Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

i'm in a defelopment stage off my system.
please give me your tips and thoughts, so i can perfect my system befor building is.

my plan/system.
pond
i'm a future proud owner off a 6 by 4 meter greenhouse (still to construct).
inside i will built a pond, partialy in the ground partialy above.
the size will be 5 by 1 meters and 1,5meter deep (7500liters water)
the back en both sides will be a wall (isolated) the front will be isolated as well.
i will construct my pont whit pondliner.

growbed
on top off this i wil build a growbed, whit the same dimensions.. no not 1,5 meter deep.. but just 40 centimeters made out off pondliner.

pump
for pumping water i'm planning to use a pump who is will be able to pump 1/5 off the water capasity per houre. the output wil be 2 hoses, one i will put a faucet, which i can use for throttling the water flow from the pond to the growbed, the other one i wil put bakc into the pond, so that it will create a flow in the pond.

clarifier
is this a necessery??..
i've it is yes, i wil contruct it out off a IBC tank. mayby put lobster in this tank?
is it is no, it wil spare me some time so i can take a beer during building..

fish/crayfish
the plan is to put trouth in the pond.
this choice because it can get verry cold here, (-20) in the winter.
also i want to put crayfish (red louisiana) or marble crayfish..
but it think its better to contruct a seperate pond fot the crayfish.

wel thats the idee in short..

come on whit you thoughts comments en tips, or mayby questions..

Welcome dutchnewby glad to have you around.

I think we should add something in the introduction email to new members....

no comments with out pictures.

Unless you are going to keep your stocking density of fish/crayfish really low you will need at least 4 of those 5x1 growbeds.

As long as you are using hydroton or gravel filled growbeds you can skip the clarifier in most cases since the growbeds will filter the water for you.

@t Stuart Chignell, you want a picture off a part off the garden were i want to built all of this?? as you can read in the headlines i'm stil in the planning stage as soon wen i start building i wil take pictures and post them.....

@t lowcarbtnper, is there a rule for how manny fish water and GB is the best ratio?
i need the big waterpond because off the wether here in hoilland, in the winter it can go down until -20 and in summer up to 35 celsius...
what the densitie off fish in this system i can keep?

is't it a idea to put a biological filter where by what i can run the acces water that do not run tru the GB, befor returning to the fish tank?

Sometimes a picture of where it is going to go is a good idea but I was more thinking of a layout, plan or at least a diagram.

It is so much easier to visualise a system from a picture and get a sense of what you are planning. That makes it easier to offer good advice and point any potential problems that we might see or obvious improvements we could suggest.

i made a drawning, but threw it away and started all over again because i made a few critical mistakes in the drawning stage.. i made a plan, now i waiting for more income off infromation until i wil make another drawning.. it wil be a pen and paper drawning, and then a building, in not verry well in making drawnings... just in building, wel telling my frineds what to built

i promiss as soon i got more then just a plan written on paper i wil post it..

What are you building your greenhouse from? In -20º the chances are all your plans will cease as the water freezes, even in a GH. How do you plan to keep the temperature up? GH's work by trapping infrared inside - this is usually produced after internal surfaces reduce the frequency of light as it reflects/refracts, but if you are in a place where winter brings little (or reduced) light, there may be little IR to be trapped inside.

And if you design a passive warmth system, how can you reverse it for 35º days when the water will probably warm too much for cold water fish?

Have you read up on heat pumps?

Perhaps a system where much more water is stored somewhere else to act as a heat sink during the warm and to release the warmth back to the GH when the weather goes cold?

Solar cells convert light to energy - such a system might be enough to provide a trickle=warming system to keep your GH system at reasonable temps.

Welcome, dutchnewby.
I am little more than a newby myself but, unless you already have a pump with an output of just 1500 LPH (ie, 1/5 of 7500litres) and are keen to use it then I suggest that you plan to get a pump with a larger capacity. I suspect you would soon be frustrated by a lack of pumping power if you stay with your proposed small pump because your system is relatively large. I doubt if you would regret buying a bigger pump and you could perhaps keep your smaller one for use as an emergency back-up.

@t journeyman:
im talking te most extreem temp measured the last 5 years.
the base off the greenhouse wil be isolated, from 30 centimeters in de ground until the undersite of the GB. thsi is specily to go agains freeze.
in the summer i wil open (all) off the windows or put a sunblok"canvas" on the roof.
i experienced that this wil do the trick.
to keep the water in the summer as low as posible, the pond will be bullt so as it wil not get direct sunlite.
de wall where the pont is bult next to is compleet isolated.
this year i want to built all off this in running mode to look at the temp, i've the temp is to low in the winter i wil put a rock heater in the greenhouse.
the rockheater is an oilbarrel whitch contains rocks, under this rockfiled oilbarrel you put a slow burnign fire inside a littel "oven", than put a fan pointing at the oilbarrel.
fire heats rock, rock radiates heat, and the fan blows it inside the greenhous.
but i think it wont be nessesary because i want to keep trouth in the pond and the water can go down to 0 (celsius), i stil wont kill them..

@t plj:
i'm in planning stage so i stil need to buy every thing.
how big pump do you suggest?

I am not an expert but my guess is that you will benefit from having a pump rated at at least 3000LPH. Some would say that you need to be able to move the volume of your fish tank every hour, so that would mean a 7,500LPH pump.
Your grow bed will hold up to 2 cubic m of growing medium, which means that it will hold around 800litres of water (40% of grow bed volume), and this is additional to the 7,500litres of your fish tank. Also, you should factor in possibly 100litres more for water in pipes in such a large system. That totals 8,400litres of water to be pumped around.
I will be watching with interest as your system develops. I wish you success.

If you have the space, a passive solar greenhouse may be very suitable to mellow out the extremes. Check out the viewtopic.php?f=18&t=9276 thread for a lot of info regarding this. It is basically a greenhouse which keeps `cool` during summer, and `warm` during winter.

@t PLJ
i'm thinking off adding a crayfish tank and a second GB tot the system.. the second GB would be 4 by 1
mt.. the crayfish tank schould be a slump tank i think..

is there calculationsystem for aquaponics systems?

@t hoeve innedi
this is almost exactly wat i've been planning.. problem whit digging in is that the naturalwaterlevel in my garden somewhere like 50 centimeters down...
so i cant go to deep into the ground on my system..
thansk fot the link, i wil study it over and over..

About calculations, you can go al out with it in AP if you like. There are several threads on ratio's.

And go for the crayfish and let me know, I'm thinking about adding them in my sump as well.

after read think ask and then more read ask and think.
i came to another allmost simulair plan, problem now is i only worked 2 or 3 times with paint so is like almost imposible to make a nice drawning of my plan..
i did a attemt using google sketchup8, a totaly disaster...
annybody any tips?

my only idea left is making a picture off my paintprogam made drawning and then put the picture on here...
need to say i'm a totaly unknow to almost everything on a laptop other then typing and listening to music...

@t hoeve innedi:
in my new plan i made use off the 1 to 1 ratio.
crayfish wile be a addition to the system nut i wil put them in a seperate tank, specialy built for them..
the need a few thinks i can't give them in my basis AP system.
but i wil all be nex year added, for 2012 is my building year....
after reading a lot i know that red crawfish (living free in rivers ponds and channal) and marble crawfish, i know these are simpel to keep, to breed and the get a hold on...
one person told me that the red crawfish is better to eat, but i stil want to try the marble because off the reproducing easynes, mayby you need a few more to have a decent meal.. but that's no problem i've do realy produce the numbers off ofspring i keep reading about.....