Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hey guys, it's Lizzy

I recently introduced myself as a new member and said that I wanted to do aquaponics vs. soil growth as my science fair project this year. I got some great info. and advice,
but it turns out that I might not be able to do this in the time frame that I have. I am open to different project ideas that involve aquaponics that I can begin in a time period of around four months. Does anybody happen to have any helpful ideas or suggestions? I was also wondering if anyone might already have a mature aquaponics system nearby that I could gather data from ( nearby being in Charleston SC but Charlotte NC is also a possibility).

Thanks

When is your project due. There may be a few tricks to get your system jump started like using someones aquarium water as well as some washing some soil from prestarted plants that can be transplanted into your small gravel beds.
Joel and Faye or Rupert of Oz who often bring display systems to shows may have some suggestions.

If you can find someone with a mature system in your climite and ask them to plant some seeds on the same day as you plant in soil. Its not ideal side by side trial but it might be the quickest way. AP does a lot better once it has matured.

Do you by chance already keep an aquarium? Or does anyone else in the family or nearby neighbors?

You might be able to manage something as simple as watering some house plants with the water change water from the aquarium and other house plants simply with plain water. That would be a pretty simple thing to do over a period of a few months.

There is a member in Wilmington, North Carolina that is currently working on setting up his system
http://backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=5259

Now back to your project and aquaponics. Perhaps simply documenting getting a bio-filter up and cycled might be worth a science fair project. It might not be as showy as a plant growth comparison but with a test kit, a couple/few small aquariums/small pumps and buckets of gravely and assorted plumbing bits. You could perhaps do some comparisons of say different methods of cycling a system up. Or perhaps compare cycling one system with some filter gunk from a friend's cycled aquarium filter and another mini system just cycling naturally.

Documenting and comparing some small systems getting cycled up could also prepare you if you decide you want to do a project next year where you use those system to do the side by side comparison of growing some fast veggies in soil and in the AP systems.

Ya might read about fishless cycling but I think you will want to find a source of urea fertilizer or some pure (no detergent, fragrance or other added) ammonia for a science fair project rather than using any of the "pee ponic" methods of fishless cycling. You can also use cheap goldfish for cycling up systems but cycling with fish always has the stress and danger of killing fish and can take longer if water changes are needed to keep the fish safe/alive

You could make a mini system from a couple of aquaria and it would be growing well in a couple of months.

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=2645&p=125119&hilit=demo+system#p125119

(scroll down a bit, the large image in the one post always messes up the scrolling)