Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I attached some pics. I have played with Hydro for a while in my greenhouse and decided to try Aquaponics. Over the weekend I built the following to start my system.

3x 22gallon cement mixing trays for growing (connected with 1/2" pvc in a zig zag pattern)
160 tub for fish
70gph pump
river rock for the bottoms of the tubs and topping it with gravel (spent over 6 hours washing)

Currently: 4- 3" channel catfish 1- 5" channel catfish and I have 12- 2-3" bluegill supposed to be arriving on Wednesday. Probably 50+ mosquito fish. I have a horse troth that I plan to raise mosquito fish in separately also that will become another 50 gallon tank part of the setup once I clean it out. (can see it in the picture below/big algae problem at the moment and filled with mosquito fish)

Questions? Comments? Advice?

Welcome black07z51. It looks like you are off to a decent start. The questions I have are, what kind of media guard are you going to use, why not use a manifold to keep the grow beds separate, and are you going to line that horse trough with something fish safe?

The media guard is important, because aside from keeping the gravel out of your pipe work, it gives you room to fit your hand in to clear out roots.

I bring up the manifold for the same reason, if your inlet to your growbed is below gravel level, clearing out roots is problematic.

Lastly, the galvanized horse trough has zinc. Inevitably, you will be asking why your fish are dying for no apparent reason. Zinc poisoning is that reason.

My plan was to actually leave pools of water where the tubs connect and put mosquito fish in them. I was hoping might work like mini breeding ponds and was thinking that the roots wouldn't grow there if it got direct sunlight. Right now my main concern is that I don't kill my catfish. I haven't even tested my water or anything and this cycling thing I have read about definitely wasn't done; it was more "The pet store has real Catfish! I'll take them all" Then a couple drinks and the internet = 12 baby Bluegill are supposed to be coming soon. System was completely slapped together this weekend including the fish. X-(

I had no idea that the trough was poisonous. I had a bluegill live in one for years before. (and being little kids we used to pick him up and play with him so I'm sure he had a pretty stressful life) I did lose most of my 20 mosquito fish I dropped in there a couple weeks ago though and then Algae took over so I can't tell how many survivors.

I had thought about keeping the beds separate but my table isn't perfectly level so I had a concern that water might just all run through one bed. I need to wash more gravel to plant the rest of the beds but I had read about the rocks messing with the PH so I was thinking that I might already be pushing my luck. I didn't bother with the siphon and just did continuous flow since that is how my hydro setup works basically. Hydro I just use a fish air pump/air stone and keep the plants in baskets at water level.

I have a major gopher problem in my main garden so this is kind of a cheap little experiment for me to play with. I may try to replace my big garden with an above ground pool and grow beds next year if this works out. I was basically experimenting with this system and it will turn into a mosquito fish breeding factory to dump them into my pool that I want to setup. (was looking at the 18' circle intex pool/42 inches deep so I could actually bobber fish in it )

Welcome!
I agree that using the horse trough isn't a good idea unless you're lining it or using it as a holder for a plastic trough. Otherwise I like your system so far and I think it'll turn out good when you replace your current garden with large beds. I did notice that it looks like you're using a mix of media in your GBs. Reading around it looks like the consensus is to keep a singular type of media in your bed instead of layering big and small stone. I just use 100% pea gravel in mine and the plants aren't dead yet..lol.

Again welcome to the forum, keep us posted on the progress!

BTW I'm 100% jealous of your attached greenhouse!

AP on my friends!
-Ryan

I was trying to keep everything pretty cheap. I have like a 4 foot high pile of the gravel but I thought the grain size was too small to be passing water comfortably so I picked up some river rock for the bottoms. I think I calculated the cost to be about $45 a grow bed to build.

That will be a big bummer that can't use the horse trough. My plan was to pump water from it to flow across the table to the fish tank then have the fish tank overflow run back to the trough. I literally have like 2" of free space to work with. Maybe I will try to use a garbage can or something instead... Can't have my predators living with their food. Though I don't know that they realize it since they go crazy when I drop the gold fish flakes in there for the guppies...

The greenhouse is actually one of those prebuilt horse barns without any of the paneling on it. We just slapped some clear roofing on it. :-) We start all of our plants in there and then this started as keeping water in the horse trough to help keep it warm at night/cool during the day. so we added a fountain. then thought "we should put fish in there" so I bought guppies. I want to do live food because it is more fun to watch them eat and my experience with fish tanks has been that fish grow faster with live food. (But I haven't tried any of these fish feeds that I see most of you guys use)

Mixing media sizes and types is perfectly acceptable. People do it all the time.
The consensus with above ground pools, however, is that they are a bad idea. They leach nasties, and then fall apart. Ferro-cement is surprisingly inexpensive, it just takes a little more work. (Though if you have ever put together an above ground pool, the question of it being actually more work is debatable...) Look at Stucco's threads.
You are going to want to maximize your growbed space. Plastic hardware netting works well as a media guard if you find that you want to fill your growbeds the rest of the way with gravel.
Gophers are the Bain of my fathers gardens, for some reason he thinks an aquaponic system would be too much work...

I stand corrected, no idea what forum I was on that had the reasons why mixing wasn't beneficial or necessary. Good to know that I can do a layered GB in the future with a media screen in between for easier future removal. Thanks for the info.

-Ryan

'That will be a big bummer that can't use the horse trough. My plan was to pump water from it to flow across the table to the fish tank then have the fish tank overflow run back to the trough. I literally have like 2" of free space to work with. Maybe I will try to use a garbage can or something instead... Can't have my predators living with their food. Though I don't know that they realize it since they go crazy when I drop the gold fish flakes in there for the guppies... "


A few years back I lived on a boat,this had a steel freshwater tank,the inside was painted with a bitumen based coating that was designed for Potable water. The tank had to be recoated every so often, but it was perfectly safe for drinking water.
The cement trays,check to see what there made from some are recycled plastic which can leach into the water.

The media screen could cause channeling as areas get clogged with roots,danger of anaerobic areas forming.

My dad is about 50 and he says he is just learning by watching... The hydroponics was new to him and seeing my aquaponics is really foriegn. I have been trying to stick with K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid) I checked my PPMs today and I have about 460 PPM dissolved solids in the aquaponics.

I could probably do this easily coming from a construction family BUT I live about 8-10 miles from the San Andreas fault line... (near the epicenter of the 1989 earthquake that hit this area).... I think concrete in the ground would give me 0 chance of not having major leaks

1/4 or a little larger spacing shouldn't cause any issues, not using window screen. That size would allow a little material through while holding most of it back. I would mainly do it in smaller test beds to try different media combinations while keeping the types semi-separated for easier removal.

AP on my friends!
-Ryan

I'm talking about ferro cement, not concrete. It has proven to be fantastic in earthquake prone areas. People in Santa Barbara have been using it for underground cisterns for like 60 years. It self seals if leaks do develop.

None of the successful systems run media screens to segregate media,commercial or hobbyists,it will be plagued with problems,as was said to me on this forum when I started,don't try to reinvent the wheel. People don't use it ,cause it don't work.

Not my fault they didn't do it right...lol...nothing wrong with a little wheel reinventing...except when things go horribly wrong and you end up growing a third arm or something fun like that


-Ryan