TCShad's Very Basic IBC System

Ronmaggi

Sa for placement, knock a few extra supports under the deck and place it all on the deck. Nice and close to the door.

SnowT

tcshad wrote:

Good point I'll consider what I'm going to do... Initially I had a 3000L/hr pump in my hand, but I looked at the energy rating and it was 75w. The 1050L pump is only 18w. I may add one more, and even if I got to 3 and get back to 3000L/hr I'll only be at 54w as opposed to 75. I'll also have pump mechanical failure redundancy.

Also re: moving all water - I thought this meant the "fish" water as the sump is behind the growbeds and technically shouldn't have any ammonia in it anyway... So I'll still be moving my 1000L every hour. Then again it's possible I misunderstood the concept. Either way it's nothing a second pump won't fix.

You need to take into account the amount of time the pumps are running..
- Also the head.. the higher you pump the less flow you get..
- A system that is near level is much better than a system that has to pump higher..

Personally I like the idea of the grow beds being about 4" higher than the level of water in the Fish tank and run the whole system as a constant flow.. in that case you get near full capacity of the pump and in such a small system manage to flow near the volume of the FT for about 18 watt's..

Hey just my ideas.. Enjoy..

Juergen

tcshad

I have now changed form my initial plan of 1 IBC to make 1FT and 1 GB, to 3 IBCs with a full 1000L fishtank, 3 growbeds and a sump chift pist system... unless someone else has a better suggestion for me. I am open to ideas, I only have a water pump thus far and can reconfigure the plans and ideas.

bunson

A classic, proven, stable, proven system! Love it!

Recommendation: make the GBs as deep as you can and add extra media as required, balanced with maximizing the size of the sump. Draw a plan; measure twice, cut once!

tcshad

bunson wrote:

A classic, proven, stable, proven system! Love it!

Recommendation: make the GBs as deep as you can and add extra media as required, balanced with maximizing the size of the sump. Draw a plan; measure twice, cut once!

Are you suggesting that instead of cutting at 300ml for 300L growbeds i cut at 500ml to make a full half IBC growbed?

What's the approximate volume of water a 300L and a 500L growbed full of media will hold? I'm not sure I'll have a sump big enough

RupertofOZ

Typically the media can be said to take up about 60% of the volume of the grow bed...

tcshad

The forum needs a thanks button so i can thank all the people for their useful info without adding postcount

bunson

If you cut an IBC at 300mm and want 300mm depth of media the GB will be full to the brim, so any disruption at all will result in little clay balls rolling over the floor, so you should leave "some" freeboard to allow you room to manouevre.

In order to optimise the GB depths vs sump tank capacity, you first need to know how much water your media holds. Lets say your media of choice holds 40% water, and you want to leave 50L of freeboard in each GB and 100L (max) freeboard in the sump and leave 100L sullage in the sump when the GBs are fully flooded.

So:
1 IBC has to make 1GB and 1ST =>
GB + 50 + ST + 200 = 1000L
GB + ST = 750L
ST = 750L - GB

And:
there has to be enough water in the ST to flood the 3 GBs @ 40% =>
ST = 3 x 0.4 x GB

Therefore:
GB = 340L
ST = 410L

If we assume each IBC is exactly 1000L (it's actually more) and zero waste in the chopping process; we'd end up with
3 x 390L GBs each with 340L of media requiring 136L of water to flood
1 X 610L ST holding 410L plus 100L extra sullage for the pump
1 x 1000L FT

Total media: 1020L
Total water: 1510L. Using 15/45 F&D cycle requires 6040lph pump (6000lph will do - I haven't done the water velocity through the GBs computation, but this seems a little fast, so you might require a smaller pump and longer pumping cycle)
Stock @ 1:25 => 40 fish (in mature system, initially less, but this MIGHT be too many in an IBC when nearly fully grown, that's up to you?)

Please check my maths: measure twice, cut once.

Scott

mjacko88

tcshad wrote:

I've received delivery of my IBC and now must decide where it will live. I need to probably set it up in this part of the yard

Attachment:

IMG_2012042923952.jpg

But i was also toying with the idea of putting just the growbed up there and leaving the FT under the deck somewhere. My only concern is when washing the deck that crap and chemicals could go into the FT.

Attachment:

IMG_2012042923524.jpg

That IBC looks like it had oil in it!!!

tcshad

it did. canola oil. It will be well cleaned before it's used in the system

tcshad

bunson wrote:

wall of awesome calculations

Thanks you're a champ

bunson

A 6000lph pump pumping equally to three GB will deliver 2000lph to each GB. To initially flood 136L of water will take just over four minutes, the remaining 11 minutes of the cycle will recycle this water another three times, which is a squeak too fast IMHO.

If you have a 4000lph pump and have a smart timer, you could pump for 20/40 which will flood the bed in 6 minutes and turn the water over in the GB just over two times more during the remaining 14 minutes; a much more sedate flow of water through the filtration.

Of course, these examples are made at zero head loss and strictly following the "all the water has to pass through the filter once per hour" rule; which can be relaxed somewhat, within limits and reason.

Scott

tcshad

I'm thinking about using autosiphons and a smaller pump constantly on

bunson

tcshad wrote:

I'm thinking about using autosiphons and a smaller pump constantly on

1000lph (minimum) running continuously should suffice, however, with such a low flow into each GB you might have trouble getting the siphons to start? Some fiddling/tinkering/fine-tuning might be required? Smaller pumps suffer greater head losses over smaller heights than bigger pumps do, so sometimes a bigger pump just makes more sense and will often save running costs as the small pump under load could draw more current than a bigger pump under normal loading.

Another option could be continuous flood? CF does away with the sump tank, unless you want a place to store some "spare" water, and you wont need to fiddle with siphons. BYAP testing has proved CF to be just as effective at growing plants and fish as the other methods.

Ronmaggi

Just as effective, until you add fruit trees.

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