Aquaponic Gardening

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Hi Everyone,

I am looking for more information on the NFT 4" PVC installations. I would like to find a book or dvd on the subject or just a good store of information. I have quite a lot of area to setup in. My IBC system is still cycling and I would like to keep busy building. I have another two IBC's I can use as fish tanks and I suppose I could add stock my original IBC tank a little heavy and clean the water using a NFT system.

I don't know anything about NFT PVC setup so anything is a good start. I could run a 4" PVC 60' in a straight run for example.  

 

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Based on my research 4 inch is not enough .. you should go 6 inch if possible ... something along the line that root mass will increase to the point that if will choke the water flow ....

Here is a link to the three blog posts I've done about NFT

NFT

 

Now if you are wanting to do real NFT like the hydroponics people do it, you actually want flat bottom troughs so you can run a fine film of water in the bottom (Nutrient Film Technique is what NFT stands for) and you really can't properly do that in a pipe.

 

That said I have a couple 15 foot long runs of 4" pipe with some plants growing in them.  The most important thing you need to know about NFT in conjunction with Aquaponics is you have to filter the water before you send it to your pipes.  Simply pumping fish tank water to a pipe with plants won't work.  You also probably do not want to run really long pipes since the water tends to get heated up and depleted of dissolved oxygen through a really long run in a pipe.

 

In general my opinion is that NFT is a fine add on to some other type of aquaponics system but isn't a very effective stand alone Aquaponics method since it definitely requires filtration before the water goes to the troughs and it isn't quite as stable or efficient on materials as raft culture.

One of the best hands-on books I've ever seen for building hydroponic systems is How To Hydroponics by Keith Roberto.

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