Hey!
Just wanted to share my obscenely overly complicated aquaponics set-up (is it still aquaponics if the fish are pets, not food?). Whatever it’s called...
So what started this project is two things. First, I am on an old septic system and I don’t want to put lots of water down the drain during water changes. Second, I have a bunch of “Earthbox” growers, which are amazing for productivity, but are really annoying to water every single day. So my journey began.
Firstly I put an overflow on my 180 gallon aquarium. It’s just a bulkhead with 1/2” PVC pipe and a sponge over it to prevent fish from going for a ride. That line is plumbed around the corner to a trash can in my bomb shelter (yup...I have a legit bomb shelter, 4” thick sliding steel door and everything..). I have a pressure reducing valve dripping in water at about 50 gallons per day.
To get from the trash can outside I put a high head centrifugal pump draining from the bottom with a bulk head. Between actual height and tubing pressure drop I’m estimating around 25 feet of head and it gets about 30 gallons per hour. I also didn’t bother with an emergency float shut off because there is a floor drain right there, and running dry isn’t the end of the world either - so if the timing of anything is off it’s not catastrophic.
That water goes to a manifold with 5 outlets. 4 of the outlets are controlled by actuated valves, the 5th outlet is always open BUT with longer tubing.
The valves are controlled by an irrigation timer, set such that twice a day they go through an hour long cycle where each valve is open for 15 minutes. The pump is timed to be on for the same amount of time.
The always open tube is there in case the timing gets off I don’t want to dead head the pump. Since the tube is longer however the flow is way less, so over the hour it gets about as much water as the other tubes get in 15 minutes.
That’s about it. It’s been up and running for a month now and I haven’t needed to adjust anything, it’s great!
Just wanted to share my obscenely overly complicated aquaponics set-up (is it still aquaponics if the fish are pets, not food?). Whatever it’s called...
So what started this project is two things. First, I am on an old septic system and I don’t want to put lots of water down the drain during water changes. Second, I have a bunch of “Earthbox” growers, which are amazing for productivity, but are really annoying to water every single day. So my journey began.
Firstly I put an overflow on my 180 gallon aquarium. It’s just a bulkhead with 1/2” PVC pipe and a sponge over it to prevent fish from going for a ride. That line is plumbed around the corner to a trash can in my bomb shelter (yup...I have a legit bomb shelter, 4” thick sliding steel door and everything..). I have a pressure reducing valve dripping in water at about 50 gallons per day.
To get from the trash can outside I put a high head centrifugal pump draining from the bottom with a bulk head. Between actual height and tubing pressure drop I’m estimating around 25 feet of head and it gets about 30 gallons per hour. I also didn’t bother with an emergency float shut off because there is a floor drain right there, and running dry isn’t the end of the world either - so if the timing of anything is off it’s not catastrophic.
That water goes to a manifold with 5 outlets. 4 of the outlets are controlled by actuated valves, the 5th outlet is always open BUT with longer tubing.
The valves are controlled by an irrigation timer, set such that twice a day they go through an hour long cycle where each valve is open for 15 minutes. The pump is timed to be on for the same amount of time.
The always open tube is there in case the timing gets off I don’t want to dead head the pump. Since the tube is longer however the flow is way less, so over the hour it gets about as much water as the other tubes get in 15 minutes.
That’s about it. It’s been up and running for a month now and I haven’t needed to adjust anything, it’s great!
