Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

This is my first system, it is a total of about 25 litres. It consists of a chinese golden algae eater (intending to get a few more as there is plenty of algae as you can see) and two white cloud minnows. The plants are a "potted colour" as well as a gardenia augusta florida. They are in pots of gravel in a planter pot, so one plant can be changed easily at a time (as the gardenia normally grows over a meter tall, and will be replaced when too big)

The system has been completed for about three months now and cost about $30 ish all up. However the plants have only been in for two weeks and the fish for one week.

Heres a view of it from outside

the water is pumped from one of the tanks (right in pic above) into this planter box, and down the pvc pipe (has holes and slots in it) into the other tank (left in pic above) pics of just left side and right side in my personal gallery

the water pumped up goes through the clear plastic tubing in the pic which has holes in it, and is zip tied to the plastic planter box

and both tanks are connected to each other by some larger clear tubing....so the fish can swim from one side to the other

The whole system is held together with aquarium sillicone and zip ties

Lastly a pic of the fish....(Sorry about the multiple posts but have not as yet discovered how to post multiple pics in the one post)

after adding the first one, just click browse again and so forth

Great to see another adelaide person here. Our ranks are growing. Good to see your pics. Keep em coming

Great little system and for 30 bucks well done
were did you get the plastic tanks for the fish tanks from and what are they made of.

Nice little system! well done on getting one up and running.

While in the end your choice of materials may not have been the best for food crops this is a GREAT little test system to get a feel for the concept.

just be aware that 25L is very small and you may have trouble with fluctuations of parameters until it cycles.

I have the same algae eater and it doesn't eat much

I'd chuck a gold fish (or a hungry tropical) in there as your main waste producer, but not more than that, the water chemistry will get way out of hand, and you don't want that in your first mini system.

Steve

Thanks, i will know how to post pics of my next system at the same time.
The containers were from cunninghams warehouse and are plastic (were ment for food storage)

Well there you go! your materials may be better than what we thoguht

Good job with the pics too, is always nice to see some!

Oh, and welcome

Thanks, the clear tubing is vinyl (and also food grade)

i was thinking of having it tropical, but the heater looked abit ugly (most were too big too) so went coldwater. I might catch one of the goldfish from the pond and chuck it in there (depending on how big they are)

are these types of containers ok if you aren't going eat the plants.

IMO you can get away with some horrible materials if you only plan on growing decorative plants. I mean they still weigh aquarium plants down with lead wire! So i'm sure the fish will survive................

Others may have opinions..........

Nice Daniel, I quite like the idea of the two interconnected containers with water pumping through the grow bed then into the other tank. Keeps the water moving...

Hi Daniel.

Nice tunnel. I really want one now I've seen an Aquaponic one...

Have you seen the ones that go up in the air then along? Saw some pics a while ago on an Aquarium site, To install them they just filled the tunnel with water, capped it, put it in place over the two tanks, and uncapped it.