A Community and Forum For Aquaponic Gardeners

just saying hi

I'm new to aquaponics and i am so glad that there are so many others in my state and even county to bounce ideas off of. I've been scrapping up items to make my first build sense January. I just got 6 ibc's free from a friend.

I have a plan to build a 2FT, 6 media bed with 2 sump system. in the next 3 days in morning before it gets hot and in the evening when it starts to cool down.

i have a plan to add up to 50 hanging strawberry towers for my wife's herb garden and berries hopefully by September. and in coming few months i am going to add a swirl filter onto the system.

i will be placing the unit in south east corner next to house to catch the winters sun but hopefully shade during summer sun. i will be placing a sun screen of 50% above system during the summer (now).

FT ~500

sump ~150

pump 860gph @ 10' (pond pump i have on hand might get bigger if needed)

going to use syphon to drain beds into sump, and use 3/4" crushed rock for media.

i am thinking about adding type of tilapia for starter fish in about 2 weeks after fishless cycle. Any input on what amount of starter fish i should get. or things jumping out at you guys that look wrong or OK.

Thanks ,

James

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Robert Rowe on July 5, 2013 at 4:11pm

@James - The pictures help. I 'm not familiar
with SLO.

I feel a need to circulate water from the FT to the sump 24 & 7. I do this with a screened overflow line. I pump from the sump to the FT 24 & 7. I pump from the FT to the media beds 1/4 of each hour. The primary reason I pump from the FT is maximize the flow picking up more fish waste.The pump takes the FT output through a swirl filter to the grow beds and then to the sump. No need putting fish waste in the sump. I have not started processing the fish waste yet but the plan is to take it through a dedicated media bed loaded with worms after which the output will go to the media beds.

At the present time my FT feeds 3 raft beds which also swirl filter. The output overflows to 3 media beds which Bell Siphon to the sump. I am not a raft bed fan except for lettuce. I will probably convert 2 of my raft beds to media as soon as I can locate some Hydroton.