brother francis's new system project

[brotherfrancis]

hi folks,

i have been hard at it building a 24x12 green house, 4 - 6x4 grow beds, installing liners, and standpipes and collecting the pump, syphon parts, tanks, cinders, etc. now its time for my final layout...here's my question...

i have 4 growbeds 27" off the ground (they are 11.5 inches tall.). the fish tank is 24" tall and sits on the grounds (or maybe i will dig it in a few inches to get a bit more slope in the drain lines)...how should i handle the sump. will i have the pump in the sump pushing water up to the grow beds and the FT connected via a drain of some sort to the sump?

any recommendations are greatly appreciated.

peace,
br.francis

[keith_r]

as you read through threads you'll see that there are lots of ways to do things... i like the "simple" idea of having the growbeds all drain into the fish tank, and the fish tank draining into the sump, where the pump is located to pump the water to the growbeds. i think the most important thing is to keep an open mind about your design, there are many ways to successfully grow fish and veggies together
i've seen this design referred to as chift pist (constant height in fish tank, pump in sump tank)
that being said, with 4 good size growbeds, have you thought of setting up 2 systems? down the road one plan (or idea rather) of mine is 2 systems, one with just growbeds and the other with filtration and dwc, that way you have 2 places your fish are in and if something happens you don't loose them all
plenty of folks here to assist

[brotherfrancis]

following up on my new system build...i have nearly finished rinsing and loading around 2 tons of red cinders into the grow beds....what a massive chore. i am now concerned how much water will actually fit into the grow beds as i have only a 300 gallon sump tank. it seems i will have to adjust the bed levels so that they are equal to 300 gallons. all in all i am nearing completion and looking forward to fishless cycling. i will add some pictures soon.

peace

[brotherfrancis]

hi crazy weird feverish friends...

i say that because these past 2 weeks have had me working like a dog doing ll sorts of things to bring my MOST GLORIOUS BEAUTIFUL AP system on line....i have been rinsing gravel and bucket loading it into my growbeds for 3 days...the 6000 pound pile is now down to about 1000.

the bells are all working, but i am still adjusting the input flow so the beds will have some time being MOSTLY empty... and to ensure the syphons break...

i have added a small pile of water plants into the sump and am considering adding some water from a still pond that i made down the street to get some bacteria culturing, oh and i added a bit of EM1.

comments observations?

peace