I was able to spend a few hours working on my aquaponics system for my Growroom today.
I finally decided the way I wanted the system to flow and where all of the components would be within the unit. There were a few things that are important to me for this system. The first is to be absolutely certain that this system will not overflow due to inadequate drains. This system is setup in the laundry room which adjoins my finished basement, so any flooding from this system would be quite costly. With this in mind I spent part of my time today installing three different drains. Each of these drains is at a different height for increased drainage as the water gets higher in the bed.
These two drains are on the end of the growbed closest to the fish tank, and they will be plumbed on separate return lines into the fish tank. As you can see one of the drains is about two to three inches taller in height than the other. My thoughts are that the lower drain will serve as a constant flow drain which will be under the media and out of view. The second taller drain will serve as a high tide drain. My idea is to use two pumps in a sump tank positioned below the growbed. The first would be my newly purchased Elemental 171GPH pump, which would be my circulating pump. The maximum capacity of my chopped IBC container is now 200 gallons. So this one pump alone almost cycles the tank once an hour. Then I would use a 97GPH Elemental pump on a timer to create a high tide effect in the growbed.
Then I built this much higher volume evacuation drain valve, the diameter of of the valve itself is 1 1/2 inches and it is reduced to 3/4 inches below the bed. This gives me a 2:1 ration used in a bell syphon.
The top of the valve contains a threaded cap which I created an opening at the apex of the cap and three smaller holes which prevents water from entering the valve until it reaches the top of the lower lip of the growbed,there is approximately two inches from valve to the uppermost surface of the growbed. The flow rate capacity of 3/4 inch pipe under gravity is 600GPH. So I figure with both of the end drains and the evacuation drain, there is no way to overflow the growbed under normal operating conditions. Both pumps together output a maximum of 264GPH which is only 44 percent of the evacuation valve alone.
The second thing that was important to me was the fish tank being gravity return. This allows me to control the system from completely draining itself if there is a malfunction. I mentioned the maximum capacity of the fish tank was 200 gallons, I placed the return line at the 125 gallon point of the tank. This means the fish tank will never drop below 125 gallons, this protects both the fish and 125 gallons of balanced water to start over with in case the rest of the water gets discharged from the system in a malfunction.
Another thing that was important to me was the working height of the growbed. This is where I will be working with the plants growing here and I don’t want to cut my work short due to back pains that come from bending over a surface that is too low. So I believe I have the growbed at a height that will be comfortable for me to work from.
The black and yellow tote below the growbed is a twenty seven gallon tank that I’m using as a sump tank, that’s the exact capacity of the growbed empty. The grow media and net pots will displace water so the sump will have a greater capacity than the growbed, and I’m considering an overflow tank for the sump. I’m going to get the materials to plumb the system and some silicone to seal the bulkhead fittings. Hopefully I can spend more time on the system and do a new update sometime this week.
White Horticulture 