Questions about system design

[Kurt Paine]

Hi guys

I am new to this forum and new to aquaponics and am now designing my first system and

have some questions. I would post this on the beginning aquaponics forum, but have some

questions specific to Florida.

I want to start with a 300 gal tank and 3 x 50 gal grow beds. I plan to sink the tank in

the ground and since I plan to expand later to 6 grow beds, I plan to have a sump tank.

I have gone through a lot of the designs on this website and just finished reading Aquaponic

Gardening. I also watched the videos on TC's 300 gal system. I want to keep it as simple as

possible, so do not want to use a sequencer or timers, just bell siphons. Here are my questions:

- With the fish tank buried and the sump tank sitting on the ground, can I get away with

  using one pump in the fish tank or will I also need one for the sump tank?

- Should I use 100 gal grow beds instead of 50 gal? Same length and width, but the 100 gal

  are twice as deep. 25" vs 12". I plan to use an IBC for the sump tank.

- For those of you who are in Central Florida, do you cover your system or part of it? If not,

  how to you handle all of the rainwater? Is there some type of overflow mechanism?

- Do any of you use shade cloth over the growing beds?

If it already hasn't been done, I would like to help compile a list of plants that can be

grown in Florida in the summer. I have done quite a bit of soil gardening and have

found a number of vegetables that can be grown here in the summer.

Thanks

Kurt

[juan loaiza]

good morning :) i live in west palm beach fl,  i have 2 300 g talapia tanks, one is under the ground as a systern and the other is above ground, we have 16 - 55g grow beds under a green house and it all runs with one 1/2 horse sub pump, keeping the rain water out will be a good idea for you, but you can also store some rain water so when you need some in your system, i have not found some ting that i cant grow in my aquaponic system, remember just look at nature and mimic it. :)

[Dan Ponton]

I am building my system now and have had a lot of advice from this forum.

12 in. beds are best

my 30" deep pool is mostly in-ground (12" is above). I will pump up into 24 - 3/4" gravel E&F grow beds that use bells. They  will be about 30" above ground and gravity feed back into the pool, I will use one pump. Gravel will provide filtration and I may build a pre-filter to  DWC beds if needed.

I will keep catfish and bream or crappies. I plan on converting one of my compost tumblers (55gal drum) into a worm bed which I will feed my vegetable pulp from our juicing. I can then feed the worms to the fish.

Currently I plan on putting bird netting over the 22x30 hoop house I am building, but is it important to keep rain water out of the system until needed?

Someone just gave me a 16x30 pool tarp, Should I use this to cover the hoop house?

[George]

how to you handle all of the rainwater?

I wish.  I think my in-ground 400 gal tank has overflowed from rain once in the 4 months my system has been running. 

My grow beds are 100 gal.  I use an indexing valve with no sump and no siphons. 

If your tank is going in the ground and your beds and sump above ground, your beds will need to be higher than your sump and then you could overflow from the sump to the tank - I don't know how well this would work and don't think it will actually without the level in your tank going up and down.  Maybe if your tank was partially out of the ground enough to overflow to the sump, which is also in the ground and then pump from sump to grow beds, with beds draining back to tank.  I can't speak to your design with any experience but I hope someone can.

[Kurt Paine]

Good evening. If you have 16 grow beds then are you using a sequencer? What do you mean by cistern? This is like a sump tank?

Thanks

juan loaiza said:

good morning i live in west palm beach fl,  i have 2 300 g talapia tanks, one is under the ground as a systern and the other is above ground, we have 16 - 55g grow beds under a green house and it all runs with one 1/2 horse sub pump, keeping the rain water out will be a good idea for you, but you can also store some rain water so when you need some in your system, i have not found some ting that i cant grow in my aquaponic system, remember just look at nature and mimic it.

[Kurt Paine]

Yes, I think I will go with 12" grow beds.

I was thinking about building a PVC frame and putting shade cloth over the grow beds and corrugated roofing over the fish tank and other equipment. In my soil garden, I can extend the season with shade cloth.

Dan Ponton said:

I am building my system now and have had a lot of advice from this forum.

12 in. beds are best

my 30" deep pool is mostly in-ground (12" is above). I will pump up into 24 - 3/4" gravel E&F grow beds that use bells. They  will be about 30" above ground and gravity feed back into the pool, I will use one pump. Gravel will provide filtration and I may build a pre-filter to  DWC beds if needed.

I will keep catfish and bream or crappies. I plan on converting one of my compost tumblers (55gal drum) into a worm bed which I will feed my vegetable pulp from our juicing. I can then feed the worms to the fish.

Currently I plan on putting bird netting over the 22x30 hoop house I am building, but is it important to keep rain water out of the system until needed?

Someone just gave me a 16x30 pool tarp, Should I use this to cover the hoop house?

[Kurt Paine]

Yeah, I haven't quite worked the design out yet, but appreciate the ideas. Need to work on this a bit more.

George said:

how to you handle all of the rainwater?

I wish.  I think my in-ground 400 gal tank has overflowed from rain once in the 4 months my system has been running. 

My grow beds are 100 gal.  I use an indexing valve with no sump and no siphons. 

If your tank is going in the ground and your beds and sump above ground, your beds will need to be higher than your sump and then you could overflow from the sump to the tank - I don't know how well this would work and don't think it will actually without the level in your tank going up and down.  Maybe if your tank was partially out of the ground enough to overflow to the sump, which is also in the ground and then pump from sump to grow beds, with beds draining back to tank.  I can't speak to your design with any experience but I hope someone can.

[juan loaiza]

good morning :) yes i mean a sump tank, and no i am not using a sequencer, i have 1 - 300g tank under ground with the sump pump in it, all the beds drain with bell siphons to the sump tank, from the sump tank the sump pump takes it to another 300g tank above ground,  then it all drains back to the grow beds by gravity, keeping it simple is the way to go. :)

Kurt Paine said:

Good evening. If you have 16 grow beds then are you using a sequencer? What do you mean by cistern? This is like a sump tank?

Thanks

juan loaiza said:

good morning i live in west palm beach fl,  i have 2 300 g talapia tanks, one is under the ground as a systern and the other is above ground, we have 16 - 55g grow beds under a green house and it all runs with one 1/2 horse sub pump, keeping the rain water out will be a good idea for you, but you can also store some rain water so when you need some in your system, i have not found some ting that i cant grow in my aquaponic system, remember just look at nature and mimic it.

[TCLynx]

Here is a link to the slides from the Plumbing class, perhaps some of the diagrams will be of some help.

2011 Plumbing Class

The Sump tank would need to be the tank sunk into the ground if you don't want your fish tank level to fluctuate too much.  The lowest tank with the pump in it will fluctuate.  If you sink your fish tank into the ground and have the sump tank sitting on the ground, the sump tank level won't fluctuate but the fish tank level will so I would recommend re-naming them so the tank that is above ground is the fish tank and call it a CHIFT PIST (Constant Height In Fish Tank Pump In Sump Tank) or CHOP (Constant Height One Pump) system.

Now even if you do 6 50 gallon grow beds with a 300 gallon fish tank, you don't necessarily need a sump tank since it would only be a 1:1 system.  The fish tank level will fluctuate a bit but as long as you are only stocking appropriately to your filtration (up to, 1 fish, up to 1 lb each, per cubic foot or 7.5 gallons of media grow bed) you should be all good.

If you were to go to 6, 100 gallon grow beds with only a 300 gallon fish tank I would then say you either need the sump or the sequencing valve.

The 12 inch depth is a good minimum (though some people manage with less) there is nothing to say that deep grow beds do not work.  Lets face it, the 100 gallon stock tank is only a few dollars more than the 50 gallon stock tank and you don't have to build a stand for it to have them at a good working height and you can grow some big stuff in the deep beds and you get more filtration for the same footprint at only a fraction of the price in containers so the only real added cost is the extra media to fill the deep bed (but you are getting the extra filtration for that.)

Cover.....

Some support for some shade cloth that you can put up and take down depending on season is a good thing depending on your natural shade or lack there of.

Rain cover or greenhouse, well I'm up along the FL ridge and much of the rain seems to miss us.  I think I have had my system overflow from rain perhaps 2-3 times since 2007.  And most of that rain takes place in the hot season when the fish are feeding full tilt so a bit of dilution hasn't been a problem.  I would like to store more rain water since my well water is too hard and makes keeping my pH and potassium/calcium balance where I want it difficult.  So a greenhouse, I don't really want but a rain cover that comes with some big rain water storage tanks would be really nice.  That said, I'm not feeling a strong need for rain protection for my systems at this point in time though I might feel differently next time we get a hurricane year like 2004.

At the moment I'm not sure where the list is but I know there have been several lists of plants to beat the heat.  I know of a few that can completely fill a 100 gallon grow bed with roots while sucking down a huge amount of nutrients.  Lufa and Banana are two.

[Kurt Paine]

Thanks very much for all of the information. This is very helpful.

If my fish tank is above ground, then wouldn't I need to insulate it during the winter?

I am going to tour Sahib tomorrow, so should get some good ideas there.

Lablab beans are excellent and one plant will produce enough for a whole family.Okinawa spinach is very prolific and this summer I am growing cuzzi squash.

I also got a tropical cherry tomato that is supposed to produce all summer. We shall see.

TCLynx said:

Here is a link to the slides from the Plumbing class, perhaps some of the diagrams will be of some help.

2011 Plumbing Class

The Sump tank would need to be the tank sunk into the ground if you don't want your fish tank level to fluctuate too much.  The lowest tank with the pump in it will fluctuate.  If you sink your fish tank into the ground and have the sump tank sitting on the ground, the sump tank level won't fluctuate but the fish tank level will so I would recommend re-naming them so the tank that is above ground is the fish tank and call it a CHIFT PIST (Constant Height In Fish Tank Pump In Sump Tank) or CHOP (Constant Height One Pump) system.

Now even if you do 6 50 gallon grow beds with a 300 gallon fish tank, you don't necessarily need a sump tank since it would only be a 1:1 system.  The fish tank level will fluctuate a bit but as long as you are only stocking appropriately to your filtration (up to, 1 fish, up to 1 lb each, per cubic foot or 7.5 gallons of media grow bed) you should be all good.

If you were to go to 6, 100 gallon grow beds with only a 300 gallon fish tank I would then say you either need the sump or the sequencing valve.

The 12 inch depth is a good minimum (though some people manage with less) there is nothing to say that deep grow beds do not work.  Lets face it, the 100 gallon stock tank is only a few dollars more than the 50 gallon stock tank and you don't have to build a stand for it to have them at a good working height and you can grow some big stuff in the deep beds and you get more filtration for the same footprint at only a fraction of the price in containers so the only real added cost is the extra media to fill the deep bed (but you are getting the extra filtration for that.)

Cover.....

Some support for some shade cloth that you can put up and take down depending on season is a good thing depending on your natural shade or lack there of.

Rain cover or greenhouse, well I'm up along the FL ridge and much of the rain seems to miss us.  I think I have had my system overflow from rain perhaps 2-3 times since 2007.  And most of that rain takes place in the hot season when the fish are feeding full tilt so a bit of dilution hasn't been a problem.  I would like to store more rain water since my well water is too hard and makes keeping my pH and potassium/calcium balance where I want it difficult.  So a greenhouse, I don't really want but a rain cover that comes with some big rain water storage tanks would be really nice.  That said, I'm not feeling a strong need for rain protection for my systems at this point in time though I might feel differently next time we get a hurricane year like 2004.

At the moment I'm not sure where the list is but I know there have been several lists of plants to beat the heat.  I know of a few that can completely fill a 100 gallon grow bed with roots while sucking down a huge amount of nutrients.  Lufa and Banana are two.

[TCLynx]

Depends on where you are, what type of fish you want to grow and the ground temperature.

In cold climates if you want to grow tilapia and you dig the tank into the ground you still need to insulate since the ground temps are too cold for tilapia.  Here in FL, the ground temp is pretty warm but if you are doing flood and drain aquaponics you may still need a greenhouse to keep from chilling your water too much for tilapia in the winter.

If you grow a native climate appropriate species and have a big enough fish tank, you might not need to worry about it either way here in central FL.  I have several systems and with channel catfish, bluegill, goldfish and koi in fish tanks of 300 gallons or greater, they survive winter just fine though things do slow down when it gets too cold for them to want to eat much.  I don't have a greenhouse or much in the way of insulation.

Kurt Paine said:

Thanks very much for all of the information. This is very helpful.

If my fish tank is above ground, then wouldn't I need to insulate it during the winter?

I am going to tour Sahib tomorrow, so should get some good ideas there.

Lablab beans are excellent and one plant will produce enough for a whole family.Okinawa spinach is very prolific and this summer I am growing cuzzi squash.

I also got a tropical cherry tomato that is supposed to produce all summer. We shall see.