Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

The settling tanks get the waste water from cleaning only. There is a waste valve for each SUF that leads to the settling tank. There is a valve after the last settling tank to retain the volume for whatever reason. The settling tank is setup as an intermittent online/offline anerobic Minerilization side loop. Settling tank sees new volume or solids or both actually after bubbling/agitating the SUF and wasting to settling.


I agree 100% with your TDS /solids...etc comment. Don't worry, I'm on the same page.

I'll post up a video update this week. Much easier to understand when seen in action.

Sounds good

yep plz do.. will be looking forward to it

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Video is uploading to youtube. I'll post the link when its done hopefully in the next hour or so.

I stuck a basil seedling with 5 leaves into one of the raft holes a few days ago. The roots were nice and clean the first day. Not today. The roots had plenty of crud on them already!


Its time to figure out fish densities I guess.

Is there a formula for number of fish/feed per square feet of raft? how about media bed? Need to go searching for the UVI PDF...

I found this the other day for DWCs which says using 32% Protein feed feed ratios of 40-50 g/m2 for leaf vegetables and 50-80g/m2 for fruit vegetables.Media beds are different in the fact of the mineralisation that is occurring within the bed,feed ratios of as little as a third of these can be used with great results.

I'm assuming thats per day...

So the DWC is 11m2.

So I need to feed 440-550g of 32% protein feed per day for leaf or 550-880g for fruit vegetables. My media bed is in the same loop essentially so i'll have to account for that although there is quite a bit of accumulated solids in it already. Going to clean out that bed over the winter...

Thanks for that Andreas.

How many tilapia can that kind of feed support? Off to search google....

Here you go.

So after watching the video I think you should fix the outflow from the settling tanks first. After you've done this if it still isn't working the way you want then you might need to add more filtration in parallel to what you already have.

The black spots are probably either a bacterial or fungal spot. Keep water off the leaves and that should keep it to a minimum.

I added about a 15 foot by 6 foot shade cloth to the 2nd and third settling tanks after the video. So first tank has netting, 2nd and 3rd have shade cloth. Today I'll pump the water from the last settling tank back to the 1st Settling tank so it can be filtered. I'll see how that goes.

I'm still waiting on tank depot to get their shipment of conical tanks in. I'll be adding a RFF befoe SUFs.

Holy cow, you've gone all in on this system. It looks really great. I'm envious.

Brian, thanks for the compliment. Yes. I'm really intrigued by AP. This is purely hobby for me. A challenging one. If something bigger comes out of it great, if not I'm still really enjoying it.

I'm envious of your huge pond, like 3k gallons? That may be my next upgrade. Who knows.

Stay tuned for more upgrades..., :-)

Tank Depot still saying 2 weeks out for conical tanks.


Today dressed up the fish tanks.




The shade cloth that was covering the tanks before have been turned into settling tank filter cloth. Still need to come up with some sort of cover for the top. T0here is an old blanket over top now.

Lots of rain today. Rain barrel collection gained some 400+ gallons. Sump overflowed, etc..

Haven't fed the fish in 2 days since the settling tanks has been fouling the fish water. With the rain and working on the new fish tank look, I didn't have time to pump the last settling tank back into the first for filtration. Going to work on the FT emergency overflow pipping tomorrow. Once the over flow pipping is complete, I'll be able to sleep better at night.

What do you'll think of split flows? as in, the pump in the sump, feeds the FT and grow beds?