Hello fellow aquaponic growers!

[Christopher McGuire]

Hi my name is Chris and I am new to this site.  I began experimenting with aquaponics and hydroponics about a year ago, and built a rather large system for a first timer.  Just burned up my first pump so i am looking into different methods for moving the water.  Also I need to figure out how to clean the water better in the pond.  Hope to find some answers on this forum from fellow aquaponic growers! 

[TCLynx]

Hay Christopher, Welcome to the site.

 

So how big do you estimate your "pond" to be?

 

Looking at your grow beds, I'm thinking that if you were to fill those all the way up with gravel you would have about 6000 liters of media bed and that would be sufficient to filter for a 3000-6000 liter fish tank.

 

To get better filtration for your pond you might need to add some sort of settling tank and additional bio-filter unless you can add more grow beds.

[Christopher McGuire]

Pond is 15x25ft.  Deepest point is about 4.5 feet with a steady incline.  We definitely need to get better filtration going for the pond.  Suggestions for setting up a settling tank or bio-filter?  

 

We just had a pump go out so I ordered a new Ebara Optima Pro Drainer.  Hoping this one handles the debris at the bottom of the pond better! Planning on changing the way the water is delivered to the GBs.  Looking to set pump on a timer and do a flood and drain type system.  Currently a constant flow system.

[TCLynx]

Accept my Friend Request and I can send you a message about some ideas that might be helpful for the feeds to the grow beds on timed flow.

 

A settling tank could be as simple as say a 300 gallon stock tank that you can run a fairly slow flow through it and then pump the sludge out to waste every so often.  A cone bottom tank may be more effective for easy sludge removal but they can be costly.  I don't have much experience with separate bio-filters they can sometimes be as simple as a tank with netting  or scrubbies and extra aeration.

[Christopher McGuire]

Im really thinking that by having the water flow freely to the GBs this time will help out tremendously.  Before we had a small inline filter installed which was constantly clogged and had to be cleaned out.  Which in effect, never allowed the sludge to ever reach the GBs and be filtered out.  I am thinking about adding a sump tank.  Any experience with a sump tank?

 

Friend request accepted.

[TCLynx]

Yea, definitely you want to let the water flow to the grow beds as freely as possible.  I was seeing in some pictures that it looks like irrigation tubing and spaghetti tubing feeding your grow beds, I would expect that to be clogging constantly.

 

Well a sump tank is usually the lowest tank in the set up where you put the pump, I'm not sure what you would gain by having an additional sump tank since your fish tank/pond is already in the ground.  I have two systems currently with sump tanks.