Aquaponics - Updates Current Setup

This is my current setup, completed last weekend. Once done nothing much left to do, just daily routine spending minimal time on checking plant growth and feeding the fish.

That's the beauty of Aquaponics it require very little time to maintain.




Since I have time to spare, below is a diagram of above system. The Prefilter is not a necessity its there so that I could experiment on it, you can have a system without it.


Grow beds are placed on wooden beam across the concrete tank. With this setup grow beds are on top of the tank, so leaky beds is not much of an issue.

I use pebbles for growth media, wish I have other type of stones something lighter. Each bed is about 200 kg that is 440 lbs. This is the reason why I decide to abandon the canvas fish tank due to its fragile frame will not survive a 200 kg x 4 beds.

I am adding more fish batch by batch, as my previous post 160 Tilapia fingerlings. I expect out of that 160 about 10 ~ 15% will die in the first week.

The plants are doing alright, iron as I use that pipe may have some problem. Water circulation may not reach it, I am monitoring it closely.

Currently I am running the pump 24/7 to make sure the plants recover after replanting . I am going to put the timer on with pump running only during the day, hopefully by next week. I need to check on the plants condition first before doing it.

OK that's all for today.

Note :

Water distribution between multiple grow bed is quite a task, one valve reduce or increase will affect the other. Its a balancing job that require a lot of practice. Another way is to use one pump per grow bed then its much easier.

A "fix it" for the occasional Bell Valve hiccup : Check Here
How to make the valve : Check Here

5 comments:

  1. so are your bell siphons all activating?

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  2. Yes all activating, the only one giving problem was the one installed on the black growbed.

    A simple tweek rectified that, I just make the down pipe about 2 inches longer then the other bed.

    Cheers
    Affnan

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  3. Really cool. Right now you are the one I am most following regarding AP. I'm just about done with my first hobby cycling. Here's where I'm at after a couple of weeks: www.facebook.com/photos/?ref=sb#/album.php?aid=134656&id=729291347 I'm going to try the bell siphon based on yours for my next grow bed. Sorry I've gone on a little bit here. Just wanted to say I appreciate your posts.

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  4. Oh I understand now. Your syphons would activate independently of each other due to the different inlets.

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  5. Hi Ben,

    Its easier if each grow bed use one pump, the setup I did above works but pump need close monitoring.

    With individual pump per growbed it easier and will safe-guard against pump failure.

    I recommend 20 watt pump for each growbed.

    ReplyDelete