Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello all! I've participated in some threads, but I decided to indroduce myself. My name is Ron Maggi. I stumbled across AP a few month back when I was looking at some permaculture websites. As I live in a townhome, and the only growing space I have is my patio area, most permaculture options are not applicable. Then enters Aquaponics! I have laid my system out in sketchup, bought all of the 55 gal barrels, one of two Ibcs, a mess of uniseals from tclynx, a bigger mess of pvc fittings from an online supplier that actually had 2" to 1" pvc reducing couplings (for affnan siphons.) Thanks to the forum here, I decided to get the Laguna Max-Flo 2400 for my pump. It is all going to be set up in a CHIFT PIST arrangement. 8 growbeds, 4 barrels cut in half, 2 longways for 4 vegi gb's, 2 shortways for 4 dwarf fruit trees. I am burying the 275 gal IBC for the sump. Once that is buried, I will pick up another for the fish tank. Luckily, there is a supplier here that clearly marks the barrels and IBCs food grade or not food grade. I am leaning towards red lava rock for the gb media. Expanded clay is just too pricey for me, though i may still go 50% with it. The lava rock is 1/6 th the price though... I am also installing a rain catchment system using 4 55 gal drums, set up with a toilet fill valve to keep my sump from running dry. I will have a second fill valve, lower, hooked up to muni, as a back up to that. I will post the rendering from sketchup later.

Welcome Ron!

Look forward to seeing it come together Ron...

Now that I have introduced myself, I have moved over to a member system thread.http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=11151

Wow. I'm thoroughly impressed w/ the sketch up diagram. I've just started learning to use it. You didn't dray the IBC cages from scratch did you?

Toilet valves... I tried something that I think is similar to your top-up scheme and want to relay my experience. I had a 40 gal tank sitting on the ground that was filled via the tap using a toilet valve. This part worked fine. Then the idea was to put a toilet valve in my in-ground sump and connect it to the 40 gal container. The idea was to reduce the amount of chlorine going into my system by adding a buffer (40 gal tank). The problem was the 1.5ft drop did not create enough gravity pressure to activate the toilet valve in the sump. I had to scrap the whole idea. If I had to do it again, I think I'd put a 5 gal bucket in the sump with 1 small hole to allow a small amount of circulation with the rest of the sump water. Then I'd put a toilet valve in it and connect it directly to the tap. This would still add some buffering, but would use the tap pressure to push water through the toilet valve.

Welcome and good luck!

Thankfully there are other ap pioneers that have drawn the ibcs before me and were happy to upload them to the 3d warehouse! I started to draw the barrels, then thought "someone has probibly done this before, and is willing to share..." I was able to go from downloading the program to full rendering of my layout in one afternoon. Then I spent an ungodly ammount of time making the plants look like I want before my poor wife threw a brick at my head so I would pay attention to her! The Sketchup rendering did help get her on board with the project though.

Can just imagine, aquaponics makes headlines as man gets taken to hospital. Oops