Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

How's your system going?

Hi Tropical Farmer,

Love the system hope it all goes well for you.

Where do you get those growbeds from they really look the goods.
I think I spend half my waking hours wondering how to get enough GB's it's driving me
crazy.

Hi Tel,
I got the in the fish section at chatuchak. The lady is pretty much the only one there who specializes in tanks, she is near the 7-11 inside jj mall. They are 30cm deep so fit the growbed needs well. 3,500bt I believe.

Impressive system!

Hello TF, nice set up you've got there.

How about the towers where did you get them from? I've an idea to set some up, I can't seem to find them anywhere.

Thanks.

Hi Tang Mo,
I got the towers from Robert at aquaponics Thailand. He has 1.5m and 1m lengths. 900bt for the 1.5m, don't know for the 1m. He's also the only place I've seen who has seasol and dtpa iron that won't turn your water red.

Hi guys,
Figured I'd give an update of my system.
In the time since I last posted, I've switched over to DWC, added additional filteration and now have decoupled the system with a mineralzation setup.
I've learned I enjoy tinkering with my system more than I do actually growing plants! My system has been hibernating for around a year and hasn't produced anything edible for about 8 months probably but I'm making a push to grow something during our cool season this year.
For the last 2 years I've battled with trying to get some sort of plastic roof over my system to protect from the rain but it's always ended up with water pooling on my plastic covering and the roof collapsing. I know how I could do it but this is a rental and I don't want to drill a bunch of holes in the guy's house and this will hopefully be my last winter in this house so I've gone to just shade cover and the plants will have to fend for themselves under the rain.

I originally started with around 40 tilapia and 6 koi/carp. I'm now down to about 9 tilapia and the same 6 koi. I think the tilapia are all at least 1kg at this point and the koi are also pretty fat but they don't seem to be a species that grow quickly. They're probably pushing 500g at this point. They'll all be around 3 years old in June.

I have a total of 5 growbeds. 4 are DWC and are decoupled and 1 I have left with the original lava rocks which is still connected to the fish loop and acting as a bio filter. Also the towers are still part of the fish loop. Was just going to be too much of a pain to change around the plumbing to decouple them.

Filteration
I have 5 barrels connected to the fish outlet. In order, they are:
Radial filter
Upflow filter (is that the right name?). Basically the inlet is in the middle of the barrel and the water needs to travel through a fish filter to then overflow to the drain
Upflow filter
aerated bio balls
aerated bio balls
From the bio balls the water splits between the lava rock grow bed and going directly back into the sump. The pipe and drain to the lava rock bed isn't big enough to handle all of the water. The pipe also T's off from here and extends to my plant sump for refill when needed.

Decoupled
Pretty easy. I had an extra growbed to use as a sump. Chucked it under the middle growbed, plumbed all the growbed drains to empty there and put a small sump pump I had laying around in there for recirculation. That small orange valve on the left is the water line from the fish system to top up the plant sump when needed. The 3/4" pipe with the small hose coming out is the air line for the growbed.


Mineralzation
These consist of 3 barrels that gravity feed from right to left. I'll clean out the radial filter into a bucket, walk over to the barrel on the right and pour the fish waste into that. As that barrel fills up, it overflows into the 2nd barrel. As the 2nd barrel fills up, it overflows into the 3rd barrel and then when the 3rd barrel fills up it overflows into plant sump. I put a filter between the 3rd barrel and the plant sump to try and avoid any solids that make there way over. All of the barrels are plumbed for air but I only have the last one running right now per Cookie's advice. I'll set up that area next to the 1st barrel to be a compost/worm tea station to take advantage of the existing air line.

Attachment limit hit. Continue below

Seedling tray
Also set up a seedling tray. Run a small pump from the sump over to the tray and germinate in sponges. Seems to work pretty good but algae builds up pretty fast.


The reason I decoupled is because I wanted to be able to put whatever I wanted in my plant water and not have to worry about the fish. I don't plan on using hydro chemicals or anything but I'd like to be able to optimize for the plants.
With my low fish density and feeding I know that I won't have the nutrients for the tomatoes and peppers I want to grow so I will be adding nutrients. I plan on using Korean natural farming inputs such as fermented plant juice, fermented fruit juice, etc... Keep everything natural.
Even with my low fish density though, my nitrates are through the roof. Checked last week and was easily at 200ppm. My tap water is <5. So I'm going to try my best to plant out those towers to help but does anyone have any good advice on how to denitrify besides just planting more plants?
Not a super detailed update but if you guys have any questions or suggestions please fire away!

Nice system! What part of Bkk are you in? My system is in Nakhon Nayok, but I'm in Bkk a few days every week. I have the same cheap PH meter, but haven't been able to calibrate it, so I use the API test. I imagine those towers were warming the water a bit? I put a 1000lt sump in the ground to stabilise temps, thru the hot season it was 27 in the morning, but would be 32 (89F) in the afternoon.

If you are looking for a rain cover, KU gardens should have greenhouse plastic cheap, then just build a frame that allows plenty of ventilation.

Also, you can buy uni-seals at Klong Tom, near Chinatown. A lot of ppl have trouble finding them.