A Community and Forum For Aquaponic Gardeners

Newbie Plans

Ok let me start of by saying I used to manage a retail fish store where we built in our own wet dry system . I only state that to say I have kind of an idea of plumbing , Bacteria bed and lighting ( well as it relates to fish tanks ;) ) . So on the site I did not see like a general Newbie diagram of a basic system used in doors?

I hope my question makes sense and thanks for the incite ,

John

PS. If I missed this such a diagram or posted in the wrong area - sorry newbie here on this forum

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Permalink Reply by TCLynx on February 10, 2011 at 11:38am

Well, most systems that could be done indoors or out. In general the indoor systems will be smaller and use shelves instead of digging.

Here are a couple links that might be helpful.

Diagrams They don't have measurements or dimensions as they are just basic flow ideas for the most part.

The site here has basic rules of thumb in the upper left of the home page and here is a link to my personal version (however I've been increasing the amount of fish tank and grow bed per fish for my personal set ups since I tend to grow big fish, I've been doing more like 10 gallons of fish tank per fish and 20 gallons of gravel per fish since I've been growing channel catfish to rather large size.)

TCLynx, aquaponics in detail

does this help?

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Permalink Reply by Chi Ma on February 10, 2011 at 1:13pm

Just think of your grow bed as your filter. Just like in aquariums, it is better to over filter your water than to under filter. Plumbing is pretty much the same if you are using constant flow. When you are using flood and drain it is a little bit different.

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Permalink Reply by John on February 11, 2011 at 2:09pm

Flood and drain ?

PS. THANKS

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Permalink Reply by TCLynx on February 11, 2011 at 2:14pm

Flood and Drain (like ebb and flow hydroponics) is where the water will fill up a media bed (to about an inch below the surface of the media) and then drain to give the plants a chance at the water and nutrients while still giving them a chance to get air to their roots. This also gives the bacteria a chance at the air too and solids breaking down in a flood and drain media bed will have far less impact on your BOD (biological oxygen demand) than if you have solids breaking down in any constantly flooded type bio-filter. Of course flood and drain beds don't give the bio-filter bacteria as much contact time with the water so cycling up with flood and drain may be a bit slower.