Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

My system runs pretty much opposite to most of the other systems on here. See I used to live in Austin and have a backyard, but now I live in San Francisco and am lucky to even have the tiny balcony that I do! This has forced me to get into more... "creative" farming techniques .

I have a nice little hydroponic window farm that does pretty well, but I really like the idea of aquaponics. I also happen to be pretty handy with electronics and software, so that all led me to this project.

I'm trying to build a tabletop aquaponics system that would appeal to fellow apartment dwellers, children, classrooms, etc with a focus on education. I know that it's much more challenging to keep the chemistry right in a small system, so that's why I'm working on making it "smart". I have an arduino hooked up to a variety of probes to monitor things, and am working on automating everything. The idea is to make it brain-dead-simple for someone to get started, and then gradually familiarize them with the science of what's going on. You'll be able to monitor and control the system from a smart phone app.

I'm using pre-built tanks for the aquarium part to speed things up, and I'm laser cutting acrylic to build the top part for the grow bed. I'm using a flood and drain system with a continuously running water pump, and a loop siphon to drain. Might move to a bell siphon for aesthetics at some point, but the loop works for now.

Here are some pictures of me assembling prototype #1. My second prototype is rectangular for reasons that will become obvious (trying to seal non-square acrylic joints == bad idea!).

Prototype #1 top & bottom assembled


Prototype #1 filled with pump, siphon, and filled with clay


5 hour energy bottles make great siphon filter guards


Turns out, silicone and duct tape do not last


I've already built prototype #2, and I think I'll be ready to load it up with fish tomorrow (woo!!). I'll post more images of that soon.

Welcome Doug

Looks like you having fun with AP. Ive seen a number of novelty type systems like these pop up over the years. A couple of things to keep in mind is that you need access to the fish to feed them and you need access to the water to do water tests. Also, eventually algae will build up everywhere.

Have fun

Thanks Charlie. Yeah, prototype #2 is more thought-out in those areas. I went rectangular and left space on the back. I've got an automatic fish feeder that fits back there. It's just programmed independently for now, but I'll wire it up to the arduino when I get to it.

As for testing the water, I've got a PH probe hooked up, so I'm checking that many times per second . Once I get the software written, I'll just have it send me a notification if it starts changing. Nitrites, nitrates and O2 measurements might have to stay manual unless I can find cheaper probes.

Here are some pictures of #2. Just added fish!

Prototype #2


New siphon and guard


Access to fish tank behind grow bed

they look great, very impressive

Have you seen this one Doug viewtopic.php?f=13&t=14437&hilit=kick%2A

Yeeeeeees. And it kinda bummed me out for a while because I was just starting prototype #2 when the kickstarter went up.

But I think we're going for two different things. They're shooting for the casual consumer price range (~$50), and there's no electronics aside from the pump. I'm more interested in integrating a system with technology to help make it fun and engaging.

Mine will probably be looking at $100-150 in parts, but I think the intelligence from the electronics will be critical in such a small system to keep things in balance.

The "intelligence from the electronics"... is only going to report what's going on... it wont "keep things in balance"...

Well, unless you incorporate an automated pH buffer dosing system... and perhaps an ozone... and/or carbon dioxide injection system....

Well, I could wire the fish feeder, heater, pumps etc up and control them based on rules. You're right though, the most important variables will be hard to automate.

It's really not about automating *everything* though. It's about the fact that most people don't have the time or interest to babysit an aquarium's PH, temperature, etc. If your aquarium would just tweet at you "hey! add a couple drops from the blue bottle when you get home!", I think that's a level that most people could get behind--maybe they'll start to get more interested in the science.

Btw, if you did want to automatically control the PH, you could wire up a couple of these to PH up and down reservoirs. You can get them cheaper, but still probably add too much cost to be worth it though.

Trying to make the place a bit more hospitable looking for fish. It hadn't been running long, but parameters looked pretty good (6.5 PH, 0.25 ammonia, 0 nitriate, 0 nitrate), so I plopped 4 brave tetras in there to see what would happen. Two days later and 3 of them have taken that long swim to the toilet in the sky, but 1 is still alert and going strong.

Not totally sure what did them in, but I did notice some pretty rapid gill movement as they shuffled off their coils, so I'm going to work on attaching a fan nozzle to the return to hopefully get better O2. The tank cycles pretty rapidly (~2 minutes fill time, 40 second drain time) and it moves the full 30 liter capacity every 15 minutes or so.

I'll give it a few days before I try any more fish and give it some time to get better established.

Looked a little too barren with just a couple rocks...


That's better!

Hey FarmerDoug,

you system just rocks!

I am new to aquaponics and would love to build something liek this. You have more updates and pics on this project?




Thanks a lot...