Nitrate Reduction Setup!

[mrgrackle]

Miles,

Thanks. I'll ask my aquaponic friends

I wish this setup below was mine.. but alas, it's not.

Here's few pictures of some 'filters' In the first two you can see the stock tanks as well.

 

[Fish Eat Fish]

Wow thats very cool! I cant wait to have mine full of plants. Im uploading pictures of some of the progress right now

 

[Fish Eat Fish]

Heres the progress on my modified wet/dry that is fed by the overflow. This should ensure that only nitrates enter the refugium and not ammonia or nitrites.

assembling the box

Box with drain tube, drip tray, and supports

Idk if you can tell but I made the whole wet/dry using scraps of plastic from the bins lid! ha ha

Here my return pump filter box. Its an old odd shaped pitcher that I cut a rectangle out of about 1/2" smaller in all dimensions as my foam. Then I cut 1/2" deep slot in the sides of my foam and viola a pump filter.

And here are some of the plants I have at the moment.

Im actually not sure what this is but a guy at an LFS gave it to me for free hoping I would later buy the rest as it isnt a big seller.

Heres some water lettuce

Thats all the updates for now but im hoping to finish it up later tonight. The wet/dry is still drying and needs to be leak tested. then just some final adjustments to the system need to be made.

 

[Dan F]

Yea ive looked into those for my reef but man are they pricey. That would be ideal but I think several grow lights will do the trick and not break the bank as well.

They are a bit pricey, but if you are using it to grow plants, you can save about $80.00 by buying a 4300K bulb at Home Depot (under $20 as opposed to around $100 for a 10,00K bulb). "Grow Stores" also can be a cheaper source than an aquarium supply site. You should be able to pick up a bulb, ballast, and reflector for around $150.00.

 

[jfservic]

can a floresent light serve as a light source for plants? like the shop light here perposed.

 

[mrgrackle]

flour. grow lights will work for growing plants that don't need a whole lot of light... unless you go with one of those big compact flour. grow lights. At least the guys down at the head shops claim that the old flours. aren't worth much but the new compact flours. work well and take a lot less power. I've got a 200 or 250 watt compact flour. here somewhere that I've yet to set up and try out though.

another nice thing about the CFLs is that they produce a lot less heat. Might boil your fish if you kept a metal halide on it all day. Hehehe.. here in Austin, Tx cops check peoples energy bills to see if they're growing pot. A couple nice metal halides might get you a knock on the door too...

 

[mrgrackle]

Miles,

The dissolved organics get removed by the grow beds I'm guessing. The water in the grow beds constantly fills 'n drains. All the debris in the water is broken down in a highly oxygenated environment. Everything basically gets composted and taken up by the plants. It's really a huge filter, at optimum you're filter is twice the volume of the tank. Perhaps that's where the difference is... in regular aquariums and even in the huge commercial aquaculture the purpose/goal is just the fish. The size of the filter is kept to a minimum, in Aquaponics its a blend of hydroponics and aquaculture so the fish are only half the equation. I really think not having to do water changes in aquaponics comes down to the size of the filters... this link below shows a pretty optimal aquaponics set up.

http://backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1622

this is a link to a forum with a bunch of aquaponic systems.. all sizes

http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=18

 

[Fish Eat Fish]

I worked on it quite a bit yesterday and I even got my mangroves in the mail. I finish up my project last night and took some pics but was too tired to put them up. So here they are.

So far it works great! The water trickles in and flows through the system perfectly. And if you didnt already know better you might think I knew what I was doing!

I think I might use this to house small groups of feeders!

 

[Scorponok]

What's this a diy refugium?

Is this thing trying to filter the tank above in the pic? It's bigger than the tank itself.

 

[Dan F]

Is it a saltwater tank? Do mangroves do OK in straight freshwater? I always thought of mangroves as living in salt or brackish water.