A Community and Forum For Aquaponic Gardeners

Getting close to start cycling my system

Im getting excided and a little scared and a little intimidated. This is my first AP system and i want to make sure everything is ok with it. Im starting out with a 60 gallon sump, its the yellow barrel on the left. My fish tank is a 275 IBC tote that originally held Ferric Chloride solution 30%. It has been triple rinsed and nuetralized with baking soda. My grow bed is a table top greenhouse that i built a few years ago to start flats in for my traditional garden. It is 3' X 12' and is about 8" deep. I am planning that it will be a floating raft system. I still have to build a gravel grow bed with a bell syphon for the bacteria to grow.

Im thinking the fish tank can be put inside the barn just behind everything. Here is a pic of it so far. Any suggestions would be helpful. Thanks

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by TCLynx on May 15, 2012 at 12:23pm

don't stress too much about things, what is the worst that can happen? something goes wrong and you have to fix it, usually not that big a deal in a smaller system like this though it is a bummer to loose fish so I recommend fishless cycling while you work the kinks out.

Anyway, I would recommend that instead of over top of your fish tank you put your media bed between the fish tank and the raft bed since you want to capture the solids before they go to your raft bed.

Be sure to up, size your plumbing and check and double check levels and heights to be sure you are not expecting gravity to lift water by some miracle.

Permalink Reply by Tony Gilliam on May 15, 2012 at 5:09pm

Ok Never mind the last pic that i posted. That design has gone by the way side. My wife expressed her dismay with all the BS in the barn yard. What can i say, I love her so its time to move the whole system. But with that said, I have all 6 totes in a room in the barn, and i moved the grow bed to a spot that she can't see. So Now my question is How should i connect them together.

I will connect the drain system for now, and wait for some repies to this post to figure out the best way to connect them together.

Permalink Reply by TCLynx on May 15, 2012 at 5:21pm

Large uniseals (like 3 or 4 inch) and flexible rubber couplers is how I would do it.

Permalink Reply by Tony Gilliam on May 17, 2012 at 11:05am

I have looked all over for these uniseals. I'm thinking they are like gromets but the biggest i can find is 1". Do you have a source for these that you would share?

Permalink Reply by Tony Gilliam on May 17, 2012 at 11:18am

I just bought my pump today it is 1350 GPH flow with 23 ft. lift and 10 PSI. It has a 2.2 amp draw. Just so i can understand the amp draw can somebody tell me how many 100 watt light bulbs is that equal to?

Permalink Reply by Vlad Jovanovic on May 17, 2012 at 12:16pm

264 Watts so 2.64 100 Watt light bulbs. (unless you are starting and stopping your pump a bunch throughout the day and it has an initial amp draw that differs from it's nominal draw in which case that number would be a bit higher in reality).

Amps x Volts = Watts

Permalink Reply by Tony Gilliam on May 17, 2012 at 1:57pm

Cool i can live with that.

Permalink Reply by Cheryl Laird on June 10, 2012 at 10:15am

Did you find the uniseals? I know I'm late, but in case you haven't found them... http://www.aquaticeco.com/subcategories/829/Uniseals

Tony Gilliam said:

I have looked all over for these uniseals. I'm thinking they are like gromets but the biggest i can find is 1". Do you have a source for these that you would share?

Permalink Reply by Vlad Jovanovic on June 11, 2012 at 11:42am

Cheryl, TCLynx has them for sale... http://www.aquaponiclynx.com/products/aquaponic-systems-and-compone...

Permalink Reply by Cheryl Laird on June 11, 2012 at 1:11pm

Thank you for the resource!

Vlad Jovanovic said:

Cheryl, TCLynx has them for sale... http://www.aquaponiclynx.com/products/aquaponic-systems-and-compone...

Permalink Reply by Tony Gilliam on June 14, 2012 at 11:00am

I've been really busy at work lately so i haven't got alot done. I did get a couple days off and was able to get 3 totes set up with a common drain and ran that out the barn wall. I also got a piece of 2" clear PVC. I cut it down into 5" length's and made some areator/water circulators that mount to the drain valves and return the water to just below the water line. My son told me that the barn was starting to look like a mad scientist's laboratory.