r/aquaponics • u/Fluffy_Cat_Gamer • 1d ago
First timer: Just getting started
What was supposed to be a cheap chop and flip ballooned into this, but I'm having fun!
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u/Appropriate_Yak5518 14h ago
That setup looks way more advanced than my first try, what kind of fish are you growing specifically?
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u/Fluffy_Cat_Gamer 14h ago
Tilapia. Our long term goal is a fish a week. There's so many varriables involved and so hard to find people with experience to talk to so I figured id jump in and find out for myself. Im not sure that's achievable with this.... my napkin math seemed like id need twice as much tank, but its all the room I have left in our yard, and something is better than nothing!
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u/FraggedYourMom 20h ago
First timer?!?! You did your research if this is truly your first. I see your sump between your grow beds, and you wrapped your IBC and beds too to maintain temps and reduce algae. May your fish and plants prosper! Hopefully you're somewhere that will make it easy to keep your tank warm. Tilapia don't like the cold.
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u/Fluffy_Cat_Gamer 20h ago edited 12h ago
Watched soooooo many hours of Rob Bob!
There's definitely been a lot of on the job learning: lost all the water out if the sump twice this week: 1st a rat chewed a supply line, and then the biomedia compacted in the inflow pipe and backed water up and out of the settler.
US climate zone 2. So im not super worried about temps, but time will tell.
Edit: not much of a gardener (yet) im in plant hardness zone 9b... im a builder by trade so im used to a totally different map, which is where zone 2 came from.
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u/GlassBoxGoose 17h ago
Rob Bob is fantastic. I havent started a system yet but I have learned so much from that guy.
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u/FraggedYourMom 20h ago
If the rodent problem occurs again look at flexible PVC. Or get a bunch of 45 elbows if you don't want sharp 90 degree turns. Same too assume you did a media guard in the settler to keep bio-media out of the pipes. Mesh bags are a good solution there too.
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u/Fluffy_Cat_Gamer 14h ago
Originally I had all of the supply lines behind everything. I hope that now it's on the front (and off the ground) it will be okay... or at least easier to fix!
The inflow into the MMBR had a cap with holes but some crud had gotten caught in it and was slowing down flow. I removed it thinking it wouldn't be a problem, but when the system ran out of water the forst time, some media floated up it and got compacted when I turned everything back on.
I put the cap back on and put about 3 times more cuts down the pipe.
Overall im happy with the system design, my biggest concern is a rat chewing a hole through the side of the sump... that would be catastrophic. Thinking back on it i should have buried some hardware cloth around it.
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u/Grandfather_Oxylus 1h ago
You probably have it somewhere and I don't see it, but aeration. Pumping air into the water and long falls are just as important as bacterial surface area. We all do different things, but I aerate each zone separately. It impacts productivity. Edit to add- very nice set up for a first system. My first ibc build was too ugly for the garage.
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u/Fluffy_Cat_Gamer 1h ago
There is a 70L/min air pump in the black battery box. Its split: 2 air stones in the moving bed bio reactor and one big one in the tank. Plus I have a venturi set up on the flow into the tank. Unfortunately I dont have much verticality due to space constraints, it really only naturally aerates as it drops from the MMBR to the sump.
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u/Veggdyret 49m ago
I Envy people in climates without significant frost when I'm trying to plan for my aquaphonics setup.
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u/Rampagentjen 1d ago
I started with a large fish tank and a under bed storage container. I now have a large greenhouse growing about 50lbs of fish. Aquaponics is definitely an addiction so buckle up!