Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

ok i have a mate with a load of land that he doesnt use who grows veg on a small part of the land that he sells locally, i told him about aquaponics and he has said that if i can show him that i can grow more veg faster and better with less work then he will help me setup a large system in a spare 3 acre field, also this has to be done cheaply, so thats the reason for the unusual build quality and materials used

best of luck mate and I hope it works out well

I think he will be very impressed

more pics

Is that a Westie? Watch out - they are natural born killers, GBHTREV!

and more pics taken a couple of weeks ago, tomorrow i will get photos of helicopter, they have enough of me, it is only a matter of time before they visit us to see what we are growing

yeah thats fizzy the westie loves my missis to bits, so much so that it sleeps on her head at night lol

this set taken today nearly ready to go just need to cut the holes

and more pics from today, it has taken a few days of tinkering to get the syphon to work, have recieved my registration papers so am now allowed to stock trout when water is ready, gonna do strawb tubes next to get as much produce going as i can in a small space, the tunnel is 60' x 15' but half is used for growing tomatoes that keep getting forgotten to be watered, as i have pointed out my veg doesnt need watering or weeding so is a lot easier than the conventional method of growing

That's awesome!

ok i went on evilbay and got two pumps for £22, they needed new bearings at a cost of £20 for 4 so i now own 2 pumps that have cost me £21 each,
oh yeah and they shift 16000 liters per hour each, a bargin for once, so no need for expensive pumps next year. sometimes evilbay does work

ok done a water test today and got
ph 6 ish (may be lower, adding shells today to buffer) no fish in yet so can live with ph for now
amm 0
nitrite 0.4
nitrates 40

have been fishless cycling using a homemade vortex filter that cost a tenner to make
used fish bone and blood meal to get ammonia levels and maxicrop for the feed,
these levels are after 4 days of the gravel bed being online and the vortex filter offline,
used the biomass from the vortex mixed with the gravel for a day to give the gravelbed a jumpstart

the vortex

2nd bin is cut up mdpe water pipe and the 3rd bin is a net of the innards of a cheap pillow

Hey mate, nice to see more project popping up in UK, I'm in Somereset and about to start an aquaponic farm, make sure you hold down the media screen in the filter or it will came up to block the outflow when it gets clogged, what about the fish tank and stocking capacity? any selected crops yet or just experimenting around with different plants?
anya reation to the raft beds?
PS: I had choppers flying over my head for nearly a year, of course taxpayer pay for the fuel! eventually they realise it was no illicit and gave up!

Nice work. Looks fantastic