Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi guys ! My name is Jordan Knox and I'm from Australia (NSW). I am in my final year of secondary school and I study Design and Technology as one of my subjects. This subject requires each student to complete a major project, in which makes up the majority of the marks for that subject.
After discovering this forum and learning all about aquaponics, I decided to construct an aquaponics system for my major design project !

I had hoped to continually keep you guys posted with my progress, but I haven't got around to putting any photos up as yet. The marking examiners from Sydney arrived at my house a few days ago to mark my finished project, but I won't receive my marks for quite some time.

So here it is folks, my finished major design project !

Cool little system mate, how big is the fish tank?

Welcome to the forum Jordan, we'll done Im sure you will do we'll in your project marks.

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The water is gravity feed to the grow beds. I have constructed an overflow manifold that removes all solid wastes gathering in the center of the tank. I constructed my fish tank from materials around the house such as tin sheets and rubber liner off cuts. The circular shape helps to gather the waste in the centre of the tank using the clockwise circulation of the water. The bath tub grow bed operates using an overflow pipe with continuous flow, and the barrels use loop siphons. All grow beds feed into a shared drainpipe which then flows into the sump. My system is powered by a 240 volt submersible pump. However I would like to increase the size of the pump as the water flow is quite slow.

Overall, I am very happy with my system. It has only been running/stocked for two weeks. I decided to simply stock the fish tank with goldfish for demonstration purposes. My water tests show the nitrogen cycle is still in its early stages, as I still have high ammonium levels in the water, is that normal at this stage?

Cheers, Jordan

Thanks guys ! The fish tank is around 1500 L approx, with a concave bottom to help center the fish waste