Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

So I had some time on my hands and have always wanted to experiment with Google Sketchup. Please take a second to look at the system I've created and give me your thoughts.

The purpose of the system is to find the minimum amount of fish needed to grow different species of plants. I repeat, this will be a TEST system to record data in the hopes of eventually building a plant specific bigger system (or many).

For example, let's say I want to grow tomatoes. The question then becomes; If I have X kgs of fish and feed them X amount of food X times per day, how many healthy tomato plants can I produce? To find this answer I will place X kg's of fish in my tank (signified by a blue 55 gallon drum with the number 1). I will fill DWC raft space #1 with tomato seedlings/seeds. If all of these plants grow up healthy then I will open the valves that will allow for both DWC rafts #1 and #2 to be filled with nutrient rich water. I will plant out DWC #1 and DWC #2 and see if the plants all come out healthy again. If they do not, then I will know that X kgs of fish can only support the number of plants in DWC #1. If they do come out healthy then I will open the valves in a configuration that allows for DWC #1, #2, and #3 to fill with nutrient rich water and plant all of these out. I will once again see if these plants all grow out healthy. I will continue this pattern all the way to DWC raft #5 until I start to see nutrient deficiency in the plants. This should give me an accurate measurement of how many tomato plants X kg's of fish fed X amount of food X times per day can support.

That's the basic premise...

The system is designed in such a way to run two fish tanks at once; ie. two experiments/plant species at one time. Each tank can use DWC #2,3,4 and 5 if needed. DWC #1 is specifically tied in with Fish tank #1 while DWC #6 is specifically tied with Fish tank #2.

Just to give you a potential idea of valve placement, the way the valves are situated in the model, Fish tank #1 would be conducting the experiment in DWC #1 and #3, while Fish tank #2 would be conducting the experiment in DWC #6, 5, 4, and 2.

Let me know your thoughts on my idea/design.

Thanks!!!!!!

PS - the three white buckets signify three filters; radial flow filter, biofilter, and final mesh filter). The gray thing in line with the fish tanks is the pump.

If anyone wants the actual sketchup model file just shoot me a PM.

Above View


Fish Tank #1 Valves Close Up


Fish Tank #2 Valves Close Up


Back Right Corner


Back Left Corner

Um might just be me but where's the sketch up?

Whoops!!! Brain fart...

The original post has been edited with the images added now.

Ok few things I have questions on...

1 why would you want to know the min amount of fish? The better question is what's the max for your system. I have heard of people having great success with 1 fish in a good sized GB so I guess I don't understand that piece.

2 if I am seeing this right fish tank 1 feeds to all GBs and fish tank 2 feeds to all but 1? Why so complex? If you are running experiments why not just have Ft1 fill 123 and FT 2 fills 456 I guess I don't understand the need for both FT to be able to fill both.

3 is you filter before you GB or after it goes to you GB back to you FT?

That's all I have for now I like your sketch up though

No no. I don't want to know the minimum amount of fish. If I typed this, then I typed incorrectly. I will choose a certain amount of fish and this will stay constant in both tanks. So lets just say I choose 15kg of fish for each system. The question is then what is the minimum amount of PLANTS I can grow with 15 kg of fish being fed "X" amount of food "X" times per day. Does that make more sense? It's about discovering efficient fish/feed/plant ratios.




No, the angles might not be making it clear.

Both fish tanks #1 and #2 CAN feed to DWC #3, #4, and #5 depending on valve alignment

Fish tank #1 also/always feeds to DWC #1 while Fish tank #2 does not/never can.

Fish tank #2 also/always feeds to DWC #6 while Fish tank #1 does not/never can.

The reason for this design is simple. Say that I'm running an experiment with cucumbers and tomatoes. Let's say that cucumbers are being grown via FT 1 and tomatoes are being grown via FT 2. Now let's stay I start the experiments at the same time. After following the pattern mentioned in my first post, the cucumbers begin to show signs of nutrient deficiency after being planted in DWC 1 and DWC 2. This would mean that the waste from FT 1 can only fully sustain the amount of cucumber plants in DWC 1. BUUUTTTTT, what about the Tomatoes?!...the tomatoes are showing NO signs of nutrient deficiency and therefore I need a way to continue the experiment with them even though the experiment with the cucumbers is finished. The way the system is currently designed would not only allow me to continue adding more tomato plants to the unused DWC's but also even start another experiment in FT 1 with some other plant.

Does this clear things up at all? Basically it allows for way more freedom in experimenting with different plant species and way less lag time between experiments. It also cuts down on system costs since they systems are connected.



The filters are directly after the fish tank (or directly before the DWC rafts, depending on how you want to say it). If you're asking about the direction of water flow, then water flows from the fish tank, through the three filters, and into the specific DWC rafts depending on valve placement. If you look carefully, you can see that some pipes are below others... it's difficult to tell in the picture, but this might be confusing you?

Thanks for taking the time to check it out and I look forward to hearing your additional thoughts!

A worthwhile test... but there's a factor that could skew the results....

Flow rate.....

Having all flow through DWC #1... which by the way looks to be double the size of the other raft beds that Tank #1 can service...

Might give xxx yield result....

Isolating DWC #1... and having all the flow throught DWC #2.... a raft bed half the size... but potentially a greater flow.... could give a total different yield...
Likewise... if you were to open valves to DWC #2, #3, #4, #5... or any conbination(s)... the flow to DWC #1... would be substantially reduced.... and could give different results... as could combinations of flow(s) into multiples of DWC beds...

Both because of flow, and size... and possible temperature differences, and/or DO levels...

I would at the very least.. remove one possible skew factor... and size all the DWC beds to the same size...

Wow Rupert. That's an absolutely fantastic point that I hadn't thought of at all. I had originally made the additional DWC rafts (2-5) half the size of the original DWC's (1 and 6) because I felt I could add plants in smaller increments this way, thus getting more accurate data on the food/fish/plants ratio.

Even if I were to make all the DWC rafts the same size however, your flow rate concern would still be an additional variable; with each raft added, the flow rate would decrease and thus skew my results...

UNLESS, I chose a constant rate of flow for all experiments/rafts and I had a pump that allowed me to easily adjust the rate of flow. OR, perhaps I could just play with the valves each time I added a DWC raft to make sure all of the DWC rafts stayed at the same originally chosen rate?

Would either of these (valve tinkering or the ability to adjust pump speed) fix the unwanted variable problem? This, of course, would all hinge on being able to measure the rate of flow in different areas of the system non-intrusively and accurately? Do tools to do this even exist?

Thanks again!

Exactly...


Not sure exactly how, or what's the best way to do it... but you'd need some way to try and balance the flow between the rafts.... and be able to measure it...

It could probably be acheived through the ball valve adjustments... and measuring how long the flow took to fill a "container" at the start of a raft....

The trick though would be to adjust the first DWC #1 bed.... (which is your base bed).... to set it at the same flow that might occur when all the valves/beds were online....

Precisely...

Great stuff my friend. Back to the Sketch Up drawing board (although not too many edits to make). I'm sure I'll be back in due time with many more questions about pipe size, good fish weight to start off with, feeding times/amounts, acceptable DO levels, temperatures, flow rates, etc. etc.

Speaking of flow rates, does anyone have a recommendation for a particular rate to be kept constant through the system and why?


So much to learn, what an intriguing little hobby.