Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

F
Yep

+1

Chop an IBC, flip the parts the right way up, fill the bottom with water, pump and fish, fill the top with media and plants... drink beer.

Mmmm beer

And whilst you have that beer, plan your extension (whether you want it not or now, I bet that's what you'll be doing!)


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Just don't ever think of doing a CHOP 2

The beer option is definitely sounding like the way to go. Would love to get this up and running asap, sit back with a beer and watch the fish hang laps.

Down the track I will still try and incorporate NFT but at the moment I reckon IBC could be the way to go.

Thanks for all the input on the NFT though. I have learnt a lot.



What's the problem with this design?

Hi Stu!

I'm a naughty boy

Since you ask....

1. Having the FT draining directly into the sump and then the pump in the sump pumping directly back into the FT means that water is going back into the FT before it is either filtered or cleaned of any ammonia.

Assuming that you want to turn over your FT once per hour in a CHIFT PIST system (awful acronym good design) in a designed to be awful CHOP 2 you want to turn over the FT proportionally to the amount of water that is going through the GBs

For example say you have a pump that is pumping ~18,000LPH (I'm an extra naughty boy ) with a 4000L FT and you want to treat your water to the same degree that you would in a CHIFT PIST (AAGD) The amount of water you need going through the FT needs to be 4000LPH of water that has gone through the GBs. Since the water coming from the GBs is mixing with the water from the FT and if you are redirecting some flow directly back into the sump for aeration (I'm being naughy again) the water going out of pump is a mix of GB filtered water, unfiltered FT water, and water that is a mix of GB filtered water and unfiltered FT water that went out and back into the sump for aeration.

Theres is no mathematics in this because I though about calculating it realised it involved calculus and integration and I figured that while I'd enjoy myself solving the problem no one else would appreciate the ebuaty of my proof and it would never be useful to me becuase DTBA CHOP 2 is a god awful design.

Anyway the simple answer would be you would have to increase the flow through the FT more than 2 times per hour to get the same level of treatment as you would in a CHIFT PIST (AAGD)

2. It is designed to be inefficient. In a CHIFT PIST (AAGD) the water circulates once flowing from one component to another. As long as the drains are sized correctly and you have a good layout it is hard to beat its efficiency. A DTBA CHOP 2 can never equal this efficiency for a number of reasons. First the pipe from the pump to the FT can not be as large as in a CHIFT PIST (AAGD) or solids that haven't been filtered, because they are being repumped through the system from the FT, will settle in the pipe causing a potential time bomb of decomposing matter for your fish. Aslo because a pump has to work to the highest level further losses are incurred.

What I mean by this is that say you have a number of different GBs and FTs on different levels if you just run a pipe to each one the lowest one will get most of the flow. This can be over come by putting a valve on the lower pipe and partially closing it but this has the same effect as if the pipe was higher ie it reduces the flow this means that the pump is doing more work for no gain. This can be over come by having all GBs and FTs on the same level but you often don't need the same amount of fall between different components and the sump so again your pump is doing more work. CHIFT PIST (AAGD) avoids this problem by having the components in sequence and minimising the amount of water that needs to be pumped to a particular hieght.

Simple anwser is that this arrangement builds in inefficiencies and limits your ability to reduce the friction losses.

3. Big solids are easy to remove or trap with filters of all sorts. Small solids are difficult to remove or trap with any filter. The more solids from the FT go through a pump the more they get busted up so that in a DTBA CHOP 2 you have a cloud of ultra fine particles that persist in the FT water and are never removed because a substantial portion of the water never goes through a GB due to mixing in the sump. These fine particles are to your fish what smoke or dust would be to you or I

I could go on but that will do.

I feel better now

This counts of provocation.

It matters not that my previous post was being written at the same time

Now let me see gentlemen; the thread was what? So we cut an IBC in half and use the other IBC as a FT.
That's wonderful; I suggest you put in a link to a bell syphon and its all sorted.

Sometimes I think that when a question is asked you should stick to it, you can suggest another way; but try to stick to the thread.

But Sleepe that is so going against the traditions of the forum.

This is way off topic now.

I started out planning a NFT.

Now I need to source an IBC and figure out how to secure it to the roof of a sedan.

Or you could try the one I thought off?
Its been working six weeks now perfectly, cleans 600ltrs per hour, nothing bigger than a pinhead off solids gets through, but it allows the nitrogens get through!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goaKIt_JObo

But be warned! Some on here don’t like filters for some reason?

You need a lot more than nitrogen getting through. Over filtering a system with out digesting and returning to the system will be starving your plants from much required micro/macro nutrients. Unfortunately not always the right information is shared online and in the rare case this forum but the seasoned members try their best to divert the crap into the right direction.

Ehhh...Ford or Holden?