Diverter for growbeds

[PeterA]

Hi everyone,

I was wondering what other peoples thoughts were on the following.

You have your aquaponic system up and running. Instead of pumping your water into the same growbeds all the time, you add the same number of growbeds you already have and alternate the water being pumped between the two groups of growbeds. (That is if you can somehow rig up a automatic diverter between the two growbed groups.)
Therefore your original set of growbeds will be getting half the amount of water each day, but you would have twice as much growing.
The main standout would be less nutrients now in the original set of growbeds, however, does this mean a slower rate of vegetable growth or because the growbeds are still getting vital nutrients throughout the day (even if it is only half of what they used to get) they still grow just as fast and strong?

Another way of asking this question could be, how do you know that your plants in the growbeds are using all the nutrients and that these nutrients aren't being wasted where they could be used for other plants?

Thanks.

[Murray]

The plants will tell you if there is not enough nutrients by poor performance.
If there is too much....a simple way will be to test the water for Nitrates.....If it is very high, add more grow beds and plants.

A couple of years ago someone on this forum played around for a while with solenoid controlled taps etc as a means of diverting water etc and concluded in the end it added too many fail points to the system.

The smart way is to keep it as simple as possible. One pump and auto siphons are the way to go.

The KISS principal.

[aussieap]

Hi Peter. Plumbing stores like Reece have plug and go manifold setups for pumping to different areas. They are not particularly expensive. Your pump can run continuously (more efficient) or not and you grow more food.
Need to be a bit tighter on water quality as to get the nutrients for the greater grow bed area, you will need to pump more food into your fish. Give them as much as they will eat in 30 minutes, 2 or 3 times per day. Use floating pellets to more easily monitor if it is being eaten v sinking and being pumped out to your grow beds.
Your plants will soon tell you if they have enough nutrients.
Hope this helps.

[Outbackozzie]

On another forum someone lost 95% of their fish due to having a diverter fail.

A sensibly stocked system will have enough water to supply the required amount of growbeds.

If you can finds something that works, and can handle the amount of gunk in the water, I'd be interested in seeing it.

[Dufflight]

An easier way is how I'm going to be setting up my system soom. Stepped GB's with the water from the 1st GB going through the second before it goes back to the FT. You can have twice the amount of media with the same amount of pumping.

[fishfood]

The only thing with stepped grow beds if running auto sypherns you will need to add a little water to the second bed as the exact amount you need may not drain down

[Dufflight]

Was thinking of that. When the pump runs for 15min it sends a lot of water over the overflow and holds the siphon back a little from breaking. My 1000ltr GB will not break until the pump stops. So the second GB will get enough water to siphon. Also the top ones are going to be 500ltrs and the second ones will be the 380ltrs. So fingers crossed.

[starter]

I hope Im in the right place and Im still planing. Can I come out of the GB go into a sump and pump the water into a DWC system before returning to th FT? As for the Diverter can a lawn sprinkler valve be used like on auto lawn waters?

[GaryD]

Hi Starter,

You can use a grow bed to filter water before it goes into a raft (DWC) tank. Normally, the water flow would be from the fish tank into the grow bed then into the raft tank and then into the sump. The pump, which is located in the sump tank, would then move the water back into the fish tank.

I'd also recommend that you put some form of mechanical filtration between your fish tank and the grow bed. The more muck that you can remove at this point, the better.

You don't need a diverter for this arrangement.

Gary

[fishfood]

I hope Im in the right place and Im still planing. Can I come out of the GB go into a sump and pump the water into a DWC system before returning to th FT? As for the Diverter can a lawn sprinkler valve be used like on auto lawn waters?

Except for the lawn sprinkler thats how part of my system has been running for the last 3 years no problem