Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi!
I am a new user of this forum and am currently helping building a large system at CERES (The centre for Education & Research into Environmental Srategy) in East Brunswick, Melbourne. This project is run in partnership with RMIT Industrial Design students as their major studio.
The system is partially indoor and partially outdoor with a combination of 6 fibreglass growbeds (approx. 1000 x 2000 x 300) then 10 bathtubs (as grow beds )in a series of 5 double bed stands. The pond being used is approximately 4000L.
I am in charge of the plumbing design and have attached a plan and section view of the site.

Also I have attached some photos of the site, for further photos go to the blog:

http://aquaponics.wordpress.com/

Some questions I have at the moment are:

what is a cheap option for the drainage piping of the grow beds that are still safe for organic farming?
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Any help or comments would be much appreciated.

Welcome, Philippa!

Most of us use PVC pipe. It is readily available and easy to work with. Look carefully at the kind you are getting, as some apparently may contain lead.

Copper pipe would be harmful to the fish.

thanks, i was thinking of pvc. I will have to look into lead or other toxins.
Do you think I could use rainwater gutteriing?
if so does it have to be covered to protect the nutrient richwater from sunlight?
thanks tonnes

Philippa, welcome!

I'll have to organise a visit one day, i'm quite close

Pressure PVC would be ideal, but the strength is not required and the cost of large diameter is quite high. DWV is most commonly used by us but i understand that there are doubts as to it being "perfect" as far as contaminants. My very last choice would be drainage PVC.

You could use metal guttering i suppose, i cant see the sunlight posing too much more of an algae problem than you would get from white pipes, but it may become an issue...............

For many of us it is a case of using the safest possible options that are available to us..........

I believe that monya and/or Veggie boy may have more detailed information on the drainage pipe and the foam sandwich used in DWV.


Have fun and keep us posted!

Steve

i think monya ( think it was him) rany viniidex and iplex and they only put lead in the waste water pipe so the Pressure pipe is fine (if your worried about lead ) class 9 is quite cheap mostly used in garden reticluation and has the lowest pressure rating oppoesed to Class 18 which is expensive but tuff


you could use guttering on your slopes and then you could grow stuff in it as well using foam or something to hold things in place

you could even make a trench and line it with plastic if your desperate would sure be cheap

CHeers

I'd expect the DWV (as opposed to the stormwater that i think monya was talking about) to be ok as its used to plumb up water tanks from your gutter.

Hi Philippa and WOW. Did you get special funding for your aquaponic trial or is it just from your core budget?
It is brilliant to see an educational institution devoting time to AP. NMIT at Epping are planning an intro course next year as a means to remove nitrates. Obviously they are coming at it from the fish side of things.
You have quite a lot of growbeds for a 4000lt pond. Do you plan to flood them on alternate cycles? I read you thought 60lt per grow bed per cycle. How did you calculate this?
Interested to know what you will use for your growing media.

Very excited for you. Welcome and hope all goes well.

thanks so much for the advice!!! have been designing in the dark a little!
in terms of your help:

twintragics: the project is mainly a CERES project with RMIT students buildinig it (which is a great opppurtunity). CERES will continue to run and maintain the system.
Is flooding the beds on alternate cycles a better option? I am also worried about taking so much water out from the pond at once. I wasn't sure if alternate cycles would mean that the water couldnt get nutrient rich enough. Basically their will be more water in the system than just the pond volume - whether this is through a sump or by creatiing slower drainage. Obviously a sump would be easier to control. What do you think??
The 60L was an over estimate on a test i did with a gravel filled bath (gravel bits 10mm or so). We will be using smaller gravel in the end project (hence the water volume should decrease). And basically filled up a bath tub to see how much water was necessary.... Is this method flawed?

I have a feeling I may not be seeing many a thing a seasoned aquaponic might so all help and consideration would be muchly appreciated!

Steve: Anytime you want to come down please do! It is a volunteer based project so everyone is welcome and could certainly use some handy hints.
Will look into the DWV guttering for rainwater, I really want to try and stay away from PVC as it is a bit of an evil plastic so am keen to explore other options, obviously if it is the best will use. I think we will ahve to use pressure pipe for alot of the main piping to the grow beds up the slope to the greenhouse and the four fibre glass beds..

Delgrade: Class 9 PVC? Good to know. I would like to use something else however greater powers than I will call it so good to know what to get. I really like the idea of growing stuff in the drainage piping and am going to try and integrate this. This could hepl with slowing down the drainage cycle and accomodating a greater volume of water ( as the pond is small for 16 grow beds!)

lots to think about!!!!

Thanks tonnes

Welcome Philippa!

Your project is very exciting to see. Since you have a natural slope with terraces of grow beds it may be possible for you to fill the highest beds, then have them drain out using an autosiphon to the next lower bed, etc. in a cascade down finally to the pond. If you could time the pump so that the pump stopped just after the highest beds started draining, then you would only lose one beds's worth of water from the pond to service all the beds (because the first bed's water would run down through all the beds).

I like the shallow ring around the pond. This may make it possible to do a "tidal" system that had been talked about a bit on this forum. The shallow ring could be planted gravel, and if the volumes were tuned properly, the ring's water level would go down just like a draining grow bed, while the water went up the hill to the grow beds. When the water drained back down to the pond the ring would be flooded again. This would double your grow bed volume without moving more water than you would be moving already to service the terraced beds.

See:
http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum ... ight=tidal

Philippa hi. I am no where near as experienced as many on board here. Dave has hit it on the head with your flooding of the top grow bed and having your pump switch off after that. Your beds will fill in sequence, gravity is your friend.

EllkayBee has the whole sequential flooding thing and associated electronics listed in his thread and a thread of its own. I am not up to linking things yet, can someone please post a link? It is very well explained with great photos, should you choose to go that way.

There have been studies done about the water losing its nutrient capacity as it drains down a tiered system. I could be wrong but I don't think that was an issue. From memory of more concern was making sure there was ample air in the setup but I have a feeling this applied more to hydro setups than grow beds. (The further away the water column is from the pump, the more deoxygenated the water becomes in hydro, air lines are injected along the way to offset this.) Others will correct me.

Philippa, will PM you tonight. Will see when i can pop in and maybe give you a few pointers if you would like. Always easier with a complex/large system when you're standing in front of it