Big Questions For First System

[Amaury Rolin]

Hi folks I'm in Laos and about to put my first system together. I feel like I've been reading up on aquaponics for months now, and should know it all, but faced with the reality of my first system I find myself with a ton of questions.

I've picked out all the supplies that seemed like they would work for me at a local aquarium shop, and came up with the following:

-grow bed and fish tank will both be large rubber tubs approximately 1mx2mx40cm

-fish tank will pour into a barrel with an pipe to the bottom and will have to come back up through cotton filter sheets ~10G barrel (will put an air stone in here to treat the bacteria nice)

-sump is a big bucket ~15G

Q1. I'm in Laos, what's the best way to keep my fish from frying? Any suggestion on what fish?

Ideas:

-Hang shade cloth over the fish tank, filter barrel and, sump bucket

-Cover the fish tank with plywood covered in aluminium foil.

-dig the filter and sump into the ground (this is really hard ground!)

Q2. Flood and drain or continous flow?

I picked up the "How To Do A quaponics The EASY Way!" (Extremely well written...but unfortunately in Laos it's really hard to get something mailed so I'm reading it by PDF which makes it a  bit challenging). I'm struck by the fact that this book only seems to cover continuous flow, and I don't see where they even describe a growth medium for the bacteria.

Pro flood and drain:

1. Without the flood and drain system I only have the filter barrel to cultivate the bacteria...this doesn't seem like much...but then again the book doesn't even seem to mention this.

2. I'm worried about finding suitable Styrofoam rafts (also worried about where to get suitable gravel for the grow bed but that seems easier)

Pro continuous flow:

1. I'm worried about draining my growbed with an undersized sump. My grow bed will be approximately 160gal but my sump is only some 15gal so I would be depending on

A) the gravel will take up a lot of the 160gal...but how much

B) hopefully the drain cycle raises the level in the fish tank, but this is depends on the flow through the filter being constrained and seems like a poor design decision.

2. If I can get the material for the rafts, a continuous flow system makes for a nicer assembly line setup when I'm trying to make a demo of an economically viable system for Lao people to emulate (as well as them not needing to make a siphon)

Okay long first post...thanks everyone in advance for the advice going to flow in. I'll be back with questions about fish once I have a system plumbed, pumping,  and peed into.

Sabaidee,

Amaury