Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello!

Well, here I go. Diving into my hopes of being an aquaponisist

I've attached a drawing that I THINK will work.

FT = 325 gal - Talapia
2 filters @ 32 gal ea
2 4x8 rafts = 640 gal
TOTAL of 929 gal

My best questimate is I should use a 600 gph pump. I'm sill a little fuzzy on pipe size though.

Oh my gosh, I am so excited to finally start!

Any concerns, critiques or general "what are you thinkings" would be much appreciated.

Thanks
Debs

Hi Debs, looks like a good setup to me, you might need a second ball valve on the pipe to the first growbed just after the tee piece. Is the inline pump one that can be run twenty four - seven? How noisy will the pump be?

Are you planning on having a SLO from your FT to your Swirl Filter? Sorry if I missed that.

Thanks guys. A bone of contention between my husband and myself is submersible vs inline. I favor submersible and I have been doing most of the research. I think i was able to have him see the light after trying to answer HairyCamel's question regarding noise. Our greenhouse is just on the other side of the office where he works all day

I'm going to redo my drawing to address a submersible pump in the bio filter.

Jeezy, I really don't quite understand the SLO. I thought having the system pull from the bottom of the FT I would suck the waste into the SF.

Now that I've read a few discussions it seems as though that idea will not be sufficient enough to draw the solids out. Any suggestions??

I was also looking at submersible vs inline. With inline's you have to make sure they have a cooling system or they can burn out. With submersible they don't really need it since they are in the water.

I mentioned a SLO (solids lift overflow) because they work really well. Also a SLO helps keep a constant height of water in your tank just in case of emergencies. The best part is you can use gravity to your advantage with the swirl filter.

I'm also throwing around a similar design as yours for my next build. I'm not too sure about having a pump in the bio filter as it may chop up any remaining solids into finer material. What about having a sump tank after the raft tanks that will have the pump that goes into the FT? That way the pump will never get gunked up with solids and any suspended solids in the bio filter will remain.

Here's a revised schematic with a submersible pump. I lifted the filters above the FT equal to the beds. I'll use 2" pipe throughout the system with valves to control the flow.

I will add a SLO in the FT.

My two cents:

OK, personally if it were me I would have the Fish tanks be the highest point. I like to just use a double stand pipe instead of the SLO. Basically all you need to do is have your hole drilled in the center of your fish tank, have a regular standpipe to set your water level. Then place a larger diameter pipe over the standpipe that has holes in the bottom of the pipe. This way it draws the water and some of the solid wastes from the bottom of the tank and flushes them to your following tank.

Next, the water will be gravity fed to your swirl filter, then gravity fed into another filter tank. I am not sure what your going to use in your "biofilter tank". I would personally just make it a regular filter tank with filter media of some kind.

From the filter tank (or your biofilter) the water is gravity fed to your growbeds. Seeing as your doing DWC, these growbeds will be and could be the bulk of your bio filtration due to the shear surface area from the sides of the growbeds and the bottom of the rafts.

Then from the growbeds the water is gravity fed into one more tank which you don't have, your sump. The sump will be your lowest point in the system and will contain your pump.

The water will be pumped from the sump to your fish.

Inline vs. submersible: Just remember to make sure if you go submersible that your pump is rated to be used in aquaculture. In other words make sure it doesn't contain oil. Occasionally the pumps that have oil will leak and this will ruin your water quality, create a big mess, and kill your fish. There are pros/cons to either inline or submersible, I have used both in aquaculture/aquapaonic settings with no problems on either. They both work fine.

I am confused on where your pump is located in your diagram as well. It looks like you need one in your fish tank with that design. But it appears to be in the bio filter?

Keep asking questions though! I love helping out especially on the engineering side of these systems and its always good to learn from each others mistakes haha

hi debs nice to meet you. ok my take from your second schematic of your system... if I believe that the water flow is from your ft -> swirl ->bio\pump -> GB honestly seeing that your fish tank is the lowest water point... this layout will not work under gravity feed.
secondly I wouldn't suggest placing pump within bio filter because of accidentally media intake into the pump as well as bio film growing on and within pump and fouling the intake pipeline.
what I will advise:
you can keep system physically how it is with fish tank at the lowest and simply let the pump draw directly from the fish tank and direct the water to swirl filter then to bio then to gb.
also pipe sizes. u will actually need to types of pipe sizes. 3/4 in pipe for suction and discharge of pump to swirl. then from swirl to bio to gb to ft you will neeed a bigger diameter pipe about 1 1/2 inch, seeing that it will be gravity feed from the swirl filter onwards providing u took my advice and switch pump locations. happy growing.

Sent from my SM-N900 using Tapatalk

For that same reason of not having the pump in your biofilter, I wouldn't put it in your fish tank. This is also why the sump is a good place to have it. Plus, when evaporation occurs you will only see a drop in water level occur in your sump and not in your fish tank.

Hi Deb,

Lots of confusion on the pump situation. Probably something to do with the change between your two drawings. In the first drawing the swirl filter and bio-filter were low and in the second they are high. The height makes a difference with the pump placement. If you're wanting to use a SLO (or standpipe arrangement) the fish tank will have to be higher than what it's flowing into otherwise you'll need a pump.