Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi Chad,



You should be able to at least match it and probably exceed it as long as you clean it regularly. One of my systems runs around 1200 L through a 5 gallon bucket run as a SUF each hour.

Here's the layout for the combined swirl/SUF but your exact layout will depend on what you setup looks like.



This is a pic I've posted a few times, it shows the filter without any media but the media goes in the center 5 gallon bucket that surrounds the green atrium grate. The outer container is a 20 gallon tank. If you look close you can see that the 5 gallon bucket bottom is cut away and a mesh pot is attached to cover the bottom opening. There are three pipes
1. Inlet from fish tank - comes in near the top to the outside of the 5 gallon bucket. This picture doesn't show it but it should have an elbow to direct the flow around the tank.
2. Outlet to sump - Takes the overflow from the atrium grate area
3. Drain to remove accumulated solids. In the very bottom - not visible in this picture (it actually wasn't installed yet when this was taken).

In addition to the swirl action the mesh pot acts as a prefilter before the floating media. The internal parts are not glued, just press fit so that they can be removed and cleaned.

That's all there is to it.

When the media starts to block up with solids it will slow the flow and the media will float higher to let the water pass through the atrium grate, giving you an indication that the filter needs cleaning but this does let the solids bypass the filtration so better to do something about it much sooner.

If you want to just do a SUF it's even easier and would just be a single bucket. The water would come in from the fish tank near the bottom and flow up through a thick layer of floating media. After it reaches the top it overflows through an atrium grate (like in the picture in the last post) and out. Solids are trapped under and within the media and can be drained through a drain at the bottom.

Note: With all Static Upflow Filters described here you clean either by releasing the solids with air or by agitation and then draining them away.

Ok cool. Im thinking a 10gal SUF for each bed should do the trick. What is the best floating media to use? Im not sure what I can get around here but I should be able to find something that will work

Just find what you can and vary the thickness of the layer till you get the filtration you want. Dasboot uses plastic bottle caps in a 50 gallon drum, I use K2 in my 5 gallon bucket (7mm x 10mm wheel with 5 spokes) it's really more of a biofilter media but works well. Lots of things will work. Solids will accumulate on the media between cleanings making it filter finer and finer particles until you clean. Media that will tumble when you aerate or mix it is what you want that way it's easier to clean it.

One caution to mention is when the water goes into the SUF you want to avoid disturbing the media layer too much because that can open up channels where solids can pass through without being filtered. I try not to shoot it at the bottom either but just do the best you can and it will work.

Ok Thanks a bunch Scotty. I did look through the forum and found that the small bottle caps are good. I did see you mention it but wasnt sure what you meant at the time. Good thing is I checked with my water station supplier today and can get the small caps for 50 centavos each. Thats roughly 100 for 1$ US LOL.

Gonna pick up 400 today and track down my buckets so I can get these darn beds cleaned up and probably start all over the way its looking. I did manage to move some of the coliflower plants into the FD bed and they seem to be doing much better. Still show a little yellow in the leaves so Im a little concerned that my nitrates are low since they didnt really have much fish poop covering the roots.

Is abt 80-100 PPM low? I saw on another site that the strawberries like it to be around 200ppm on nitrates. Do you have any knowledge on that?

Thanks

Chad

Glad to hear you could find some bottle caps for your filter media. Remember you can increase the media layer thickness if you need better solids filtration than the first batch of caps gives you.

I don't think the nitrate level matters that much in AP - nutrients are constantly being generated as you feed the fish and they feed the bacteria and so on. Basically if you're seeing nitrates then the plants haven't used it all and still have something they can use if needed. With Hydroponics it's different, you're prepping a batch of nutrients that has to last for a lot longer. Lots of systems here do pretty well with no nitrates showing because they are used as they are generated.

Ok cool. Thats kinda what I thought with the research I have done on the nitrates so hopefully once I get the filter built and running it will solve the problem with my strawberries and yes your probably right they will all likely die first. Other than the ones I will be throwing in some dirt for now so I can save the runners.

Should be able to get the filters built this weekend if all goes well. Although the media was easy to find. 5 gal buckets arent LOL. I do have a customer that has 12 gal buckets they get from pool chlorine for the beach resort but I wont get an answer until tomorrow if they have extra.

I saw somewhere that we can use the waste from the filter and put it in another bucket with an aerator to break down the poop mineralizing it and then add back to the system. Do you do that and if so, how long does it have to sit in the bucket being aerated before we can re add it to the system? Since its a sort of composting I can only assume its a long time like a month or so. Or maybe there is some way of speeding that up? I do have a source here I can get microbes from and that may speed it up?

Thanks

Chad

Yes you can and probably should use a mineralizer to break down the solids. Basically just a container that's heavily aerated to mineralize the solids accumulated. Stop aerating, let the solids settle for 15 minutes and remove some of the liquid which contains the dissolved solids (including nutrient ions). Turn the aeration back on when finished and continue aerating the remaining solids. You could do this transfer daily and just keep adding solids to the mineralizer (Pretty sure that's what Dasboot was doing). Check the ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels of the liquid to see what you're getting just in case (High ammonia or nitrite might be toxic to the fish even though it will eventually get broken down into nitrates).

I'm not mineralizing at the moment, my system with the running SUF is a Recirculating Aquaculture System and is not hooked to plants so I'm dumping the solids out to the garden. My other system is getting re-done I just re-leveled the fish tank with some help from a neighbor (something I've been avoiding for a couple of years) although it appears slightly warped. You should take a look at Dasboot's thread and at the moment Brian (Boss is the name on his thread) is trying to work up a mineralizer.

Hey Scotty

I finally got my poop cleaner running. What would be a nominal depth of plastic caps? I do want it to filter really good so Im thinking around 10-12 inches in my 12 gallon container. Its been running for a couple days now and I can see the few inches of caps I have is doing the trick but I kinda doubt its doing as well as I would like. Once I get it running as good as I like it will be time to get more strawberry plants after I clean the bed out totally.

Again thanks for all the help. If ya want I can send pics of what I built

Chad