A Community and Forum For Aquaponic Gardeners

new system chop or chop 2

i am building my big system right now and am trying to decide chop or chop 2. my system is 650 gl ft and my house is 20 by 30 i and not really sure need help

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Permalink Reply by TCLynx on July 12, 2011 at 8:32pm

CHOP (or CHIFT PIST) is good where you want a "clean water sump" to be able to pump from it to something like NFT or DWC without needing to install additional filtration for it.

CHOP 2 is appropriate where layout is more difficult or you are not in need of a "clean water sump" for the alternative to gravel beds type growing. CHOP 2 is a bit more flexible on the arrangement and if you are willing to go CHTP (constant height two pump) you can get even more flexible on the design. The CHOP 2 type system is more appropriate if you are limited on sump tank size, you can use an indexing valve to flood your beds in sequence (just let me know if you go that way since pump sizing and heights become important with the indexing valves to make them work properly.)

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Permalink Reply by glenn wilkerson on July 12, 2011 at 8:37pm

thanks looks like chop. i also need a good pump 650 gal ft

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Permalink Reply by TCLynx on July 13, 2011 at 7:16pm

Are you going to be doing timed pumping or constant pumping?

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Permalink Reply by glenn wilkerson on July 20, 2011 at 5:12pm

constant pumping

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Permalink Reply by TCLynx on July 20, 2011 at 5:39pm

Well, a Quiet One 4000 will probably manage 600 gallons per hour at the normal height for aquaponics but I don't think it will give enough extra flow which I really recommend getting more flow per hour than the volume of the fish tank. So I would probably suggest looking for a pump rated nominally to at least 1200-1800 gph which you should be able to find one that will do that for under 145 watts of power. upsizing the pump and plumbing will give you the option to expand in the future (by the way, a danner MD18 is a plenty powerful enough pump to drive the aquaponics indexing valves.)

If the flow is too much for your grow beds I always recommend a bypass, a T just after the pump and a ball valve so you can divert flow back into the tank with the pump in it to provide excess aeration and adjust flow so the siphons will still work and yet not restrict the pump.