Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

First rule with this forum bestcoast... Never ASK if you can post pics. Post any pics that are relevant. Post lots of pics, we LOVE pics. Pics are pretty... wouldn't mind seeing this pee tank of yours...

BC,

I think it should be the same pumping requirement as a standard system, but others will disagree. I've been trying to get my head around this for a couple months and here is the current halucination:

standard GB=2xFishTank
GB water volume = 1/3 GB volume = 2/3 FT volume
stock that sucker: fish=1lb/2 gallon. 100lb/200gal=100lb fish/700liters
these make about 14g ammonia/day=~20ppm in one day w/o filtration (Wow: can that be right? I'm in unfamiliar water here.....anyone?).

Anyway filtration must pretty near perfect or ammonia would skyrocket. I expect there would be a residual level of about .8ppm in the water (remember: 1 cycle/hr....not very good for fish, but nice for calcs)

Now swap in a new tank with 100x the water (thanks, I'd love to!), keeping everything else as is. Leave the pump off until ammonia levels reach the same level as in the standard system (.8ppm=100 hours instead of 1 hr? Sweet!). Now turn on the pump: the growbed sees the same flow of water with the same nutrient levels and will continue to take out a day of waste every 24 hrs as it did before. It should work without fish or plants seeing any difference....(famous last words)

Any holes, anyone? (in idea, not cranium, thanks!) (hmmm....there should be a target icon I could post here....)

That tank sounds huge,bestcoast.

As has been said already get to know the workings of hydroponics very well as it will serve you when you get the aqua going.

Some time back when I was researching fish for our aqua set up we saw that Sweden was doing a lot of work with eels in captivity and getting over the problems of them wanting to run away to sea to breed. At the moment there is a huge shortage of eels in Europe and a great demand. Just a thought.

We are going to use rainbow trout in our enlarged set up.

Keep us up to speed with this.

WD

these make about 14g ammonia/day=~20ppm in one day w/o filtration (Wow: can that be right? I'm in unfamiliar water here.....anyone?).

Correct based on 700 liter and 14g ammonia calc is correct

I was wondering more if the 14g/day is in the realm of reality as it would poison everything fast if not removed. It actually in the low end of ranges I've read.......OK, just found another: feed is approx 1.5% of live weight, ammonia is about 3% of feed weight, so 100lb fish=1.5lb feed=20g ammonia. http://aquanic.org/publicat/usda_rac/efs/srac/451fs.pdf

Anyway, it looks to me as though pump rate is based on ammonia production. not tank volume.

Great to see some numbers! I'll be sure to look back here if/when I get around doing something. Possibly I'll move somewhere else before I get to it tho..

Some quick pics of my hydro system then!

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Hi Bestcoast,
Looks like you discovered this around the same time I did. I haven't built any AP set up yet but I will soon. I have done the Hydroponics stuff. If you can get your hands on one of those really thin Mylar emergency blankets, they are much more reflective than the aluminum foil (and probably cheaper too.) I've made curtains out of em for my hydro areas so I don't have to completely enclose the space and it is easier to access.

Anyway, back to the AP set ups. If you do go big guns with the huge outdoor tank. You probably would not have enough time in the season to start it up in the spring and shut it down every fall. I expect a volume of water that big wouldn't require a huge amount of protection to allow you to keep it cycling year round though production through the winter would be minimal. You would just probably need a hoop house over the tank and grow bed area and perhaps some additional solar heating.

I set up an ornamental fish pond in Northern Michigan for my Mom. It is less than a meter deep, less than two meters wide and only perhaps 3 meters long. The most of the gold fish survive the winters without any special attention (since that house is sealed up and no one there in the winter there isn't even a pump or heater running.) This makes me think that you should be able to overwinter fish in that much larger tank so long as they are fish adapted to a cold climate.

Good Luck!!

I've used emergency blankets before, but abandonded them for this project because they not only reflect light, but also heat (that's what they're for =)
Also, this is just like a prototype yet, and will get better adapted to host a kitchen herb garden, then I might also spray-glue the foil or paint inside white.. Might also add an air-stone in the nutes.

About the tank again then. I'd really like to see it run year round, so finding fish that can "take it" and also maybe run the return over the tank roof through some black tube might help heat it up a little..

The tank "sits" about 5-7 meters above (one of) my possible GB areas, and also about 40m away. I would have great auto-pressure down to the grow beds, and would have to pump it back up again (5-7meters up). The main investment here would be a very good pump, GBs (what's the cheapest way?) and medium to grow in. I could also have a separate filtration bed?
How would I manage such a huge GB (water volume etc)? Maybe it's not a problem with such a huge tank as long as I don't overstock it with fish?

My other possible GB area is smaller, about 20x8meters, and would require understocking the tank a great deal, but is closer to (and above) the tank.

Lots of q's..

And since you like pics, here's the tank!

yeeeep.... that's a tank

Sure is. Any ideas on how to clean it properly? It's held mostly rainwater for the last 10 years or so, and almost never much at all, before that it held cows urine.. Would it be enough to let the GBs clean it for a few weeks?

That's a big bloody tank - if I had one of those I'd insulate the top and turn it into a wine cellar.

Cleanliness should not be an issue. Is there a build up of scum on the bottom? Is it full of water now? You might just want to get in there and give it a clean out if it has a couple of feet of built up silt or something on the bottom. Is it possible that there are any chemical residues in there? Where does the water come from?

How do you to harvest the fish from this tank?

Wow what a tank. Bit of a conincidence. I drove past Ultrapanel (manufactures of concrete panels) in Ballarat today and wondered if you could build a tank out of their panels. That one looks like it is bolted together.

Yep