A Community and Forum For Aquaponic Gardeners
TCLynx's Big system
The big system started out as a 600 gallon lined hole in the ground
with 4 planned lumber/liner grow beds of about 160 gallons each and a swimming pool pump we got free. Pump to run constant and grow beds to flood and drain via auto siphon/FLOUTS.
Whole thing of course was changing almost from the beginning.
Cycled up the system pee ponically and it was able to take 1 ppm of ammonia down to both ammonia and nitrite being 0 within 24 hours by the beginning of March 2008. Got first batch of catfish mid March 2008. They were mostly larger than the normal advanced fingerlings. Most of them were between 8 and 10 inches though there was one small one that was under 5 inches. Saddly that small one was my first fatality, it got sucked up against the pump intake which managed to suck bones right out of the poor little guy!
My first lesson, make sure grating around the pump intake keeps fish a good distance back.
Second fatality was much later after adding another tank and moving the catfish to it. There was a 2" gap between the end of the cover and the end of the tank. A fish jumped out and expired on the wood chip mulch. Even catfish will jump out sometimes. Make sure your fish tank cover will bounce the fish back into the tank.
I did have tilapia for a while and mostly grew them in cages in the big in ground tank but we don't have any tilapia anymore, to much work to keep them warm in winter and feeding in cages is more trouble. Catfish are easier and we like the taste better anyway and they are easier to clean.
The big system as it is now 9/20/2010
Constant height in Fish tanks (one pump in sump tank other pump in sump bed)
Fish tanks
700 ish gallons (main tank)
100 gallons (front porch tank)
Sump tank
just under 300 gallons (it is where the big 600 gallon hole used to be but it is now a lined 300 gallon galvanized tank set into where the hole used to be.)
Grow beds
6, 100 gallon stock tanks flood and drain in sequence by indexing valve
1, 100 gallon stock tank with autosiphon
2, 100 gallon stock tanks constant flood (except when I pull the stand pipe out for a few minutes)
1, 1/2 barrel with loop siphon
3, mortar tubs constant flood (for water chestnuts and other water plants)
3, 1/2 water tanks cut long ways (flood and drain by indexing valve)
6, 1/2 barrels the long way (flood and drain by same indexing valve as above)
3, 1/2 barrels round the middle (well one is smaller, flood and drain by same indexing valve as above)
1, 300 gallon lumber/liner sump bed with pump on float switch to feed the above indexing valve and beds
Grow beds total (aprox)
1600 gallons
Total flood and drain grow beds
1400 gallons
4, 3 foot zipgrow towers
4-6, 5 foot zipgrow towers
(spare media seasoning in the sump tank
30 feet of 4" NFT pipe
2 pumps (one runs constant the other is on a float switch)
The constant pump is a Sweetwater SHE 2.4 from Aquatic Eco Systems (it replaced the original free swimming pool pump we started with which used an outrageous amount of electricity.)
Air pump on battery backup
two indexing valves
one is a regular 1" 6 way aquaponics indexing valve being run by the 1/3rd HP pump on the float switch in the big grow bed.
The other is a 1 1/2" gravity modified 6 way aquaponics indexing valve that is controlled by my personally designed low pressure automated valve with a controller designed by Novaris from over on the BYAP Forum (previous controller was built by me with assistance from Jazzyplayermark (Mark Simmons, it worked fine but the new one can be programed and it is small enough and soldered together so I could put it in a box rather than worrying that some critter might pull a component out of the bread board.)
At the moment there are about 85 fish in the big tank and 10 in the front porch tank.
This is a system which has been constantly changing over the years. None of it is really original anymore. Some parts may be from the original system but other than one post, it has all changed or moved since spring 2008. It started out as a lumber and liner system but termites changed that. I only have one lumber/liner bed left and that one is all pressure treated so hopefully will last a bit longer than the old ones did. I will not use lumber and liner together in the future. My big fish tank is liner but it is supported by wire fencing. If I do liner on the ground, I will use concrete, metal or wire to support the top in the future.
Yes I will add some pictures but I'll do it in some later posts so you don't have to wait for them to load on each page.
Here is a link to the Initial build photo album
http://aquaponicscommunity.com/photo/albums/tclynxs-big-system-initial
And here is the next photo album that has pics from June 2008-Feb 2010
http://aquaponicscommunity.com/photo/albums/tclynxs-system-june-200...
Finally here are the photos of the big system and stuff from the past 7 months, Spring and Summer 2010 http://aquaponicscommunity.com/photo/albums/tclynxs-big-system-spri...
with 4 planned lumber/liner grow beds of about 160 gallons each and a swimming pool pump we got free. Pump to run constant and grow beds to flood and drain via auto siphon/FLOUTS.
Whole thing of course was changing almost from the beginning.
Cycled up the system pee ponically and it was able to take 1 ppm of ammonia down to both ammonia and nitrite being 0 within 24 hours by the beginning of March 2008. Got first batch of catfish mid March 2008. They were mostly larger than the normal advanced fingerlings. Most of them were between 8 and 10 inches though there was one small one that was under 5 inches. Saddly that small one was my first fatality, it got sucked up against the pump intake which managed to suck bones right out of the poor little guy!
My first lesson, make sure grating around the pump intake keeps fish a good distance back.
Second fatality was much later after adding another tank and moving the catfish to it. There was a 2" gap between the end of the cover and the end of the tank. A fish jumped out and expired on the wood chip mulch. Even catfish will jump out sometimes. Make sure your fish tank cover will bounce the fish back into the tank.
I did have tilapia for a while and mostly grew them in cages in the big in ground tank but we don't have any tilapia anymore, to much work to keep them warm in winter and feeding in cages is more trouble. Catfish are easier and we like the taste better anyway and they are easier to clean.
The big system as it is now 9/20/2010
Constant height in Fish tanks (one pump in sump tank other pump in sump bed)
Fish tanks
700 ish gallons (main tank)
100 gallons (front porch tank)
Sump tank
just under 300 gallons (it is where the big 600 gallon hole used to be but it is now a lined 300 gallon galvanized tank set into where the hole used to be.)
Grow beds
6, 100 gallon stock tanks flood and drain in sequence by indexing valve
1, 100 gallon stock tank with autosiphon
2, 100 gallon stock tanks constant flood (except when I pull the stand pipe out for a few minutes)
1, 1/2 barrel with loop siphon
3, mortar tubs constant flood (for water chestnuts and other water plants)
3, 1/2 water tanks cut long ways (flood and drain by indexing valve)
6, 1/2 barrels the long way (flood and drain by same indexing valve as above)
3, 1/2 barrels round the middle (well one is smaller, flood and drain by same indexing valve as above)
1, 300 gallon lumber/liner sump bed with pump on float switch to feed the above indexing valve and beds
Grow beds total (aprox)
1600 gallons
Total flood and drain grow beds
1400 gallons
4, 3 foot zipgrow towers
4-6, 5 foot zipgrow towers
(spare media seasoning in the sump tank
30 feet of 4" NFT pipe
2 pumps (one runs constant the other is on a float switch)
The constant pump is a Sweetwater SHE 2.4 from Aquatic Eco Systems (it replaced the original free swimming pool pump we started with which used an outrageous amount of electricity.)
Air pump on battery backup
two indexing valves
one is a regular 1" 6 way aquaponics indexing valve being run by the 1/3rd HP pump on the float switch in the big grow bed.
The other is a 1 1/2" gravity modified 6 way aquaponics indexing valve that is controlled by my personally designed low pressure automated valve with a controller designed by Novaris from over on the BYAP Forum (previous controller was built by me with assistance from Jazzyplayermark (Mark Simmons, it worked fine but the new one can be programed and it is small enough and soldered together so I could put it in a box rather than worrying that some critter might pull a component out of the bread board.)
At the moment there are about 85 fish in the big tank and 10 in the front porch tank.
This is a system which has been constantly changing over the years. None of it is really original anymore. Some parts may be from the original system but other than one post, it has all changed or moved since spring 2008. It started out as a lumber and liner system but termites changed that. I only have one lumber/liner bed left and that one is all pressure treated so hopefully will last a bit longer than the old ones did. I will not use lumber and liner together in the future. My big fish tank is liner but it is supported by wire fencing. If I do liner on the ground, I will use concrete, metal or wire to support the top in the future.
Yes I will add some pictures but I'll do it in some later posts so you don't have to wait for them to load on each page.
Here is a link to the Initial build photo album
http://aquaponicscommunity.com/photo/albums/tclynxs-big-system-initial
And here is the next photo album that has pics from June 2008-Feb 2010
http://aquaponicscommunity.com/photo/albums/tclynxs-system-june-200...
Finally here are the photos of the big system and stuff from the past 7 months, Spring and Summer 2010 http://aquaponicscommunity.com/photo/albums/tclynxs-big-system-spri...
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by TCLynx on
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And I promised pictures.
Here is before I started construction.
Some of the stuff you see in the background was from previous Hydroponics and other stuff in the picture was for covering container plants during cold spells. -
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I'm starting to think that the first six months of my system I should call the Mistakes I made Discussion. There are so many pictures in the album that I feel like telling people, here is a pick of how not to do it!
And many of my mistakes, people warned me about
(if you read the BYAP thread of it. People warned me about the vertical sides of the dirt tank with not enough reinforcing and people warned me against the lumber/liner methods. And yet, I did it anyway. I must admit when we started into aquaponics here, I was figuring we would only be here for a couple years and then building a house/moving anyway so who cares if it's time to change it then anyway. Well the economy changed and we are still here with the light at the end of the tunnel being so far away that I'm not even worried about the train yet.)
So, if you can't learn from my advice, please learn from my mistakes at least. -
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I've Now uploaded many pictures from the next 50 pages of my BYAP thread that covers from June 2008-Feb 2010
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So now I've uploaded photo albums of the big system from before breaking ground all the way up to almost present. (Gotta get the banana photos off the camera still)
Any Questions? -
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Permalink Reply by George T on
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At your leisure, please post the measurements of your 100 gal stock tanks, in outside dimensions. I don't trust some of the numbers I've read online. Thank you. GT
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The 100 gallon rubbermaid stock tanks
25 inches tall is accurate and when I measured a couple bins that are full of gravel I got about 34 inches wide by 52 inches long. I wonder if they are buldging out a little at the middle since the specs I read say it should be 31" and 53"
Anyway, they make great grow beds and will do for small fingerling tanks too.
George J. Thurmon said:At your leisure, please post the measurements of your 100 gal stock tanks, in outside dimensions. I don't trust some of the numbers I've read online. Thank you. GT -
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