Aquaponics - New system bits

I got this.

Which is a 500L grow bed.

And looks like this from the inside.

And I got this.

Which is a 500 litre bucket.

And a stack of bags of this.

Which is around 500L of expanded clay ball grow media.










And now I need to figure out what to do with it.

I was giving some serious thought to getting rid of my aquaponics system, because we need the space for a business venture, and there really isn't anywhere else it (the aquaponics or the business venture) can go.

So I bought all this extra stuff.

This will take my grow bed, and thus filtration capacity up from around 300L to more like 800L

And depending on what I do with the gigantic bucket, I might fill that with media as well and take the capacity up to 1300L

That would mean I could actually have enough fish that it would impact on my diet.

Which is nice.

120 Things in 20 years - Busy with new aquaponics system bits.

Aquaponics - Externalized sequencer

From time to time I need to empty my head of all the luggage I carry around in there. A while ago I did just such a thing when this idea came out.

This is the second design (here is the first) of mine for a grow bed flooding sequencer. The aim here is to fill each grow bed in turn so as not to empty the fish tank and leave your fish walking more than they like.

Picture an inverted rotating lawn sprinkler with all but one of its arms cut off and blocked. Mount that over a bucket,with a drain going back to the fish tank, and a pipe for every grow bed you want to fill. The drain is to catch the bit of water that misses the tubes, as the sprinkler arm is moving between tubes, and to catch any small leaks the sprinkler has  from the moving seals.

The aim is to have it rotate from one tube to the next, stopping for long enough to fill the grow bed that's connected to each tube. The grow beds take it in turns to get filled, and as one is filling, another (or others) are emptying back into the fish tank.

Make one of these for each tube. The bottom of each tube is connected to it's grow bed and the apparatus is mounted at the same height as the grow beds, so that as they get close to their full depth, the float begins to rise.

When the float rises enough the hook lifts above the point at which it restricts the rotation of the sprinkler arm, and the arm moves on to the next tube.










When you first set it up, leave enough extra length on the downwards bit of the hooks so you can file a bit off to fine tune it to trigger at exactly the correct height. Or you could use a nut and bolt arrangement to make it adjustable.

It should also be possible, to some degree, to accommodate grow beds at different heights by increasing the length of the tubes, placing the floats deeper, and extending the pole that holds the hook.










Feel free to repost these images elsewhere, but please leave the "120 things in 20 years" caption on them.


[edit from the future - There is some additional material on sequencers. Readers might find this newer version in a post titled  The Bullwinkle sequencer build of interest. It's a better design, and only costs around AU$15 to build with off the shelf PVC components]

Aquaponics - My second system

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The new aquaponics system has started to take shape. We cut the first tank in half and it will become the grow beds.

Two 1750 mm x 1100 mm x 300 mm grow beds to start with and we may add another later. Two grow beds this size will feed my partner and me with all the veggies we will need but she's keen to try a cut flower garden as well, as am I. We have decided on pumps, sumps and plumbing  that should allow for some expansion.

I think we will need to brace the middle sections of the grow beds with some wire stretching from the center of one side to the center of the other to stop it bulging. Each bed will hold half a ton of scoria so there will be some pressure on the longest sides. Once cut, the tank halves lost a bit of their structural integrity, this was to be expected and should be easy enough to fix.

We are still struggling with the decision regarding painting with gripset51 or using a pond liner. I think at the moment we are leaning toward using pond liner simply because it will be faster and there wont be any drying time. And I hate the smell of paint. I also just get the feeling that even though its plastic the pond liner will suit aquaponics a bit better than paint.

Just in case anyone cares, from what I can work out a ton of scoria is roughly 1000 litres in volume (as bought in 25 kb bags from the hardware), and a ton of  7 - 14mm blue metal gravel is roughly 670 litres

A thousand litres of scoria bought in bulk will cost around AU$145 and a thousand litres of blue metal road gravel will cost around AU$90