Comment

Comment by Chris Smith on February 16, 2012 at 12:07am

I would add a gravel bed to filter and grow long term crops. If the fish tank is placed at the low point all the poo is turned into small bits by the pump where it is collected in the gravel for the worms to eat. I recommend a minimum of 25% of total grow space be media filtration. More media is better.

Comment by thomas fanizza on February 15, 2012 at 2:32pm

Thanks for your help. I really appreciate it. It's great to have this community of like minded people helping each other out. I am currently building a 128 sqft deep water raft system housed in a geodesic dome. I will be using a 300 gallon fish tank. I am debating whether I should add some sort of solids settling tank. I'm thinking I won't need to. I also thought about adding a gravel bed for crop diversity but I am a little confused about how to incorporate it into the system since DWC is constant flow and gravel bed is flood and drain. Again, many thanks. 

Comment by Chris Smith on February 15, 2012 at 12:17am

Thanks. The micro system has a small fish tank and operates on a low stoking density. With a low stocking density the poo factor is not a problem. It is very easy to estimate how many pounds of fish are in a small tank. It is near impossible in my 1000 gallon tank without molesting all the fish. So in the big system I use gravel beds to filter out the poo since I have more than enough fish that are constantly growing.

Comment by thomas fanizza on February 13, 2012 at 3:53pm

Hi Chris. Your farm looks awesome. I've noticed that you don't use any solids settling tanks, net tanks or a de-gas tank in your microsystem? Is that not needed in a smaller system? Do you have gammarus present? 

Thomas