Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi, my name is Scott. I've been an avid gardener for as long as I can remember but am new to aquaponics. I have been studying for a little over a year. My older brother Sonny, aka Arkie Eskimo was a member of this forum and pointed me in this direction just prior to his passing, last May. He had been telling me about his system and about his wicking beds which I thought seemed pretty freakin cool.
I have gotten most of what I need together and am working on the mechanics of my system now. I have a blue barrel for my fish tank with a 1" SLO going into a square 5 gallon bucket swirl filter (hoping that by removing the solids I can reduce my media bed volume requirements) then into a 4'x4'x7" hydroponic flood table (is this deep enough for a media filter bed?) and a 32gal Rubbermaid tote for a sump.
I would like to put an autosyphon on the gb but since my sump is so small am planning to run it constant height until I get a bigger sump. I am also hoping to add some nft tubes and a few wicking beds later on.
I have a couple questions about cycling. I have home made fish hydrolysate that I was wondering about using to start cycling the system. I also have home made lacto that I have read is good for the fish also. I'm hoping someone here has experience with using either of these things in an aquaponic system.
Thanks in advance for any and all help. I'll post pictures as soon as I can.

Hi Scott welcome to the forum .

Basically you just need a source of ammonia to get the cycling started. I'm not sure about the fish hydrolysate should work but I'm not certain if any diseases could be added to the system using this . I suppose that it's probably reasonably safe but I'm not certain.

Along those same lines, what you mean by lacto (lactic acid fermentation but of what ) and are you suggesting it as a probiotic or as an aid to cycling?

Hi Scotty435. Thanks!

The disease possibility hadn't even crossed my mind, now I'll have to look into it. The hydrolysate was made from fish I ate the rest of so it was safe to that extent anyhow, lol.

The lacto is from a recipe on theunconventionalfarmer.com , basically its nothing but lactic acid bacteria and mollasses. It aids digestion in all animals, giving better growth rates with less food.

I looked into the fish hydrolysate issue and found a study which found hydrolysates to be beneficial to disease resistances and increased growth. Here's a link to it if you're interested. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26074096
So I've confirmed the hydrolysate as a usable supplement now I just need to finish setting stuff up in the morning and get some more red scoria for my media..
Any inputs as to minimum growbed depth? I know 12" is recomended but I'm sure there are people running beds more shallow than that. I'm asking because I have a few of those large clear rubbermaid containers that fit under a bed and was thinking of using them for this first little set up in addition to the 4x4 flood table, if it proves to be insufficient for what's needed.

You can use the shallower beds, they just won't provide as much filtration and will be more prone to fouling with roots - choose shallow rooted plants for these and avoid plants with extensive root systems like tomatoes. Since they are clear, algae growth will likely be a problem.

Just what I needed to know, thanks Scotty435!

I think I've got everything working now.

GB fills in 10.5 min, drains in 6. The somewhat Affnan syphon starts and stops quite reliably with a breather tube.
I sifted all my scoria through a 1/2" screen to separate the fines and a 3/4" to get the big stuff separated to go in the bottom of the gb. The fines are going into net pots eventualy so it's being set aside for now. The 1/2" on top of the large sized stuff in the gb.

I am attempting to cycle the system with homemade fish hydrolysate. I added 1.5 cups to the fish tank. I also planted a bunch of seedlings, mostly brassica plus a few lettuces and onions. We'll see how it works.

I have a couple questions about the turnover rate in my FT. By my math, my FT is only turning over about once per 2 hours. I can't push any more through the 1" SLO without it creating a venturi and stirring up the solids in my swirl filter. Is this going to be a problem? Should I increase the SLO to 2" to allow more flow?

Tough to say. We recommend once every hour because we know this works. You might be able to draw water off the top of the fish tank surface and bypass the swirl filter with this portion of the flow (provided there are no solids going out this way). Your SLO would represent the center drain in the animation here - http://web.utk.edu/~rstrange/wfs556/html-content/09-tanks.html

I do think 1" is too small but 2" will probably stir things up more. I don't know if the dual drain option will work for you. Other possibilities would be to

1. Increase the size of the swirl filter and pipe
2. Change to a different type of filter (a static upflow filter might be able to handle the flow a bit better but you'd have to clean it more often).

Thanks again for all your help, Scotty.

I have family n friends saving bottle caps for a SUF to add to the system and I'm goin to get pieces together for a bigger swirl filter. I'm thinking of trying a second outlet from the top of the FT also but will have to aquire a bit more materials before I can go further.

On a side note- I tested the ammonia and it's only .50ppm after adding a lil ammonia a few days ago. I'm going to add about the same amount again today allong with a few little shiners to test the waters, so to speak.

This may be a dumb question, but I have heard people saving bottle caps, but I have no idea what they use them for, care to explain?

Glad to

The bottle caps are used for creating filters, in most cases a static upflow filter. Bottle caps float and if you run system water up from beneath to an overflow exit at the top of the media, they basically work like a three dimensional sieve. Some solids hit the caps and are trapped, others are slowed to the point that they settle out as they are forced to weave through the bottle cap layer (there are a couple of other ways solids are removed but I don't remember them at the moment). The thickness of the bottle cap layer helps determine the size of the particles that can be filtered - thicker layers filter smaller particles. Another thing that determines the size of particles you can filter is the floating plastic media. If it's smaller than the bottle caps, a thinner layer can filter the same or smaller particles so some people might use K1 media this way or plastic beads.

Bottle caps aren't particularly good for this type of filter but they get the job done. When I say they aren't good, it's not that they don't filter tiny particles as well as another media, it's that they are large and you need a good thick layer of them which takes up extra space. Along with this they tend to lock together a bit since they aren't designed to tumble. When they are filtering this isn't important but usually you clean the filter by aeration and you need more agitation than you would with a media that moves a bit easier. On the other hand, bottle caps are usually either cheap or free.

Since I mentioned cleaning of these I might as well explain that. After you've run a filter like this for awhile, the solids clog the media and the flow diminishes because less can get through. This causes the water level in the filter to rise (indicating you need to clean it). Usually the cleaning is done by lowering the water level enough that when you clean solids won't get through the overflow, and then agitating the media with air or water to release the solids so they can be flushed out through a drain. In other words there is no lifting of media from the tank to clean it like you would have with netting or matala so it's very convenient.

The one critical thing to remember is when the filter is in normal operating mode, you do not want to create open channels where solids can bypass the sieve action of the filter. This channelization can happen if you have too much flow or air coming into the filter.

Static upflow filters are really almost a no brainer and they work really well. Bead filters used for swimming pools are basically static upflow filters so you don't even really need to make your own.

The bottom line is that most people don't need this type of filter in their AP system since a grow bed does both biological and solids filtration. There are some situations where they are a good idea though.

1. If you are growing lots of fish and lack adequate solids filtration before the grow beds. A Radial Flow Filter might be a better choice for this situation but not always.
2. If you are removing fine solids before a Deep Water Culture bed.
3. You could probably figure a way to use these for a combination of filter and mineralization tank pretty easily just by swapping between two of these with one being on line while the other operates as a mineralizer.

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I don't think I've seen anyone do this yet but the bottle caps would also probably make a passable Moving Bed Biofilter/Bioreactor (that's kind of what the mineralizer mentioned above would be running as)

Probably this is clear as mud but hopefully that answers your question.

Ok so it is basically an upside down trickle filter that is used in a saltwater aquarium. They use bio-balls, which would probably work well in that application as well. They look like this:

http://www.amazon.com/Bulk-Bio-Balls-Aq ... +bio+balls

Would they work in that application? BEcause I have about a million of those laying around. lol

I can see why you might say this but they are functionally very different types of filters. A trickling filter is a biofilter while a static upflow filter is more of a solids filter.

Bioballs will probably work in a static upflow filter as long as they float.

Gotcha. Makes sense. I actually googled it a bunch more today.

Glad to see the learning continues. Jmcdaniel0, the only dumb question is the one you don't ask Thanks again, Scotty for all the guidance.

I haven't been able to improve my flow or filtration yet but there is definitely life in the system. Everything I planted is doing great except a couple collard plants which were eaten by slugs last night. The swirl filter has developed a net like web of algae that is catching a lot of solids now.

My ammonia has been off the charts the past couple days so I'm pretty sure the first lil shiner I added is dead in the bottom of the ft but I suppose h can just keep feeding the system for now. I haven't tested yet today, will update again later.