Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Im new here and have been trying to read as much as I can, to understand how aquaponics works. This is a great site, heaps of info, (maybe a bit too much for me to wade through at the moment but I'll get there, eventually)

I love my veggie garden but since moving about a year ago I am struggling with sandy soils and heat and lack of water, hence not much is growing, actually what is left, which is a couple of silverbeet plants are struggling to survive.

I'm thinking of setting up a small system with 50L(ish) crates which you can buy from most shops and hardware stores (I have seen the black nylex ones advertised for around $15) My idea at the moment is 2 crates as grow beds above 1 crate as fish home and a pond pump to pump the water up to the grow beds and using a simple syphon (poly pipe looped around) to create a flood and drain system with a constant flow from the pump (meaning I dont have to worry about timers, and should be fairly failsafe, as long as it fills slower than it drains)

Maybe include a header tank to pump up into to save the pump from any excessive pressure from attaching pipes etc.

I'm still in the ideas phase at the moment, but that is the line of thinking which I am looking at for now.

I guess my main criteria is:
- parts have to be easily accessible (I am in a country town)
- be fairly cheap (I would love to have one of those pre-made systems but the budget wont stretch that far)
- easy to set up and maintain
- and it works to grow stuff

Id like to use yabbies, (if I can find any) as I think that size would be too small for anything bigger than goldfish.

Has anyone else set up a small system which has worked (or if not what went wrong with it)

And are there many people who use yabbies, and are there any tricks to keeping them (i remember a friend at school had a fish tank with some rocks with yabbies in it that her brother had caught from the local creek and they ended up having babies all the time, didn't seem to do anything special with them)

Also I dont think we have a hydro shop nearby so am thinking about using gravel, from what I have seen on here there seems to be a mixture between those using clay balls and gravel with good results for both.

Vanessa

Hi Vanessa, do you mean a "small" system, not a "mall" system? It's easily fixed
Have you checked the Small systems summaries?
http://backyardaquaponics.com/forum/vie ... php?t=1617

Yes Jaymie I realised that mistake after I posted it I hope it is fixed now.

And yes I have looked through that page I like the idea if TimC's system and Live Beyond's, and ecosys's.....simple but effective

yep, you fixed it as I was posting about it

Some of the school systems are small as well, a 2 foot tank and a small grow bed above.