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Surge Aquaponics

Craven_au

Craven_au

Active member
just found a post on Aquaponics on youtube.
And are thinking of giving it a go, i have keep fish 4 mean years but lost them all last year in a 4 day heat wave. sines then i have had the place insulated.
I am geting sick of going to the hydro shop and paying good money 4over price nutrients.I do have a 200L fish tank just sitting there myswell put it to good uses.I gess i have some recuse to do.
 
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Hephaestus

Hephaestus

Member
I don't particularly like how they have that setup... The surge system isn't going to work well as it currently is built... Basically they're doing an ebb/flow (or flood table) but without a proper flood... Really they should be aiming to fill that table - but the sump/tank they're using is less than the capacity of the table, and the surge is signficantly less... They're using a carlson surge setup, likely they're pumping about 6g into the table - probably at about 1 minute intervals...

I'm eyeballing that table up at about 36-48" x 18" - capacity of likely at least 30g; with a 20g tank underneath... Typically ebb/flow systems are filling completely every 3 hours for 20 mins +/-. See where the divergence lies?

Fish wise - they're way understocked; I was adding kno3 at a fairly significant rate to keep up with 6 small seedlings - with 6 bigger fish in the system... They'll be lucky to keep anything alive with 6 little danios...

Aquaponics seem to be a great setup; I'm doing it myself (look a few threads down for the "aquaponics for fish folk") but I'm doing DWC with a drip... Ebb & flow makes sense on a lot of levels - but stick with what works, not something setup on youtube that doesn't follow standard practices...
 
Craven_au

Craven_au

Active member
Yes i agree i do not like there setup. but i can see some potential with the surge control bucket it could be modified a larger bucket instead of 2 a smaller pump to slow the hold thing down.I think it would be more ezyer than making a complex control bucket no timers or float switches ,relays and shit that can malfunction. may work better in a ebb&grow system.
 
Hephaestus

Hephaestus

Member
You don't need to be complex to run an ebb/flow... Pump and timer (one of the ones without pins - or a decent digital timer) is all you need. Simple setup - tray has an overflow (max water height), and a fill/drain (on the bottom). Have the pump come on - fills tray/table and overflows, when pump turns off - nothing to hold back the drain - table drains out back through the pump... Nothing complicated - very simple no need for relays or float switches...

Surges aren't good for this application... I've played with surges in the aquariums; even there they can be a royal PITA... In hydroponics - it doesn't make sense...
 
Craven_au

Craven_au

Active member
Agree again ebb n flow don't need a control bucket but ebb and grow does.The control buckets on ebb and grow system can be quite complex i just think this could be ezyer and cheaper.

I can do a test will let you know how it goes wish me luck.
 
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