System Design

[Tara Adcock]

Please look and make any comments
you think may be helpful.

250 gal fish tank
SLO to one media filled 3x8x1 growbed with
bell siphon to one 3x8x1 raft growbed with
bell siphon to sump and back to tank. This
setup will be inside with a light for growbeds.
Fish tank will be elevated to overflow.
I have no parts yet. Plan to get a used IBC for fish
and build growbed boxes and use liner. Water
from nearby lake ( maybe fish too).

media bed would flood and drain 2 times to fill raft bed? does that matter?

will the 24 cu ft media bed be enough filtration?

sump minimum size 160 gal?

thanks!

[Vlad Jovanovic]

Here's a little excerpt filled with references you can then dig up (so as not to piss off Sylvia or other authors by posting works here on the forum) that may help give you some ideas...or confirm that they will work since they may be in use already in one form or another...

..."

Progressive Developments
The initial hydroponic growing system was the standing aerated nutrient 
solution method, a method considered not suited for commercial use (see
Figure 9.1). However, Cunningham (1997) describes the use of this technique
(which he identifies as the updated Gericke system, Figure 11.5-1) for the
growing of green bean, tomato, and zucchini squash, a system that does not
require electrical power and is fairly simple to put into use. Kratky (1996)
describes the general principles and concepts of a noncirculating growing
system for hydroponically growing lettuce, tomato, and European cucumbers
(Figure 11.5-2). (edit: thats the Kratky pic in the previous post)...

.

Figure 11.5–1 Updated Gericke system for growing garden vegetables. Plants
are suspended over a nutrient solution reservoir with an air gap between the
base of the plant and suspended roots. Source: Coene, T., 1997, The Growing
Edge 8(4):34–40 

Wilcox (1983) published an extensive review of those hydroponic systems
in use throughout the world at that time, water or solution culture, sand
culture, aggregate culture, and the nutrient film layout. For commercial applications,
the ebb-and-flow method (Fischer et al., 1990) was the initial hydroponic
growing system, closely followed by the gravity flow bed system. There 

are other techniques that have specific applications, such as the raft system
for lettuce production (Spillane, 2001; Morgan, 2002f) and aeroponics (see
pages 142–143) (Nichols, 2002; Wilson, 2002b).

 

A lot of these ideas in hydroponic sub-systems can be pilfered and modified or used 'as is' in AP, and most of these ideas already come pre-heavily researched by the hydro set. Which can be good. (Though it takes much of the fun out of feeling like Columbus sometimes, but hey)...

BTW, the excerpt comes from a book by my favorite 'tomato guy'  Benton, Jones Jr. (2005)

[Jon Parr]

Thanks, Vlad, and I do appreciate your attention to source info.  Great video, Chris.  I wonder how the air-lift wand compares to a water pump in terms of volume per watt.  It sure is a lot of work (building the wand) to move water, so I can only assume it is more efficient. I've crossed other threads where claims were made that are certainly better than water pumps, but when I try it, I've had no such luck. Another project for winter.

[Bob Campbell]

@Jon - I'm with you, but I was experimenting with this just yesterday.  It seems to be pretty efficient if the head is really small.  But one thing to consider is the aeration that this adds.

[Chris Carr]

From the searching I've done, Glen seems to be the only one to have figured it out at a high/volume suited for aquaponics that I have found. The secret is a backwash prevention flapper valve as seen in his diagram here : 

Corrected PDF diagram link: http://community.theaquaponicsource.com/page/glenn-martinez-aquapon...

Original post: http://community.theaquaponicsource.com/profiles/blogs/air-lift-pum...

A youtube of it actually working: http://youtu.be/GHRMXlNUrrY

Unfortunately that's all the technical info he has posted that I know of. Looks like he will be at the conference so you may get more info from him there if you are going. I am not but I would really like to know more about this.