Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Winter has come, So i would like to share my progress with you guys. Click the links to see the pictures. I included them as links because they are large.

We (my girlfriend and I) have recently come to own a house, and with it comes the joys of being able to modify your yard as you wish. We recently have purchased a greenhouse to house all of the tropical plants that we have, as well as being able to raise some vegetables. In the short time that I have had the greenhouse, it has worked wonderfully for starting some seeds and keeping my plants happy and safe from the cold weather.

Firstly, we had to prepare the plot. We decided to place our greenhouse directly on dirt, but we had to clear off all of the grass and level the area. We rented a tiller from home depot to help break through the grass roots as well as break up the awful clay soil that we have so much of here in Texas. It took us about an entire day just to prepare a leveled area.

>Bare Plot Image<

Just when I thought leveling an area was quite a bit of work, the next day the greenhouse was on its way and arrived mid-afternoon. It came pre-assembled on a trailer, and getting it in to the yard was quite a task. We ended up rolling the greenhouse on several metal pipes across the entire yard to get it in to place (egyptian style/end to end). The guy who delivered it said that he was around when they invented the method

>Exterior Image<

After getting the building in place, the next step was to fill it up. It took me a few hours to move everything in and organize. We are still waiting to get an electrician to run 2 circuits to the greenhouse, one for lighting, and one for heating, pumps, etc. The Greenhouse is an 8'x20'.

>Interior Image<

I do not have any Aquaponic systems in place, however I am in the process of designing one with a specific purpose in mind. I do however have hydroponic systems in place, some of which have been running for over a year now.

I saved a few growing stems from my tomato before it froze, and wanted to show you my cloning results from just a week. These clones are produced aeroponically using a TurboKlone T24, with a timer @ 1 minute on 3 minutes off and regular tap water with no additives.

Tomato Clone at 1 week

And here is what they look like after being planted in to an actual system.

>Planted Clone<

As I work on my AP system, my efforts will be uploaded here as well. My current plan is to build a Nursery Aquaponics system to get plants started, with the eventual plan of them being moved to a soil or soil-less bed. I've never really had any problems with small hydroponic plants being moved to a dirt environment.

I started work on two small beds for an aquaponics system in the near future. I wanted to be as cost-effective as possible with this setup, so everything will be done with budget being a key factor at this point in time.

For beds, I decided to use the large Plasgad cement mixing tubs from home depot. 24.5" x 34.5" x 7.5" Yes, I know that these are not 12" deep and that the plants may not perform as well as if I had 12" of depth.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Plasgad-Large-Mixing-Tub-887102A/202086174

After doing some research on Bell Siphons, I decided to go with the plan as outlined on the following web page. However, I decided to silicone the fitting in the bottom of the bed to prevent any leaks.

2 Beds, All the fittings for 2 Bell siphons, and silicone were a little over $40. I will have plenty of 3/4" PVC left over to do other things with. This puts me at about $1 per gallon of grow space.

http://3x5aquaponics.blogspot.com/2011/12/bell-siphon-parts-list.html

You could have used uniseals - cheap.
I got mine from a company in florida
https://www.aussieglobe.com/

Got some more work done over the past few days. I finalized and tested both bell siphons and tubs. I was surprised at how quickly the grow bed drains, and how low I was able to get the water to drain down to. The current hole design pulls everything out but about a half an inch of water, and has drained and flooded reliably for 48 hours. I am currently testing with a small pump, sized perfectly for a single 20 gallon bed, however I plan to use a much larger pump that I have laying around for all of the beds in combination.



The following picture shows the approximately 50 gallon tank, with one of the beds on a stand I had sitting around. In order to reach the 1:2 ratio of Fish tank to grow bed, I will need 5 beds in total for 100 gallons of grow space.

This will make the row approximately 10.5' x 3' with 8 Inches of depth. I plan to use a wood frame around the entire system to create a more elegant looking design, and may allow for another inch of clay pebbles/Hydroton to expand the dry part of the grow bed.



I am still working on the media gaurds for the first two beds as well.

I am epic ally envious of the greenhouse. Where did you get it from?

The rules in my municipality make it really difficult to build my own greenhouse but preassembled like that get a rubber stamp.

maybe it;s your camera lense but it makes 8' x 20' look large.


brian