Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Ok I will have 24 grow beds. I just filled one with gravel to see how much water it holds and its about 12 gallons each.

thats 288 gallons total. I will have 4 rows of beds linked together to allow 6 to drain at once. Also by doing it this way means in the flood/drain all I need to do is have 4 spigots to fill the 24 grow beds. Less attachments less hardware less mess

Ok so the question is now what kind of ratios can I go with for what I am going to do?

------ draining
------ 3/4 full
------ 1/2 full
------ 1/4 full

That was kinda my plan here. I am going to shrink the size of my tank for fish as small as possible to allow for as much grow bed space as possible "even put fish under grow beds maybe?

Anyway input please on what you guys think.

Standard ratio is grow bed volume:fish tank volume:fish kg = 4:2:1

So 288 gal GB, 144 gal FT, 72 fish kg

On the fish part, that's a maximum stocking density at full size. You'll want to start significantly lower than that until you are experienced with your system.

And generally speaking, a full grow bed will drain about 1/3 of your tank water. But this will vary with your exact plumbing arrangement and choice of growing media.

I will just do 200 gallons it will be easier that way.

4:2:1 is gallons of growbeds:gallons of tank:POUNDS of fish. Metrics uses different numbers. Also, we're talking about the total volume of the growbed, not the volume of water it will hold after the gravel is already in there.

Slicer, I know you're trying to reduce the number of spigots, but doing it in sets, you'll find that the first bed in each set will get the most water, and the last one will get the least water.

So let's start over: What are the volumes of growbeds, and the fish tank? Are you going to use a sump tank? Give us what details you have for 'the plan'.

doh!

I will draw up my plan and post a picture of it a bit later

ok the volume of the grow beds will be around 30 gallons but filled with gravel will be about 12 gallons.

The area will be about 24 grow beds or so. This is a quite large volume of water.

I will be building my tank with fiberglass more than likely for the fish as it will be cheaper that way I have a ton of wood to build it.

Sump tank I have not thought about that yet sadly. Currently I have a small system going and its doing quite nicely however I want to expand to larger.

As for the fish tank I am trying to figure out how many gallons I will need it to be before I go off building it

Alright bit of a update.

I have completed building the area where the beds will be. I will have. Bed represented by numbers

1 2 3 4 5 6

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5 6

So a total of 17 beds. *subject to change anytime*

I do not know if a sump would be workable into my system. Let me ask some questions about the sump.

Does the water volume of my sump make my volume of my tank need to be less? And can I just make my sump a secondary fish tank?

Answers:
Yes and
Yes