Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hey there Molj,

nice to meet you.
I was looking at the flow of your system tonight, and if i may refer you to the pic,
i think you could cut down the energy it would require to get your water to the GB's
at present, i think your trying to pump it way more than you need to.
orange represents the new direction of flow TOO the beds
red represents the new direction of the GB's
return water would run under gravity straight back to the fish tank.

love to hear your thoughts

Regards
Porter

Ruperto it's good to be back thanks

That's good to know, i don't want to invest that much money and see those clay balls falling apart after a few years. Although i've been using them in a few smaller (pee ponics) systems and they seem to be fine after a few years i needed to ask.

Zsazsa: hey buddy!

so far i haven't been able to grow carrots because i couldn't seed them(seeds got flushed from the stones) and i haven't even tried much after that, that's the whole truth.
I've been thinking about that option stone:pebbles mixture, but:
i still have to buy 3,4 tones of stones - 140€ + transportation ~50€ + 800L hydroton(higher price when buying less volume ~200€) that's roughly 400€ all togheter

I've been just checking out your system again, you have 7 growbeds right? that's roughly 3500L of media and 1000 L of FT, that's quite a big ratio. 1:3.5.
In my system right now i have 2000L ft(10-20 kg of fish there) and 1600L of GB covering 2/3 of my GH, that's about 20m2(8,8m2 effective grow space)

Damn i hate money, so in conclusion. If i set up 8 GBs, buy a big bag of hydroton and 2000L of gravel i end up with 650€+ investment argggghhh

Even if i fill all that volume with gravel i still have ~500€+ of an investment... ahhh IBC beds are starting to stink again. I guess i'm stuck with my current blue barrel beds and either hydroton or quarzite in them, bummer.

This is starting to annoy me again I wanted to get rid of so many small gbs because of the temperature gains/losses they create by having small volume and a lot of piping to irrigate them.

Options (with a 500€ budget):

-go smaller, install 4 ibc beds
-join two rows of bbarrel gbs(needs less piping)
-leave it as it is, just buy hydroton, sit and watch the big temp swings,

that middle option actually doesn't sound that bad, pop in some ideas if i forgot something here.

Cheers

P.S.

Porter, i just saw your post before posting this.
I did plan to rotate the rows the way you drew it, and you'r right i would cut down the piping's lenght for about 2m+ that way. The real problem is the height as it's almost 3m and with that much volume i'd still need that strong pump that i have now (650W). What i'd like to achieve here is putting FT inside my GH and gravity feed those GBs. That would cut down my Wattage to 100W with a pump that wouldn't clog all the time as this one does. Thanks for chipping in!

You are bad in maths

- My system: 9 GBs -> 2700 L that's 1 : 2.7
- I bought 3 tonnes of stone, but only used less than 2 tonnes.
- 1000 litres of hydroton

I strongly believe that you have to do three things to mak your system usable.

1. most impotant! Redesign to chift pist! Cut one FT and use it as two sumps. Get rid of the 3 meter head.
2. Change the rock to get normal PH
3. Get passive solar GH for 4season growing.

ps.: Seeds are very rare to swimm away. Some may but all of tham surely cant.

Yes, once a layer of slime builds up on the gravel, the seeds seems to stick to it well rather than washing away.

zsazsa: i don't know about my maths but i thought half of IBC holds 500L right? By your calculations you only have 300L in each GB?

I totally agree on those three points, have exactly those plans in my head. Although converting my GH to a solar one seems tricky, had been planing to insulate the northern wall of the gh and part of the northern side of GHs roof + putting some barrels in the back for thermoaccumulation. Have no idea if that would work as solar GHs are designed with taller walls facing south and lower on the north side and my GH is just the same size all the way. I guess ill have to try. I'll draw some sketches in the following days.

Maybe the carrots not sprouting had something to do with my high pH not with washing away, because i have succesfuly seeded salad and radish.

Thanks guys!

GBs are 35cm high filled up to 30cm

Ok, decision made

-buying 2m3 of quarzite gravel (4-8mm) for 108€+transportation 20€, comes in next week
-joining two barrel rows, rotating them for 90° and connecting 2 barrels in a row
-putting FT inside, 2 sumps (cutting one IBC in half), 100W pump used for central heating
-chift pist design

later:
-insulating northern GH wall and part of the roof
-installing a thermoaccumulating wall of barrels

Starting this weekend.

See ya with some updates

How come I'm not surprised on your plan

Because im a cheap bastard

and seeing your system working so well i said to myself: "gotta get one of those!"

p.s.
got the new gravel this weekend already, emptied the old one, setting up my little aquarium V2 this week if all works out well.

We want pictures!

Photos are comming soon, the system is running currently with only two rows, will finish it this weekend. Had some leakage last week, and the pump stopped running(i disconnected the old pump because i was reshaping the whole thing and i dumped in the FT a submersible one) so when i got home a week after, the fish were like almost belly up, luckily i'm dealing with carps here so after a day of pump running and some fresh water i only had one dead. These guys are really tough.

Anyway i'll post some photos this weekend. Had no time for photos last weekend, was remodeling the system and washing gravel with my parrents till almost midnight, then back to the city and work in the morning...phew!

Hope the plants and fish will appriciate all this

Carps are hardy bastrads. They could live without water, they could walk, and even fly! They dont do it only because their religion ban those!

Hello fellas'

Me and my family were busy this weekend, we've finished what we've started last week. I've got a video for you and a few photos. Hope you enjoy the report.

It all starts with two big bags of gravel(not including lime stones!)


Goes on with washing the gravel, the Pro way


Lifting the gravel up to the GH

Filling the remodeled grow beds


Replanting, BTW this is root growth is after a week in the new gravel, half of the barrels were already filled up last weekend and planted. Looks very promising, usually it took much longer for the roots to grow in the old lime gravel.


Enjoying the results and reporting to you



Big thanks to my family for all the help and support, i actually had to fight with my parents to let me wash some of that gravel, i hope that i can at least provide with some more greens this year thanks to the pimped out system.

See ya!