Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I'm looking to leverage three 55 gallon plastic drums as filters for a 650 gallon fishtank. What kind of filters and in what order would you make each filter ?

Is this a Recirculating Aquaculture System fish tank or is it an Aquaponics setup with grow beds?

aquaponics with DWC troughs

1. Radial Flow Filter (removes settleable solids)
2. Static Upflow Filter (removes suspended solids) (you could also use a net tank but it's more of a pain to clean)
What gets through these two would be the dissolved solids which includes ions.

3. Might not need this depending on your fish loads and how you're setup but either it could be another Static Upflow Filter or a Mineralization tank to mineralize the solids removed in the other filters. You could also use this to aerate what leaves the other filters before it enters the plant channels.

+1 Scotty. I think 3. would also be a good idea.

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does the options above depend upon the DWC for nitrification ? [ or the SUF ? ]
pretty low volume for a 650 Gal fish tank if he stocks up...

else maybe some form of biomedia in #3
(eg. blue barrel of clay media, bottom feed with top overflow and bottom drain point as KISS,
else a Moving Bed Biofilter).

minimal solids after #1 and #2 should reduce the load on #3 to just elements in solution .
that gives the nitrification opportunity.

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Darren ( dlf_perth )

May the fish sh*t and the plants grow.....

Great suggestions, I'm looking into this flow now:

FISH TANK => RADIAL FLOW FILTER => STATIC UPFLOW FILTER => MOVING BED BIO FILTER

Hopefully will have some nice and clear water in the grow beds !

Make the third tank so that you can do the following
1. Change it from an MBBR to a SUF
2. Bypass it (or the first SUF) and use it as a mineralizer. The idea being that one can be offline acting as a mineralizer while the other filters the solids.

This is just a rough idea of how you could use these -
Use it as an MBBR if the DWC troughs are insufficient to process the waste from the fish and ammonia or nitrite levels are a problem.
Use it as a SUF if you have high fish loads and find yourself getting too many solids
Use it as a mineralizer if you have low fish loads and need to reclaim the nutrients removed when you remove the solids.