Just for the record I get nothing for suggesting the book Small Scale Aquaculture, and all the components in the book are homemade. No systems are sold in the book.
The book has opened up a new world of possibilities for my side business of aquaculture and saved me a lot of money. A similar turn key system from AES is about 5 grand. I built all of this for about $400.00 tops. This book is gold mine for hobbyists too. Also there's nothing better than building your own system to fully understand the RAS concept and become self reliant.
I personally don't care for the trickle or underwater filters because they eventually clog with debris. With an RBC if you keep it separate of the fish tank (which I will do soon) it will stay self maintained indefinitely. There's also an incredible surface area of over 600 square feet in the one I built from the book, and it could easily maintain over 100 lbs. of Talapia in the swimming pool in question.
The clarifier is a gem too and easily built with a 55 gallon drum, some PVC, and some deer fence netting for filtration material. Easy to clean also.
Here's a small stock tank I used for my fish tank with the RBC in the tank. You can see a u-tube siphon in the foreground that automactially works via gravity to move water to the clarifier. No pump needed for that. However a small 60 watt pump does move water from the top of the clarifier to the frame of the RBC to rotate the RBC. There is another option in the book to run this all with an air pump and have additonal aeration to boot.
Here's the clarifier. It's amazing the waste this thing traps under the mesh filter material (deer fence mesh). It's very easy to drain and clean.
So how big is the Stock Tank you are using now?
How many fish do you have in it?
How long does it take to get them ready to put fish in them and what sizes are safe to put it in?
What exactly is RBC?
How often do you have to remove the solids and how hard is it to do? Thanks
