Moving conversation here to the discussion chat.
Im tossing around the idea of doing a few improvements to the system. To help keep the water clearer, and help make some of the systems redundent.
Im thinking to make a “radial flow filter” for the system. This would help to seperate the solids wastes from the water returning to the fiah tank, and help concentrate it into the growbed for filtering.
The current sump tank had baffles built into it to accomplish this but it really disnt work as intended as the solids didnt really settle out how i hoped, and it created deadzones that couldnt be effecticely aggitated.
The radial flow filter works much like the cylone filter on a vaccuum line. Where the water enters a round counter at an angle to induce flow. The solids like to go to the outside wall and slowly fall down and collect on the bottom. Meanwhile the clean water is collected from the middle.
The idead would be to try and make a 20gallon filter in the shape of a hexagon from plywood. Have the fish tanks return lines go to the filter, and the clean water go back into the regular sump.
The radial filter needs to have a 20gal capacity as the pump for the grow bed wpuld be inside it and would need to have enoigh capacity to not run dry while filling the growbed.
This would also be combined with increasing the size of the water lines to the fish tank so the water can be pumped and turned over more quickly as well. As one of the biggest issues the system encounters is the accumulation of waste on the main tank pump line that slowly chokes the flow over time. This being the #1 cause foe the water becoming murky.
If we combine this with both a new radial filter to limit the amount of solids the main tank pump has to handle, and increase the size of the water lines so waste buildup is less of an issue, thwn this should fix the issue of the murky water on a much longer term basis.
Issue being is that this radial filter would need to be positioned to the side of the growbed as there is no room to put it. I dont think this is a huge issue. But since id be changing the foor print of the system and needing more space, id wanna write up a new proposal for the board to review. (As well as get an agreement that if i put the money into these mods that the board will allow me to run the system for atleast 6 months)
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Another point of consideration is that if i cant get volunteers to help maintain the system i may go to the board and propose converting the system to hydroponics (using chemicals instead of fish waste) this would leave the tank un-used. On the updates tab there is a poll asking what to do. I would add this to the poll going on in the aquaponics update thread but it wont let you update polls after 5 mins.
Remove the water, dry it out, prop it up a couple feet and just use it to show off other peoples projects. (Maybe leave some tank decorations amd hang up some fake fish lol)
[EDIT-adding images of the radial flow fliter]
24" tall, 16" flat to flat, just shy of 20 gallons
