Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

There are some very large commercial aquaponic operations.
The University of the Virgin Islands in St Croix is one of the first researchers of the idea of Aquaponics and they have been doing it since the 1970's I believe. They do Floating Raft aquaponics and they remove the solids from the system. It is a tropical Island.

Friendlies has addapted the UVI methods to run a commercial operation in Hawaii but ti sounds like they might be in trouble for a perhaps unrelated situation for growing other types of plants.

Growing Power is a commercial, large scale operation.

The creators of Aquaponics Journal run large scale raft aquaponics.

I don't know if there are any really large scale media (gravel) based systems out there But OutbackOzzy is growing his operation so we might see large scale flood and drain media systems yet.

It sounds like the holms a court project is going to be pretty large though.

Does anyone know what the largest single gravel bed system is?

I could perhaps see a hydroponic operation that uses the vertigrow towers change over to aquaponic but those towers have some disadvantages for aquaponics though I know some people currently working hard to test them out. Nate's Zipgrow towers have an opportunity to do very large scale operation and their portability to be able to take the whole tower to the market to provide "u-pick" live plants right at the market could be a great opportunity.


Back to an earlier question you raised about the fish farming in ponds and how they can simply feed fish in the pond and run the air for an hour a day, well as Hydro said, it is because they have fewer fish per amount of water. Pond culture is what most people call extensive aquaculture. If you want to grow more fish in a small amount of water, you then have to filter it and this would be recirculating aquaculture. In recirculating aquaculture they have to remove nitrates because when heavily feeding fish and filtering the water the nitrates will build up beyond healthy levels. Most aquaculture (like in aquariums) have to change out a certain amount of water regularly to keep the nitrate levels in check. In Aquaponics we try to do this by having plants use up the nitrates instead of having to dump waste/nitrate polluted water and simply replacing.

In your system since you only have a few fish, you might not need huge amounts of air and you might not need to pump as much but having those things going will help the bio-filter to cycle up quicker and probably keep the plants happier in the heat. As your system matures, if you still only have a few little fish, then you might not need to pump 24/7 and 24/7 aeration might not be absolutely necessary but figuring out what amount is needed can be tricky since if there is a problem, it will usually happen the hour before dawn when most of us are not out watching the fish.

that is a really good explanation of it TCL, thanks :]

good input hydro, am constantly making mistakes and learning, will be changing up this one only in case I have to ever clean the tank, don't want to change up that much water in it until its well cycled.

currently fishies are happy, haven't fed them today either, plants still about the same not happy other than the money plant.

however, I now have new plan, phase 1 is that tomm I will find someway to acquire 12 more goldies, these will be added to the FT, phase 2 is that these fishies will be fed numerous times during the day, as much as they will stay interested in, got this input from an aquarium owner buddy who said I could do it as I, contradictory to aquariums, actually WANT there to be a large amount of ammonia and as the nitrates will all get used up its all good for the fishies.

system kill count stands at 2 goldies and a chili plant, i have a feeling this new line of attack will get that goldie number ticking

Not sure what the largest single bed is, but clay west (greenecorevolution) has one pretty big bed. If I had to guess it would be in the range of 8,000-10,000 gallons of gravel.

In the GH. I plan on two 1800-2000 gallon beds. But have yet to start that project.

twelve more goldies added these are about half the size of the others, will put up a short vid of it all in just a bit, will be a dark one but will take up some extra light to make it better.

is there a site/thread where their system is up hydro? clay west that you mentioned. and what GB media do you plan for your two GB's?

So here be the update video, I apologize for the rambling and the off target bits of camera work.

On a separate note, do tell, if that chili plant dies, should I remove its roots from the GB or will they just rot there and provide nutrients for the other plant...?

ah now i remember what I had forgotten, I'm worried that the flood drain cycle in my GB's may be too fast, the flooding is faster than the draining and i think takes a minute or less for it to flood, need to time it, will hopefully do that asap, and this is on 24/7, other than at least 3 hours a day when the electricity disappears for 1 hour at a time.

So firstly, is this flood and drain cycle too fast for the plants?

Is one hour of the water stopping flow, twice in sunlight and then once at night, enough for the plant roots to either dry up or be drowned if the flow stops when the GB is almost full...?

ah so, have decided will get hands on synaptomans ebook on aquaponics, anyone here have it can recommend it...?

I wouldn't worry about flooding/draining the beds too much for now, while cycling up, it is important to flood and drain a lot to give the bacteria the best opportunity to get established.

Once you get past the ammonia and nitrite spikes you can then worry about trying to adjust things to make the plant happier.

Be careful about feeding too much here while your system is still pretty new. Keep doing water tests if the ammonia starts to get too high, you need to stop or reduce feeding till the bacteria catch up or you will kill all your fish. Remember you are still cycling up.

I haven't but it would be a good read. His system threads are amazing.

I typically pull plants unless it would uproot or disturb too much else. If I leave them, the fine roots rot and in a month or so I can pull the plant without too much destruction.

Worms help break down dead roots and fish solids! I tend to toss a worm or two in there now and then or I buy a carton for fishing and put them in. Don't put them in until the system cycles: if some die they will create quite a bit of ammonia that may harm an uncycled system.

Abdul,
just at a quick glance at your video it seems that your goldies are struggling to keep steady or from being swept away by the water flow. Not quite sure if they like that much water flow.

Regards

Matt.

I actually used a small hand full of worm castings in each of my large grow beds along with a few worms in each to help get the cycling going. (Of course I fishless cycled.)
In your small grow beds I would probably only put two/three worms in each but it would probably be best to wait till cycling is further along since they might not appreciate high ammonia levels either.

@ TCL the fishies ARE the water test couldn't get my hands on a water test kit so using them as a canary test, good eye about not worrying about keeping the plants happy atm though, will put in the T after another couple of weeks once am sure the water is cycled

@hydro Yes i think i'll leave them in for the moment, noticed what looked like a few new leaves on it after i made the vid in this post so things may be looking up for it after all

@ jessy yea i read a couple of his threads too and visited his blog, going to go for the ebook, its cheap and will be useful data

@matty yea i think the flow is pretty high too, the ST is being pumped into it and theres a small aquarium filter in there too so loads of water flowing in there, will get some input from an aquarium friend and find out if they like it or not, though i think that the bottom of the tank is much more stable, none of them have died due to high flow YET, two were murdered by the SLO, but will keep an eye on it, thanks for the heads up




Now it rained a LOT last night and this morning, before and after i put in those 12 new goldies, there seem to be a whole lot more bubbles in the water now, made a new video, tell me if you guys have ever seen this before or know what it means..?




Saw your post after i made this one TCL, am working on getting some worms, will add them in a couple of weeks :] they'll survive in my big river rocks won't they?

Bubbles of foam typically mean that something is wrong and proteins (I believe) are building up. This is generally a sign that there is something dead or too much food and it is decaying, but since you are just starting to cycle it may be OK.

I would probably skip feeding for one full day and see if the bubbles disappear.

I don't thing the bubbles are something to worry too much about at the moment. So long as you are not seeing anything like an oily film and since the bubbles go away fairly quickly when you shut things off, they are not worrying me too much.

I often get some bubbles on some of my tanks. foam building up is a sign that there is probably some protein in the water (as in you are probably getting enough waste from your additional fish and feeding to get the cycling going.)

Now comes patience while you continue the process. If the bubbles become more like foam, I would reduce feed till it settles back down to like it is now.