How to set up aquaponic grow bed & select the right rock.

g'day folks thought I'd give you a bit of a look at how I plumb this new grow bed into the aquaponic system it's a bit of a how to own in as much as how I do it there are so many different ways you can plumb up grow beds to akwa ponic systems and different style of grow beds I mean you've got your constant flow beds where you've got water in there the whole time this one here is a flood and drain and in the flood and drained family you've got a few different options you've got time to pumps that allow the beds to flood and then drain through a small hole in your stand pipe I mean you've got bill siphon like we use I've seen a tee siphon getting around also loop siphons all manner of different ways you can plumb these guys up so I'm just showing you how I do it I've done it on four or five other beds and I'm pretty happy with the way they go I think I've pretty much all got the idea down pat so I'll give you a bit of a run through that and just show you you know how I process the rock to go in here and a few of the things that happen along the way so let's get cracking so there you go folks that's where the grow beds being set up just in front of those two filters and the first sump tank down the base we have a stand made up of reclaimed Gao pipe my father came out brought his tools and let me play and welded up the stand after those people concerned you know my father's got a resume that reads like a small novel is an engineer he knows what he's doing in the risks involved when it comes to welding gal so had a few concerns raised when I posted pictures in other places the grow bed itself is made out of the side of an IBC the cage as well so I'm not going to go through that here if you want to check that out I've got a bit of a look at how I've cut up the two previous beds on an earlier clip just don't want this clip to end up being a epic so the stands being levelled I will almost level what I've got is a situation where everything is draining off into that corner over there because that is where the bell siphon will be set up so there's only a very very slight lean down towards that corner I've also wired on the cage onto the stand itself I've just drilled some holes in the corner and wrapped some wire around either side of the pipe on the corner just decided to keep it nice and steady I don't want anyone you know running in here and stopping themself on it and pushing the whole bet off that could be a bit of a catastrophe so I've just done that is a bit of a safety precaution the weight should hold it on Abbot you can never be too careful and now all I pretty much will have to do is drop the skin in and drill the hole over in the corner for the drain to go back into the subtank so one thing to consider when putting in these bulkhead fittings is you need enough room to be able to turn the nut underneath I'm not really a problem on a purpose-built tank or grow bed I should say but with these IBC's because they've got the metal ribbing that is actually supporting the base of it you need to be able to position it in such a way where you can actually turn the nut and lock it on to the pipe hook all right I've pretty much well positioned it just put a mark in the center there and I can drop the whole fall right through there now the trick with these hole saws when working with plastic is to start the drill off in forward and then once the the teeth of the saw itself hit the plastic reverse the speed and you'll get a nice clean to cut that way and you also don't run the risk of the tip cutting in and ripping and distorting the hole here we go we've got a nice clean hole there now all I need to do is give it a bit of a cleanup just for the knife just get any of those on the ridges off it there you'll just help the washer sit and lice and flat on there and give you a better seal so I go from the top first just spin it around actually I might take my plate down that's nice and flat all relatively flat so there we go I think that's pretty much well clean enough now the shred itself was pretty easy to make all I've done is drilled a couple of holes on either end of a line and then I've got the jigsaw and just cut out these little holes I tried using the drop saw wasn't safe enough I thought so I decided to use another method if I had a table saw probably work a lot better down the bottom here I've drilled out another series of holes these guys are just to let as much water from as far down in the bed as possible drain at once and around the site here I've drawn a couple of arm lines just so that all these holes will meet up once I put this end cap in these end caps I really do like to have them underneath the bulkhead fittings now mainly because they stop people from lifting out your screen your guard here I'm in the first barrel planning system we made my daughter came along and grabbed the top wasn't her fault she tried to pull the top off lift the guard as well so we ended up with gravel or solid clay going all down through there into the fish tank you know it's a real mess to try and clean up so I figure you know for a couple of extra bucks throwing one of these end caps on can't hurt and these holes will help it drain all the way to the base anyway so on the bulkhead fitting assembly I'm actually using two watches I'm going to put a rubber washer there underneath the shroud and then put the bulkhead fitting through then on the underside pop on another washer and screw em on and there we go that's pretty much more sorted now the next part of the bell siphon is just this little fitting here no tape needed it just screws in there and that will take the 20 mil stand pipe that I'll be popping in here now for the guard just have to match up the marks we put on the side here where are we there we go all those holes down the base there now meet up nicely now just on the top I'm going to put one of these modified end caps just another 100 mil end cap that's like what's on the base I've just cut some bits out of the side there and it just makes them sit a little bit looser enough to stop critters and rocks and all sorts of bits and pieces getting in there but easy enough just to pull off you know one-handed so this is the blue metal or the crushed bat salt that we'll be filling the bottom half of the grow bed with I won't be filling the whole bed with this on the top layer I'll be still using a clay it's a little bit easier on the hands and I want to encourage the girls to get their hands into the system as much as they can when you're selecting rock for your system it is a good idea to know why where that rock comes from and what sort of rock it is I've seen guys use our rock mixes that contain limestone and what happens is it just throws your whole water chemistry out your PHS it goes up through the roof locks nutrients out to your plants are not a very good thing at all the reason that is is because there's limestone in the rock mix and because the water in an aquaponic system tends to become acid over time that water then acts on the limestone releases carbonates and it shoots your pH up so it is a good idea to know what rocks going in there and to have no limestone whatsoever now the best way to make sure the rock you've selected is safe to use is to make a little jar or container in the bottle of vinegar along to your landscape supplier I'm asked them nicely if you can do a couple of tests I went out into the lot and I took the sample of this stuff here popped it in the little jar cover it over with the vinegar and there was no bubbles released no carbon dioxide so this stuff is definitely inert and the safe to use as a grow dead media also went and tested the river rock I was thinking about using river rock in the system it was an earth there was no bubbling whatsoever it would have been alright to use but just you know price wise this stuff works out a little bit cheaper so I pretty much will decided to stick with this so this stuff here is going to get a bit of a wash before it goes into the grow beds as you can see on the hands it's a little bit dusty and I definitely don't want those fine particles you know floating around the system also - I don't know what other contaminates has picked up along the way in from the mine on this journey to the landscape supply or a while it's been sitting there so I think it's just a good idea to give it a bit of a hose out so to wash this stuff out I just put it in a compost screen on top of a bit of shade cloth and just get it with the hose so there you go that's what the water looks like after washing out all the rock a lot of dust in there and not something I'd want to be adding into the system that already has fish in it could cause a few health problems but if you don't have compost screens a good idea would be just to you know lay down some shade cloth on your lawn give it a bit of a hose and you just make sure you get rid of all the dust and any other crud that's in there that might affect your fish I've used the large gauge mesh compost screen and I've got a lot of the small rocks out and I'm just using these larger ones and that's what I've just been packing around the standpipe itself it'll just stop any of those smaller rocks getting in there and causing a potential blockage of any sort so I'm just giving the rock one final rinse in situ and that wastewater will go out to fill up a wicking bed and then we can start on the clay and hopefully the bed will be done by this afternoon just washing off the clay pretty much well in the same fashion as you can see very dusty stuff lot of fine clay particles so going to give that a spray get as much off as I can buy so that's about 5:30 I've put the clay in there's roughly around about three and a half bags I'm just filling the bed once just to level it off basically what's going to happen is the water I can see it coming through there and the water comes up and you can move the clay around get a nice and level and then hit the drain let it take out or any of the mucky water I don't think will be that dusty and yeah where we go I'll be out first thing in the morning once we organize the girls and I'll finish it off the plumbing is the main thing that needs to be done now so there you go folks there's the bed all set up the Plumbing's been done it was drizzling when I set that up so I didn't film it at the time so we'll cover that in a minute just what is planted out with along the back I have three lots of honey pod peas then in front of that they're just a sugar snap pea then in front of that I've got six one box of Chinese cabbage and five lots of Vitra along the front there now I also like to put in a bit of aqua now spinach and maybe fill up a few gaps down the side with some more be true we'll just wait and see just along the back there you can see the cage that holds the grow bed I've wired on a bit of a trellis now that trellis goes all the way up to the top hat and is wired on the top there and that's basically just for those sugar snap peas give them something to climb on it's actually on a bit of an angle so I'll give you a bit of a different perspective on that so the trellis as you can see is on a fair bit of an angle and there is a very good reason for that the Sun comes in on this angle where and went to down here at the moment so all these veggies are the front and going to get the Sun but it also means that these sugar snap peas are going to try and grow towards the Sun so what I'm hoping will happen is they'll grow up through the mesh and then they'll lean over and fall on top of it they won't be cutting out any sunlight from the Wambach and the beetroot and whatever else goes out the front there because the Sun is coming in on that sort of an angle at the moment in some it wouldn't be such a great idea because the Sun travels pretty much roll over head and it would block out a lot of light from those on lower veggies so I just thought I'd just show you that that's just a bit of an idea I'm playing with if it doesn't work I'll take it down we'll just pop over now and I'll give you a look at how the plumbing to the bed is all worked out from the pump so just down here we have the pump the pump is just at the end of that PVC pipe this lot hose here goes out to the fish tank and hose that comes out at the top of that fitting comes down to the master valve here through a nut and tail assembly down to the valve that takes the water out to the new grow bed I may be adding more grow beds onto this I thought a masters out there would come in handy this is basically a barb fitting barb t-piece to Barb's there and it's threaded in the center and that's where I've just connected this valve this valve I picked up on a bargain discount bench at a plumbing supply store for a couple of bucks great bargain they're down here just another nut and tail job' I find using these nut and tails here and there's another one up here I find them really good to use around the place because it means I can just remove these hoses from the system I'm after I turn off valves of course and I can work on it you know without too much hassle I don't have to cut pipe does make life a lot easier anyway back to the system this phase here then runs down along the ground there I've drilled a hole in my small retaining ball there and the hose runs under the rock all the way to the other side of the grow bed and will pop over there and pick it up on the other side so down here we have the hose emerging from under the rock it's just running up here to a valve I've got it zip tied on to the leg so it doesn't get knocked around the bottom of the valve the hose is held on with a hose clamp because there's high pressure coming from the pump on the top side I'm not worried about it is running low pressure the valve itself is useful to isolate the bed from the system and also to to regulate your flow into the bed as you can see it's not on football here and that helps you adjust your flow rate for your bell siphon to get it to initiate and turn off properly then if you follow the hose all the way up we have twin ninety degrees it just directed down into the bed now the other part of planning on here is the bell siphon over in the corner or duck around have a bit of a look just over here at the bell siphon end of business we have an end cap just over our 100 mil shroud or four inch shroud just cut out a bit of the side wall like I might have mentioned before the bell itself is made out of 65 milk i'p and has an overall length of about two hundred and forty millimeters the standpipe inside here has an overall height of one hundred and ninety millimeters if I can get it out from the very base of the grow bed and is made up of 20 mil pipe it runs into a one-inch to 20 mil or sorry a one inch to 3/4 inch 25 mil to 20 mil reduce event and that's just based on that lens design of having a wide mouth for a lot of water to fall through into a narrower pipe just to initiate the siphon a lot faster so popping back in there so I'm pretty happy with the 50 mil gap between the top of that stand pipe and the top of this this bell here it's 50 mil 2 inches I've had no problems with the siphon initiating at all I'm really happy with that arrangement most of our siphons are made up fairly similar to that now so they all work fine just to give you a bit of a look at how the drain is configured I'm using recycled parts here some of these parts I've used on two or three different builds so what I like to do is I like to push the fittings together a little bit of the white Teflon plumbing tape wrapped around the end and then I Zepa three one six stainless steel screw through it just means that you know when I rebuild beds or change my mind on designs I can adapt these out and I've got workable parts again if I glued all this together it would be you know a bit of a pain in the butt to unglue them all using a heat gun and you don't always get a good seal on the joints afterwards or once you've reclaimed them that way so what I basically have is a screw thread that goes on to the bulkhead fitting up the top there and I've got a little 25 mil or one inch o ring that just sits in between the two gives a nice watertight seal then a bit of pipe pushed in there teflon tape and a three one six screw is apt around this backside on this fitting here same thing teflon tape around the pipe screw on the back down here same thing screw down there three one six screw so it just means I can reclaim the parts like I mentioned other people you know groove a little way to your heart's content this is just the way I do it the other fitting I could have used on here is this little threaded elbow I could have spun that down up onto the thread there and had the pipe coming through the only problem is the tail and this bulkhead feeding is so short the it would have had to um yeah remove some of this pipe was an oxy cutter or something like that so just a lot easier to run it this way they're all parts I had on hand so I didn't have to run out and buy anything so that's just the drain assembly and from there it just runs down straight into the sump tank and away she goes my time this the other day and it's properly about a minute pull the water to start flowing full force out at the end of that pipe there and took about 240 minutes for the whole bed to drain sighs I'm pretty chuffed with that just a couple of quick points when adding a new media bed please take into account the amount of water needed to fill this water grow bed because if your sump tank isn't large enough you will run it dry the last thing you want to do run your sump tank dry burn your pump out water stops flowing and you kill your fish so I've know I've got more than enough water in my sump tank to be able to run all four grow beds full of water at one point in time I won't give you numbers and figures because every one system is different and I don't want something to copy my numbers and end up stopping up because there's a slight variation in their system also - another thing to take into consideration is you will be splitting your flow from your pump once more that's if you're running your flow from the pump if you're running it from the fish tank well then there's no graphic drummer but I've got more than enough water flowing into my two fish tanks there's one there and there's another one over there I've got more than enough water flowing into them to replace the volume over 1.5 times an hour so I know there's more than 1500 liters an hour's running both grow our fish tanks there and the rest of the water a split between this grow back here and the other four grow beds and a couple of barrels I have in the system so I just wanted to point that out better it gets pointed out now then you end up with a disaster down the track running your sump tank dry and yeah running into all sorts of problems so there you go folks is a bit of a look at how I plumb these beds in there all pretty much well done the same the same bell siphon and the same sort of pipe work used on them I hope that's helped guys who are a little bit curious about how to plumb a bed into assistant this is just the way I do it search around YouTube forums websites for different methods of doing it and you might find something that suits you a lot better this is just the way that I do it if also to the rock and the clay I know someone's going to ask we've got some clay put aside under the house for another build and I pinched a bit from that a bit of its left over from this one you don't need to use the clay it can get expensive if you don't have the money put aside from it I'm a pretty frugal bloke so I don't have many vices so I don't mind springing for the clay that's why I'm using it but the rock if I had my time over again and yeah I didn't have the money I'd just go for that black black that blue metal that's all you really need um other than that what else also Andy Andy staying out with Hamish Gail and Nicole from naughty goat farm here on YouTube so Andy came along and I got to meet him and have a great yard so great to meet you Andy and I hope you enjoyed looking at the system came all the way from Singapore to visit so anyway I will pretty much we'll leave it there if you do have any comments questions or suggestions feel free to drop them in the comment section below and I'll get back to you where I can if you want to check out the history of this system and a couple of the little builds that have gone into it check out the little playlist up there on just the vlogs and that'll take you to a bit of a back catalog and you can suss it out other than that thank you all for coming along I hope everyone's well and happy and I'll catch your next clip cheers folks and look who's come to help me clean some rocks get out Hamish not gonna happen

Channel: Rob Bob's Aquaponics & Backyard Farm

Views: 281,781

Keywords: how to aquaponic, aquaponic, aquaponics, grow bed, how to grow bed, bell siphon, how to bell siphon, how to siphon, grow bed media, selecting grow bed media, aquaponic media, how to aquaponics, Aquaponic gardening, urban farm, murray hallam, Aquaponic source, Bits out the back, vegetable gardening, self sufficiency, vegetable Gardening (TV Genre), Vegetable (Food), نظام الأكوابونيك, aquaponik, ਇਕਵਾਪੋਨਿਕਸ, acuaponia, アクアポニックス, 鱼菜共生, aquaponics system, aquaponics systems design

Id: FXPvf2oBT3Q

Length: 18min 58sec (1138 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 26 2015