Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

As I dont have enough confidence yet to make an AP plan, I thought I'd start with worm compost. I already built one and planning to build 5 more to handle our garbage output and start simultaneously so as to gather the worms already. But before I go on mass production I thought its good to post for comment/ suggestion for improvement.

In our place its difficult to find not just worms but virtually anything that has to do with AP. I haven't seen one or knew of anyone who has AP in our place. But I knew that here red worms are everywhere you dig. So I decided to catch them instead of ordering.

So here is the poor mans worm bin.

Its made of two empty sacks one over the other and fixed with short GI wires. and is at least 90 liters by vol.
two metal rings from scrap iron some GI wires for pin and 1 welding rod.



Just put I big nail on the wall and hang it.
Its open on both ends and the lower end is in contact with the soil. Put some fruit peels dead leaves saw dust and dog crap already. I figure that soon wrigglers will occupy the space coming from under the soil and will move up as fresh garbage is added.
since it is open and in contact with the soil, moisture will wick up or evaporate to make the inside moist all the time. since garbage normally heats up during decomposition and hot air rises I figure that a continuous slow draft will occur inside keeping it aerated. It will also have the benefit of ease of handling like if I wanted to harvest just a fourth all I need to do is tie a small rope on the right place, pull up and shake.

So what do you think? did I miss something?

I'll be interested to hear how it works out. I had pretty good luck with just composting on the ground to get red wrigglers so I'm not certain what you hope to gain by raising the setup off the ground. I'd be concerned that it would dry out faster raised up like this.

Cheers

Ground composting is batch type, right? This is a continuous flow system.
As i have mentioned this will also encourage upward air draft due to heat created by decomposing. ground composting is normally covered with something that prevents air circulation. And while this set up will encourage draining of excess water I dont think its going to dry.

Anyway lets see what comes up.

thanks