Aquaponics - Sump and pre-filter

We cut the sump and pre-filter. The sump is going to be the trickiest part of this aquaponics thing. Not because it should be, but because I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to painting with rubber paint. Who would have guessed? The sump will be positioned 10 feet further back and down the hill a bit, so the top will be level with its current ground level.

The pre-filter will be roughly where it is now but raised up a bit, so the top is level with the fish tank. The fish tank is yet to be bought and will be positioned against the pre-filter to the right of it.

Aquaponics - CHIFT PIST

You see CHIFT PIST a lot in the aquaponics forums and it means "constant height in fish tank, pump in sump tank". And its a very good idea. This is a Google SketchUp design of how I plan to implement it.

In a CHIFT PIST system the main pump is pumping clear filtered water with no fish waste solids in it so your pump will last longer and wont ever get blocked.
The pump pumps water up to the fish tank and the fish tank overflows into the grow beds.
In this system we will have a second pump running from a battery because we get quite a few blackouts here. Fish don't like blackouts. The second pump is not really a pump but more like a propeller, so it wont get blocked by solids. This propeller thing is called a power head, and its purpose is just to stir the water to oxygenate it. The main pump in the sump is a proper pump in that it can push water up hill through a pipe, but solids will block it.

The advantages of a CHIFT PIST aquaponics system are ...

- the fish tank has no holes in it other than an overflow pipe but that is right at the very top. It also has no pump in it so not a lot can go wrong with it. The water level is always right at the top so the fish are happy.
- the pump is in the sump where the water is clean and filtered free of fish solids.
- there is extra water in the sump giving the system more stability. If the plants don't use all the nutrient for a while, it has less overall effect on the system because any negatives are diluted by the extra water. The sump acts as a buffer against any extremes in water condition, and gives the system a little extra time to sort itself out.

Because my SketchUp skills are lacking, some aspects of the system are not pictured. I'll get back to those in later posts. SketchUp is a 3d drawing program that Google offers. It's free to download and very easy to learn. You can get it here if you want to have a look.