Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I just finished my storage room system, my first attempt at aquaponics. I have a small backyard pond and always bring the fish inside for the winter because the pond freezes over. This year I thought why not get something back from the fish so here it is.

It's not as sexy as some of the other setups here but I built it on the end of some existing storage shelves in my basement. I reinforced the shelves and added a few bits for the sump tank and grow bed. The fish tank is a rubbermaid 31 gallon tote, the grow bed is a 17 gallon tote and the sump is a 20 gallon aquarium. It's a CHIFT PIST system with a bell siphon in the growbed. I tried a loop siphon first and it worked until I put in the medium then it went crazy so I converted to a bell. The bell is working perfectly.
The little swirl filter is a 6 quart fuel funnel from the farm store.

I made the grow light with about $6 worth of electrical parts plus (4) 100 watt 6500K CFLs. The rest of the material I had around the house.

We are still using the top shelf and half of the other two shelves for storage.




The media guard was made from part of the rubbermaid tub lid rolled up and wire tied together.



Grow light




Lava rock media with about 3" of river rock on the top.



Since this is still a storage shelf I ran the siphon outlet into a larger pipe with holes drill under the water line to prevent splashing.



Baby swirl. It seems to be working.



Goldfish and Hanes filter. The sock is filtering out some of the dust left from the lava rock.
Last winter we had 20 fish the size of the two big ones in the upper right of the picture. They were about 3" long. In July we had a blue heron raid on the pond and they got all but three. Those three went into hiding for a few weeks. When they emerged they also had a whole bunch of babies. The babies are about an inch long now.

Cool, neat system Roger!

Thanks Dave.

I just moved the fish in earlier today and they were a little stunned I think. But tonight they are swimming around and eating good.
I hope to get some seed sown in the next day or two. Not a lot of room but I'm going to try some bib lettuce, spinach, basil, radishes and a cabbage.

Just a little update. I sowed some seeds on 10/18 and now have lettuce, radish and chard sprouts popping up. No signs of the basil or cabbage yet but but it's only been four days.

I have no idea what the ammonia, nitrite and nitrate numbers are since I don't have a test kit. All know is the ph is somewhere between 7.5 & 8 and the alkalinity is around 180. Whatever that means to whole system. I've been using test strips that I have on hand for the hot tub.
I had hoped to have a proper test kit by now but unforntunatley I was layed off about two weeks ago so no extra expenses right now. We have been unplugging all of our electrical devices when not in use to offset the cost of running the pump and grow light. With three tvs and two computers in the house I think it will be more than an even swap.

The water still looks clear, the fish are happy, there's a little bio action going on in the swirl filter and sump tank so I think things are on the right track for now.



I put three of the goldfish in this 10 gallon aquarium out on the desk. The grandkids like to feed them when they're here. I might try floating a small raft in this to see what I can grow.
I need to clean that glass! I didn't bother cleaning it when I brought it out of strorage.

lost my pic links









A new one. Two weeks after planting

Hmm. haven't posted anything since November when I noticed my pics were gone. So time for a small update.

All the goldfish in the system were born and raised in our backyard pond. Last summer a local blue heron discovered the pond and I thought wiped them out but there were still 3 large and a bunch babies when they came out of hiding. They moved into this basement system in October and it's been a lot of fun feeding them and growing stuff all winter. Two weeks ago I moved six of them back to the pond with idea of adding a outside growbed, which I will do. But now there are only two of the older and wiser fish left in the pond. Damn herons.

Anyway here's a pic of my hungry hippos in the basement.



I took the little swirl filter out. It really didn't do much and developed a leak. The bucket is full of sliced up water bottles and has an air stone, seems to be much more effective. I also added an air stone to the fish tank.



Time to harvest some chard. This is the 6th crop since Last October. Lettuce and chard do the best.



I had planned to shut this down for the summer and put the fish back outside but I like it so much I'll just let it run.

Still don't own a water test kit. I checked the Ph a couple times in the beginning with test strips for the spa. Haven't tested anything for months. Just feed 'em, add a little water when I hear the pump sucking air right before the siphon starts, and cut chard.

I'll get some pictures of the little pond, the dirt garden and my start on the outside growbed this week.