Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Yeah, the RFF in the article is a really complicated one! Mine is just a barrel, and the inner baffle is a paint bucket with the bottom cut off.

If you're talking about the link with my Recirculating Aquaculture System, it's filter is more complicated than you need (works well for me though so I haven't changed it). Really all you need for the Static Upflow Filter is a container where the water flows in below the floating media and flows out at the top after passing through the media. You can bring in a good flow of water but don't want to agitate the media any more than necessary because this can create channels where larger particles can bypass the filtration (that little bucket probably has around 300 to 600 gallons per hour going through). The inlets and outlets have to prevent media from escaping. The size and amount of media in the SUF affects the particle size that is retained or passes through. Larger media or less media means larger particles pass through and smaller media and more media means the reverse.

I have added a SUF down line from the RFF/SF, I suppose I will fill it with medial balls and maybe some other filter material.



The view from the other side:



Obviously both drums will be open top drums, not the actual ones as depicted in the drawing with two bungs, the SUF will be empty during the startup. During operation they will be kept closed though.

Should I keep the planned 200L/55G drum size or could I go with half the size (100L/25G) both are available to me? My fish tank is only 1000L.

To back flush would you suggest that I tap off a pipe from the pump pipe going to the FT and reverse flow through the SUF to the bottom drain? I will probably need a valve to avoid pushing anything back into the FT.

This design is going crazy, I have designed water treatment plants for remote locations that were less complicated.

I am mighty impressed with sketchUp and the plumbing extension 3skeng, wish I had this when I still used to do drawing as a living, the learning curve is steep though but friendly.

Thank you,

Found this old guy hanging around my GH, probably can't wait for it to get built.

It is just to give some idea of the scale, should have had him there from the beginning.

For a relatively small systems like you describe I doubt you need that much filtration.
It would only really apply if you intend stocking fish at higher levels or were looking at DWC beds.

With your media beds and conservative stocking you could easily run with something much less complex.
IMO you were fine with just a basic filter to remove solids, and in cases even that would not really be required.
And something like Mel used for her system would probably do the trick fine - nothing more needed.
(ie. your Mark-I with just the plumbing adjusted)

The real question to answer is how many fish do you want ?
That will resolve what you actually need.

Hi Darren

I am hoping to run at least 3 cutoff IBC growbeds, maybe add a fourth later or a couple of NFT tubes or grow towers. Will start with about 20-25 goldfish or Koi fingerlings. Plan to add tilapia once the system has settled, not sure how many fish the system will take, probably wouldn't exceed 50. As far as I understand it is a fine balance between fish and plants.

The plants will start with lettuce, spinach, and green beans, later would like to grow broccoli, cauliflower, cherry tomatoes and cucumbers.

Does that sound doable?

Basically want to supply fresh vegetables for three addults, extra may get sold if any is produced. Any edible fish will a bonus, we Namibians are mostly red meat eaters. Namibian vegetarians only eat meat once a day.

Thank you,

+1 to what Darren said. It looks like you aren't doing Deep Water Culture or NFT so I agree with Darren's assessment - The Mark I system is what you should be looking at. If you want to do either DWC or NFT at a later date then you might need the SUF, otherwise not. Your RFF get the settleable solids then the media beds do both biofiltration and more solids filtration. As long as you have enough media beds for the number of fish you intend to grow you shouldn't need any additional filtration.

Namibian vegetarians only eat meat once a day.
Quote of the week...

>>Basically want to supply fresh vegetables for three adults, extra may get sold if any is produced. Any edible fish will a bonus, we Namibians are mostly red meat eaters.

>> Does that sound doable?

Absolutely - in fact if you are prepared to do a little supplementing with liquid organic plant food then you dont really need more than 20-30 fish. 20-30 fish would be comfortable in your tank FT. Fish actually prefer surface area rather than water depth - so I would still consider cutting the tank down or at least top off so you get some pleasure from watching the fish - that is one of my AP buzzes seeing the guys swimming around.

If you are not serious about the fish then don't worry too much about high stocking.
It is cheaper and easier to buy supplements and/or foliar feed than it is to buy quality fish food.
You need quality fish food to get the nutrients and trace elements....or... you just supplement.

You would need to be running a larger fish tank to produce a lot of surplus.
eg. I run a few 400-800L fish tanks (due to space limitations) and really only get heaps of lettuce and greens.
Enough to have too much and regularly give away bags of leaves but not really to sell.

Your system is basically going to be like Mels > viewtopic.php?f=18&t=26865 great to keep a family in a few greens but not really much more than that.

>> I am hoping to run at least 3 cutoff IBC growbeds, maybe add a fourth later or a couple of NFT tubes or grow towers. Will start with about 20-25 goldfish or Koi fingerlings. Plan to add tilapia once the system has settled, not sure how many fish the system will take, probably wouldn't exceed 50. As far as I understand it is a fine balance between fish and plants.
I think you need to choose goldfish/koi or tilapia. Not sure you can run both.
Of course option 2 is to allow for a second fish tank in future. If it were me I would start low on the goldfish/koi numbers and then if you later decide to go Tilapia move the goldfish/koi to another tank/pond and sell the extras you don't want. Tilapia would suit your tank IMO. But it is smart to start with small numbers of something simple like goldfish while you are learning and ironing out the inevitable new system issues.

>>The plants will start with lettuce, spinach, and green beans, later would like to grow broccoli, cauliflower, cherry tomatoes and cucumbers.
You may be better with some of these in Dutch buckets (bato buckets). Just finished pulling tomato roots out of my pipes after a blockage this weekend.... I got lazy and threw a few cherry tomato seedlings into some of my empty grow bed spaces... should know better...

You will find that lettuce etc go well in DWC. It is quite feasible to run a DWC after a media grow bed and is what many do.

My opinion given all the above - start with just the fish tank and the IBC grow beds with media as a simple system. Run a few goldfish or koi (not more than 20 or so) and see where you are at in 12 months. You will be much better placed to review what you have learnt and what suits you. That is a better time to worry about filters etc. Everything you have is able to be re-purposed, and if follows usual AP'er pattern you will be well placed to simply add another fish tank, keep the existing media beds, add DWC's to the back of each media bed and add a filter for solids. Solids are not an issue in a new system so just go direct to the grow beds.

as you really want veg then consider adding a few IBC wicking beds.
That will expand the range of things you can grow without the hassles of fish tanks.
(plus good place to put excess AP water)

Oops, tried to juggle too many things, been that kind of day, I missed the NFT reference when I posted last time. If it follows the media beds you should be alright without adding the SUF as was mentioned by Darren in his last post. If the NFT is on it's own line or comes before the media beds then you'll need the SUF. Hopefully that clears any confusion I may have caused with my post .

Thank you chaps for the advice, it looks like the design is basically sound apart from having extra filtration capacity then?

There is just enough space for a second tank, but no space for more grow beds unfortunately. I will probably stick with one tank for a while.

Regarding the supplements, does it get added to the tank water or on the plants?

The system main objective is produce fresh vegetables, getting fresh vegs here is very expensive and does not keep, goes rotten in few days. Also is probably covered in insecticides and who knows what? I also love watching the fish, used have an aquarium and could watch them for hours.

Will research Dutch bukets, may be possible to fit several around the sides.

Also just found out there is an AP course being presented next month in my home town, will make a plan to attend.

PS chicken and pork counts as vegetables here.

It depends. Sometimes the system water pH locks out nutrients added to the water making them unavailable to the plants. When this happens you can either add a different form of the nutrient (EDDHA chelated iron for example) to the water or spray apply the nutrient.

My preference is always to the grow beds. Usually simply by watering can but if situation requires then as a foliar spray.
Not in the fish tank for me (though others do). I just don't see the point of adding anything to the FT.

Thanks will keep that in mind.

I have looked at RedCap's system and I am impressed, looks like she had about the same space available as me.

Might make some adjustments to my design for more GBs. Look I haven't even started building yet and is already thinking of expanding. Not now though, will do it stage by stage. Have to learn first. also have to teach the wife and son how to run the system when I am away.

Watch this space...

So finally things came to a head...

Due to some time on my hands, lockdown etc. and a lucky break getting hold of a very cheap IBC. I started to put together a single chop and flip backyard AP setup.



I will provide over the next few days some of the details of the construction, lessons learned and principles discovered.


CaptKarel

Glad to see you're getting a start. Looking forward to seeing the new chop and flip system come together .