Charlie's 2nd System

Charlie

And so comes the end of my Aquaponic system in Kalgoorlie, WA. It was a sad day but Im sure it has gone to a good home and you may see it updated again on another thread in time. She's been a good system for me and my family and has produced some great fish and food.

Here's to a new begining..

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rsevs3

Please tell me you ate at least one f those silvers

Porter

Charlie, it is truely a tragic moment, the silent stillness, my glass is raised to you my friend.

mantis

Also having several beers to your system. Was a fantastic ride for you and us :headbang:

scotty435

Charlie wrote:

Here's to a new begining..

+1

It is sad to see it gone.

ccBear

But the imagination boggles at the thought of you new systems. Safe traveling charlie and family

robduca

Charlie wrote:

I suppose pro's for the DWC so far would be that you can move the plants around by simply lifting the net cup out and putting it in another position (for better sun exposure etc). If I need to get into the water body I can just simply lift the rafts and plants off and sit them on the grass whilst I clean it etc. Planting and harvesting is very quick and easy. I can get a bit heavier with folier treatments if need be because I can control run off. It all keeps a lot neater and organised. Ill never have to worry about solid build up or anaerobic zones. And lastly, its nice on the eyes.

DWC cons would be mostly plant related. Because of the raft sheeting I chose (quite thin) the heavier plants fall over so I am limited to plant choice without support framing. I have found that some plants dont like it. Some plants (like tomatoes) may have too large a root zone for this short bed. Sometimes the roots get so tangled that you can cause a bit of damage when harvesting so you need to be cautious. It cost more. The worst thing about the DWC though, is the filter drums... its an annoying maintenance task that needs to be done regularly (something people dont think about when talking about introducing solids removal), If I was to do it again I would design the filtration differently because it bugs me to no end.

To sum it up, my opinion is I like both methods of media beds and DWC. I think for an all round system its good to have both but if I was to choose between the two (in a backyard situation) I would go the media beds hands down.

Hey Charlie,
Great Thread here.
Still working my way through it.

I am thinking of expanding and putting a DWC raft bed in my system.
My question to you is- Do you think instead of the prefilters you have, if I connect up a couple of half barrels with clay balls in (planted), run constant flood and overflow into a DWC bed similar to yours, would this be adequate filtration?

Cheers
Rob

Charlie

Hi Rob, sorry about the pics in my thread, Joel adjusted some image settings and images on the forum that are a bit too big turned into links so I need to go back through and resize a lot of mine.

I saw your post before but I got side tracked looking at sheep on the net, um I think it will be ok, thats what Murrays flowmedia systems are designed like. You may find you will need finer filtering but Im not too sure. My new system willl have media beds that run into rafts but Ill be using a drum filter and polisher in between but Ill be running high stocking densities so Ill need to control the wastes.

In reality I think for small scale you will be fine, just keep you eye on the root quality of the plants and if a build up is occuring you can easily plumb in a filter bin full of shade cloth or something to knock out the finer particles.

I think my raft addition may have been around $400-$500 in total but I was regional and things are expensive. The liner and plumbing was the most expensive.

Go for it mate, you'll enjoy it and it will add to your knowledge and experience.

Charlie

Oh, and yes - run the media beds CF

robduca

Cheers for the reply.

So maybe I will run 2 media filled half barrels into another half barrel with shadecloth that then flows into the DWC bed?
Would you suggest anything different or does this sound OK?

Charlie

Yep, sounds good. In its raw form my set up constisted of FT --> RFF --> Finer filter (shade cloth) --> DWC --> FT. You can achieve this similarly by replacing the RFF with a media bed to catch the solids as you have suggested.

robduca

Cheers for the advise Charlie

dasboot

I found the shade cloth filter in my system,i was using a 200 litre barrel full of the stuff was robbing the system of nitrates,since removing it i now have a nitrate reading,growth in the DWC was slow due to the lack of nitrates getting to it,i still filter but in a different manner and growth is better,apart from the 40c which is holding back true results at the moment.

PLJ

That's interesting dasboot. I have a drum full of shadecloth employed as a supplementary biofilter and until now was unaware of its downside.

jayendra

PLJ - isn't a biofilter (non growbed) designed to do just that 'remove excess nitrates' i.e. in a RAS system? and also the nitrogen cycled (ammonia and nitrites)

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Charlie's 2nd System

Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics