most likely, and a if required foam fractionator e.g. protein skimmer,

And the Million dollar question of why I’m doing this is? I started out looking in to aquaculture, but happen upon this site and well figured that this is a good way of cleaning the water for the fish!