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66 comments on Australia, The Place To Be: Part 3a

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SlicerDicer on November 23, 2007 - 12:44pm Permalink | Subthread | Comments top

Aquaponics!!!!!!

Ok first off it requires a single pump nothing more. I run it quite easy on 80watts solar panel? Simple. Done dusted and no fluff. This is a system with 74 sqft of actual grow area not total garden space.

I am going to ramp up to another system this summer that will be 64 grow beds. Those will have a grand total of 1100 sqft grow area. This will require a pump of 16,000 L/hr or 4500 G/hr... This will pull quite a bit more power to get that kinda pump going. I estimate 300 watts for that but 1100 sqft grow area is HUGE!!!!

I love my aquaponics system.

this is my current incarnation. It requires 60gallons per 4 beds. Factor that in you get 1000 gallons for the large system I want.

Anyway the way this system is setup. You see the draining thats into a sump. Beyond the sump it pumps it into a upper tank that drains down below to the grow beds by gravity. The autosiphon kicks in and drains to sump. This makes only one pump needed!

http://idisk.mac.com/slicerdicer/Public/autosiphon.jpg
http://idisk.mac.com/slicerdicer/Public/autosiphon1.jpg
http://idisk.mac.com/slicerdicer/Public/autosiphon2.jpg

Here are the grow beds.

http://idisk.mac.com/slicerdicer/Public/growbeds1.jpg

And you can see the velocity of 1180L/hr here "less the loss from increased head to 4ft"

http://idisk.mac.com/slicerdicer/Public/maintank.jpg

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aeldric on November 24, 2007 - 6:18am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Yep, I ran my pump off a solar panel for a while, but the fish got unhappy at night, because the water didn't run at night. So I added a battery, but the battery died because it got deap-cycled every night. So now I am adding a header tank..... which is what I should have done in the first place :-)

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Uncle Yarra on November 24, 2007 - 7:53am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Hi slicerdicer,
I see you don't have an anaerobic filter in your grow beds. Odd to suggest this, i know, but apparently they can assist with gassing off nitogen in the early stage of plant growth. Look for the RSG "really smart guy" filter discussion at www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum

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