My 700 gallon basement system

[badflash]

The only reason my system works is I change water. If you don't have plants to remove the nitrates and phosphate, the system will eventually become un-usable. I end up dumping about 100 gallons every week. I'm very much looking forward to aquaponics grow beds. Once these are cycled I can stop dumping the water and I won't need the sand filter. I will keep the aquacube though. It isn't practicle to move enough water through the beds to keep up with the ammonia. 50 GPM is a lot of flow, but that is what is needed in an intensive system to keep up with it.

[wpbullock]

Hi, Badflash. Looks like a real nice system you have here. Very well thought out.

I thought I read or talked with someone who warned against solids build up in the growbeds or elsewhere in the system due to eventual generation of hydrogen sulfide. You mention in your posts that you are thinking you can eliminate the sand filter if you get plants growing. Won't your beds get all gunked up with solids and lead to problems? Or is there some aspect of doing that that I don't understand?

I did call the aquacube guys a week or two ago but those are fairly expensive, too.

I have been looking around related to biofilters and found some interesting information. This page shows this gentleman's study into the most cost effective surface area of biofiltration that he found.

http://www.wernersponds.com/biofiltermedia.htm

This guy sells the scrub pads at what looks like a pretty reasonable price.

http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/fo...16#post2939616

I am thinking I could buy a bunch of these and put them in an onion sack then stuff the onion sack down in a piece of pipe and set it in the fish tank vertically then put air stones in the bottom and bubble air up through the pipe. I can pull the onion sack out periodically and give it a beating in a drum of water and then replace it in the pond. I also thought I could put a finer mesh under the scrubbie pads to keep some of the solids off of the scrubbies and then clean that filter out fairly frequently.

What do you think of the scrubbies?

Wes

[JCO]

Check out the system I built about 4 years ago at this link:

Hello Friends

We used air stones in the fish tank to keep particles suspended in the water to be overflowed into the sump tank (barrel) and the pump in the sump was well off the bottom of the sump to allow the particles to collect there and these were manually removed via a hose and suction when the buildup warranted it. You could even put another barrel in between the sump where the pump is to act as the collector. Never had to shut the system down for anything such as cleaning the sump etc. Worked great.

[Breed]

Badflash
I have an 8' poly tank for my Tilapia. I raise them indoors in winter and plan on setting them out in Spring when I will plant my vegetable beds. I will need to heat the tank for a month in the Spring and a month in the Fall. How do you suggest I hook up a bucket heater?
Breeding

[badflash]

Earlier in this thread I listed the bucket heat I use from Jeffers. It is important the element is cages so it doesn't hurt the plastic. I use a honeywell digital temperature controller I got from here:
http://www.northernbrewer.com/brewing/j ... oller.html
If you have a flat bottom kiddie pool, you can use a few water bed heaters. Just put them under the pool. This is a great low cost option as you can get 400 watt heaters on ebay for around $15.

[Breed]

Badflash
I am waiting for Spring, but in the meantime we started an Aquaponics system in our basement with grow beds. We have 1400 babies from fry to adults in 4 tanks with 5 grow beds (none on the fry tank). If I knew how to upload pictures, I would. We have tomatoes, carrots, cabbage, radishes, cucumbers, zucchini, head & leaf lettuce, spinach, wheat (for sprouts) and strawberries. I have three grow beds on one tank that is 125 gallons. I have one grow bed on a 55 gallon tank, but think I will add another. I have 500 fingerlings and can't get the water as clear as I would like. So another bed might help. I have flowers on my cucumbers, they are the fastest growers I have. Tomatoes only took 4 days to sprout and are about 4 feet tall, but no flowers yet. I will cut them back a bit to see if they flower.
I have 319 gallons, all totaled and I think we are going to expand. More babies on the way!!!!

[Breed]

Badflash,
Thanks for the infor. Here are two of my pics.

http://s956.photobucket.com/albums/a...eedbeds085.jpg
http://s956.photobucket.com/albums/a...eedbeds079.jpg
http://s956.photobucket.com/albums/a...eedbeds086.jpg

You have to put URLs between URL tags. If you upload a graphic only, it goes between the Img tags. No charge for repairing your URL links to your graphics. JCO

[Breed]

Help - What did I do wrong in uploading my pictures???

[badflash]

If you check the photobucket it gives you three links to copy. Use the last one.

Are those Rocky Mountain Whites? You need more growbeds for that amount of fish. The tomatoes need more light. I'd use a couple of 4' shoplights with daylight bulbs mounted so they go up, rather then over the plants.

[jackalope]

Those are Blues .... Aren't they cool? YEAH!!