Home Aquaponics Site Sketch

[B. Pearcy]

Tomorrow I plan to begin accumulating the needed supplies to finally construct my home aquaponics system.  At this point, I am leaning toward a continuous flow system. Here's a rough sketch of my vision:

 

I don't have any fancy software for making the sketch, so please forgive the crude drawing I made in Excel.  I hope I'm not too far off base, but I plan to have the 100 gallon Rubbermaid tanks raised high enough on concrete blocks that the water will flow back into the fish tank using gravity.  I'm not a plumber and have little plumbing experience, so I hope I can pump into both tanks at once and fine tune the flow better with spigots.  Will a 550 gph pump work for this purpose? Any suggestion on specific brands?

I am guessing in rough numbers that with washed river gravel as growing media the grow beds will not hold more than 25-35 gallons of water. I may be off with those figures, but I vaguely remember reading those figures in some online articles.

I will be going to pre-measure the tanks tomorrow at the local Tractor Supply. There is also a tank specialty store nearby if they don't have the 300 gallon in stock where I can order just about any kind of tank I could ever imagine. Since I have a 10% coupon I'm hoping Tractor Supply has one.

I understand something called a Uniseal works well in the tanks, although I'm not quite sure where to buy those. Will I be able to avoid PVC in this system, or will some PVC be unavoidable for the pipes?

Landscape weed control fabric runs about $20 for a 125' x 7' roll at Sam's Club, but I don't need nearly that much.

Any other stuff I should be considering that I've left off the list?

Some have suggested a sump be used, but I want to limit the footprint as best I can so that's why I'm thinking continuous flow will work best for my situation.

I plan to use a few Zip Grow towers run on a separate pump for aeration hanging from shephard's hooks or something.

I'm open to additional suggestions/opinions.

[TCLynx]

?  When I've gone online to look at tanks it usually says the stock tanks are not available online and must be purchased from local stores.

 

Yep, just went to tractor supply online and says Availability: In-Store Only  Price they have listed is 229.99.  Probably just need to find the right manager there to talk to.  They probably have to put in an order for it at your local store since it sounds like they don't stock many of them regularly.

http://www.tractorsupply.com/livestock/livestock-equipment/stock-ta...

 

Then again if you can find another tank somewhere that is a bit deeper instead of wide, you might be better off.  I doubt you will find much cheaper for a 200-400 gallon fish tank though.

 

[B. Pearcy]

I found a 169 gal Behlen HDPE locally that looks good. Also 103 gal Behlen HDPE. Hard to find bullhead catfish though.

[TCLynx]

I expect you should be able to get bluegill more easily in Florida than you can get bullhead.

[B. Pearcy]

The one drawback to bluegill I see is that it takes 3 years to grow them out to 1 lb with crushed Aquamax under ideal conditions. Bruce Condello's video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zh1iakYGwkA&feature=player_embedded

 

[B. Pearcy]

To make sure I am understanding the concept, are you suggesting using the drain fitting already installed to pump water into the tank and then draining the tank (overflow) via a Uniseal fitting?  Would a 1000 gph pump have enough power to operate in this manner?

Could I run this in continuous flow?

Would you suggest filling to about 6 inches from the top of the gravel bed, or more or less?

Sorry for all the questions. I'm quite a novice at plumbing.

 

Brian

Chi Ma said:

You can mount the stand pipe outside. Here is a crude illustration.

B. Pearcy said:

Thanks for the tip.

Chi Ma said:

Cool thing about the tanks that TSC sells is that they have drains that you can plumb into negating the need for bulkhead fittings if you are creative with your plumbing

[TCLynx]

Take into account that he is in Nebraska.  They don't have Florida temperatures for more than a few months of the year.  And I've had people say they managed to grow out hybred blue gill in one season before in Ohio so I expect even regular bluegill in Florida are going to grow out quicker than 3 years.  Keep in mind that most people are eating blue gill at 8 oz when they catch them from the lakes so growing out a 1 lb bluegill is growing out monsters.  Granted  the drawback with bluegill is you have to clean more of them to get a meal but I suppose the same could be said of tilapia too.

[TCLynx]

No I think he was suggesting using the drain plug fitting to drain the tank.  You don't need a fitting to pump to the grow bed, just run the plumbing from the pump up over the top edge of the grow bed.

[Chi Ma]

Yep

TCLynx said:

No I think he was suggesting using the drain plug fitting to drain the tank.  You don't need a fitting to pump to the grow bed, just run the plumbing from the pump up over the top edge of the grow bed.

[B. Pearcy]

True. It's cold up there. I grew up in Missouri.

Have you ever tried stacking your concrete blocks three high? I wonder how stable that would be for 50 gallon grow bed tanks. That might allow me more grow bed space than just two 100 gallon tanks. Drawback is I'd pump a lot more water out of the fish tank unless done sequentially with your index valve or a sump tank. I'd prefer not to use a sump due to space limits.

 

TCLynx said:

Take into account that he is in Nebraska.  They don't have Florida temperatures for more than a few months of the year.  And I've had people say they managed to grow out hybred blue gill in one season before in Ohio so I expect even regular bluegill in Florida are going to grow out quicker than 3 years.  Keep in mind that most people are eating blue gill at 8 oz when they catch them from the lakes so growing out a 1 lb bluegill is growing out monsters.  Granted  the drawback with bluegill is you have to clean more of them to get a meal but I suppose the same could be said of tilapia too.

[TCLynx]

Here I'm uploading some pics to help you out.

 

No need to go three high though.  Two high should be plenty (you don't have to drain the bottom of the stock tank if you are using 100 gallon tanks.  Draining just the top 12 inches will be plenty.

 

That tank is up on two layers of normal blocks and a layer of 4" caps.  That is a little high for a grow bed just draining into another stock tank sitting on the ground next to it.  You don't HAVE to drain all the way to the bottom of a 25" deep grow bed.  Flooding and draining the top 12 inches should be sufficient and will cause far less fluctuation in the fish tank while still providing some extra filtration though maybe not plant space.

 

 

[TCLynx]

Here is an image of how I pump water to my grow beds, just up and over the top edge of the bed, nice and simple.

[TCLynx]

Finally a couple pictures of my drain connections.  Granted I'm able to drain down all but the bottom few inches of my grow beds because my fish tank is sunk in the ground but if you have your beds up on a couple layers of blocks and the fish tank down on the ground, you will still be able to go over the rim of the fish tank with the drain plumbing or use some uniseals to send the drain lines in under the rim and make covering your fish tank a bit simpler.

 

 

Here is a link to the 300 gallon expansion workshop photos that might also be helpful

http://aquaponicscommunity.com/photo/albums/tclynx300gallonexpansion-1

 

And let me see I think I have a photo or two of the elbow and plumbing of a stand pipe inside a 100 gallon grow bed.

here is a link to that photo album as well

http://aquaponicscommunity.com/photo/albums/pictures-december-4th