Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I expect that choice of system elements will depend on situation as well as crops to be grown.

In an indoor climate controlled situation the zipgrow towers or NFT pipes are probably not a temperature issue since the air temperature will be more closely controlled and in such a situation the space is at a premium so making the best use of space with the appropriate methods will be very important.

I find spraying plants in towers or rafts easier than spraying large plants in a waste high 4' wide media bed and tending/harvesting large plants crowded into such a 4' wide media bed has been a problem for me even if I did have arms long enough to reach things since the plants on the edge are in the way of the ones in the middle.

Continual harvest type plants are a good choice for media beds, I will be doing narrow beds here soon to make tending/harvesting easier.

Rafts I find great for living lettuce sales, fast crops where I want to be able to lift out the plant with roots intact. Not much else excites me about rafts.

Towers are good for smaller plants like cut lettuce product, taking the towers to market or continual harvest of certain herbs.

Outlet sizing for standard NFT channels have been pretty much standardised... and defined for several decades...

And a commercial application is completely unlikely to have issues with clogging of outlet pipes....

And most certainly would NOT have issues of "decaying root-mass"....

Even in one of my past home systems below... where the basil is way past commercial harvest size... there wasn't any real "overflow" problem... and certainly no root rot, or decaying root-mass....

In a commercial context the plants would have been harvested weeks before....



And no overflow.. or clogging problems here in one of my more recent systems either... and the end lettuce were way past commercial harvest point...





Inlet sizing can have considerable variation.. but 13mm spaghetti tubing is common...

And while bio-film build up is certainly prevalent in aquaponics... due to the suspended solids that are common...

It shouldn't be in an NFT context... as the water supply should be well filtered... otherwise you will have root rot.. and pythium problems....

Why would you run a commercial aquaponics operation.... incorporating NFT to grow plants.. and do it any differently to proven hydroponic methodologies???

Indeed... why would you do it any different.. even with DWC...

You most certainly, IMO... wouldn't incorporate media beds.. and unknown, and uncontrollable biological processes... in a commercial operation...



Older style large commercial outdoor hydroponics operations... often did incorporate cooling tower units... usually attached to buried, or semi-buried... sump collection reservoirs... feeding back to buried, or semi-buried nutrient reservoirs...

But they weren't completely necessary in most climates... even in the heat of an Australian summer... and definitely not in winter...

Here's an example I prepared a few years ago.... (about a decade actually)...



But these days... as TCL points out above... most commercial hydroponics is done in temperature and pest controlled greenhouses...sorry, but it's just not a significant problem... and shouldn't be if you're utilising a correctly designed greenhouse..

But there are still some hydro operations growing outdoors.... and where necessary, employ cloth/mesh covering... which is almost always fixed.... and not removable...

But that's usually more for hail protection... than shade...

Indeed, only last weekend... I spent nearly two hours talking to the owner of a 50,000 hole operation in South Windsor.... covered by hail mesh...

And even in winter.... after several weeks of rain and cloudy days.... I can assure you that there was absolutely NOTHING wrong with his plant growth...

P.S... I'll take the camera next time I'm back up that way....


You've really got to be in the tropics.. with temps pushing 40+... to suffer any significant temperature problems... and if that's the case...

Then even with DWC.. you're water is still going to be around 30 degree C... plus... unless you utilise some cooling...

But even then.. it's perfectly possible to use NFT for commercial growth...

Like here for instance... http://hydroponics.com.au/issue-107-territory-lettuce/