Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi Everyone,

It looks like I am maybe only 2 months away from having my big system up and running... The area is almost cleared away, the plan is finished and has the big tick of approval...

I have attached my SketchUp drawings.... it is pretty self-explanatory. It is made up of EB's hardware, cos' it looks cool...
- 3000L Main tank
- 1000L Secondary tank
- 500 L Sump
- 4 Growbeds

I can't fit anymore GBs in because it is between the house and the fence. And it cuts the backyard in down the middle, so I need a walkway through it....

It is going to be flood and drain, and with a bit of luck it will be all computerized eventually, I will set it up to be on a timer for now. I want to make it so if the computer fails, it switches over to the basic control. But all that can come later. I will however install float switches and actuated ball valves on every GB, so I don't have to go back and do it later.

Any comments would be more than welcome.....

TIMC

As John Cleese would say .... "You lucky lucky bastard"

Wonderful stuff Tim C, can't wait to see it all together.

Just a thought Tim C..... if (when you say the south side) we're looking at the last picture from the south side then that wall is to the east....

Meaning it will block the morning sun....

Would it perhaps be better to flip the system through 180 degrees....

Rationale..... no sun on two growbeds until 11:00 am or so (no great problem, but then those two beds get full sun and heat for the remainder hottest part of the day and the "reflected" heat from the wall through the day and into the night...

Conversely your fish tank is in full sun most of the day....

If you flipped your design the tank would be shaded during the morning, but warmed by the thermal mass of the wall during the night and still receive the sun from late morning onward....

All growbeds would be basically full sun all day.... which in winter would also capture the most ambient temperature to help maintain the fish tank temperature.

very nice layout Tim,

if you need any help i would be more then happy to donate some of my time.

just let me know when the time comes.

good luck mate.

Very good points there ROZ. It is not exactly south... its more south-west. Another issue is I live in the foothils, so the hills to the east block that sun anyway.

Currently there are two trees just on the other side of the fence to the fish tanks, so they will get shaded from them...

I am going to track the sun a bit over the next week to see the ideal positions...

Nice TimC! Sketchup could show you where the shadows will be (sun simulation) if you put in the Lat/Long and rotate you model so that it is aligned as your site is for N/S. Not sure if it handles the S hemisphere well but you could compensate for that by rotating the model. Then you can see where the shadows will track through the year.

Go to Window->Model Info to set the site settings (you can rotate the site there too instead of rotating the model for N/S), then Window->Shadows to turn on the sun!

All smiles and anticipation here TC, good luck mate it looks great.

Thanks for the tip DD. When I can afford SketchUp Pro I might try this...

The shadows bit works just not the lat/long settings...

Hey TimC this is in the free version too! I downloaded it again today from Google to make sure I could find the site location and shadows palette. Are you using Sketchup free 6?

NICE!


did you create the BYAP growbeds yourself?

Really nice work on the sketchup. Wish I knew how to do that.

Tim
Looking good.
You have just motivated me to have another play with sketchup.

Yeah, all my drawings... Took a bit of work I tell you drawing the first one...

DD, yeah I am definitely using SketchUp 6 free... can't find where to change lat/long... looked it up in help, it said Model Info-->Location was only in Pro version...

Weird, I have model info location and I am almost certain I am running the free version - cause I didn't pay anything! The other way to set the sote used to be to go to a location in Google Earth and import that view into Sketchup. Tools->Google Earth->Get Current View. Not as much control but I think you could set the lat/long using it. HTH

Excellent work Tim.