Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Looking great TCL.

And some more pics.

got the liner set in. Hooked up the drain uniseals and put a few inches of water into the bottom to check for leaks.

Cool, what are those funky brackets from?

You mean these funky brackets?


They were part of the side braces from an old above ground swimming pool. We got those when we got the old pool pump and sand filter from the Cook's parents when they got rid of their old swimming pool. They have been kicking around the yard ever since we started working on the big AP system. I finally found a use for them.

Hi TCL and all
Longtime no post, lots going on in my life at the moment. TCL its great to see how much youve done with the PP thing, and the record youve kept is outstanding, just to let you know ive kept my urine based system going since first mentioning it on the previous urine thread back in Feb/March 07. During that time its provided my family and myself with a huge amount of produce, basically all the tomatoes ,lettuce, basil, celery ,cucumbers, chives and Ibeaka for a family of four for over two years, with absolutly no ill effects and minimal effort. The system seems so stable that for the last year i was only checking the ph and nitrates every 3-4 of weeks with about 250 ml of fresh urine every 3-4 days.The only additives in that time were doses of chelated iorn and seeweed emulsion for trace elememts Sadly i had to shut her down about a month ago as we sold the house and have moved into temporary digs.The info hasnt gone to waste though as we are moving onto a 50' catamaran which of course will have a PP system on board, and composting collection toilets ah lah Joe Jenkins.
Again great work the sooner people learn to use these vital resources the better.

Cheers Tim B

Thanks Tim,
It actually sounds like you have done far more with your pee ponic system that I have. Mine has mainly been growing mint lately. I have lots of onions and garlic in it as well but they are not forming nice bulbs so far. The lettuce I had in the system keeps being eaten off by the rodent that is plaguing my side yard this past season.

Oh well, the barrel system is soon to get a new location (over by the new duckweed pond) and we will have to pull gravel out to manage that so a whole new look. I'm hoping that the chickens will like the duckweed as a supplement to their diet as we will not be keeping tilapia year round and might not bother with them at all after this summer.

Gotta keep busy some how!

If you dont want to run fish for a while use your chickens ! I set up my chicken coop over the top of a 1000l bulk bin and filled the bin with old fishing net to add surface area, the base of the cage was wire mesh and each night the chickens would come in to roost and fertilise the water. Chickens by the way seem to do most of their pooping at night. I circulated the nutrient through PVC pipe filled with coconut fibre that i harvested locally. I had that system going for nearly a year but againg pulled it apart when we moved. As we live in the tropics we had a problem with mosquito's til we introduced some local rainbow fish, one day later no mozzies. The amazing thing is i made no attempt to limit the nutrient going into the system and only checked ph a couple of times, but had it well buffered with shell grit and the fish began to breed in there. Also never fed the fish.

Cheers Tim

Are you aware that disease transfer from chickens to humans is much more likely than for fish?
I know they do this in Asia they also have SARS and bird flu.

You are right novaris, there is risk when using warm blooded animal manures without proper composting/aging. And there have been issues with aquaculture where the water the fish are being raised in is heavily tainted with pathogens, the fish can carry a load of those pathogens. Same holds for plant crops, if you are not supposed to fertilize with fresh manure within a certain amount of time before harvest, then AP should be no different.

My method for ensuring some measure of safety is to bottle urine for a length of time to allow the ammonia to kill off most pathogens. And don't save urine from some one with typhus or strep.

Warm blooded animal and people manures should be properly composted for safety and to keep our water supplies clean. No sense in using good drinking water to transport waste "away" since there is no Away, it all just winds up back in the drinking supply and they hope that the dilution solution to pollution will last a little bit longer since most people really don't want to deal with their own $#!%.....I mean poo.

Sorry for the rant. I'll use the chicken bedding and poo in the compost. We pee plenty to keep a pee ponic system going just fine. And our chicken pen is no something I could easily place over a tank anyway.

Points taken guys, i was aware of these issues however considered the likelyhood as vanishingly small given that thermophillic composting is only part of the story for pathogen reduction in manures (competition, biocides being others) the fact i grow no root crops in this system and that just as you only want healthy people using your PP collector so you look after my chooks , worm them and know them all well enough to pick if a bird is "off". Any system if poorly run poses a risk. My system was setup in a green house so no wild birds could get the chance to add their own contributions to the system, as we are approx 220 klms from the northern most point of Australia we are very aware of the proximity of asia and the possibility of pest and disease transfer across the very skinny Torres Straight.
Each person has to make a judjment on what level of risk they are comfortable with. If one wild bird pooped in you system would you not eat the food and for how long? If you were comforteble with that how many would you be comfortabel with? where's the cutoff point ( and lets face it who could honestly say a bird, birds havent pooped in their system!) . I know my risks, i accept them and control them as much as i feel the need. I would be much more concerned with the rodent you mentioned earlier accessing you system, there are a lot more nasties that come from rodents and use water as a method of transmission.

Dont get me wrong guys this is not a rant im gratefull you have concerns and mention them, if anything the fault is mine in not adding more detail to my earlier post so others could make more informed decisions for which i apoligise.If i get a bee in my bonnet about anything its about people being afraid of everything or at least the unknown ! There is risk in everthing we do but you got to get yourself informed weigh up the risks and make your decision. If not you wouldnt fly, drive a car, cross the road, kiss your wife /girlfriend/boyfreind or eat any processed food, all have risks, and yet the most likely to impact your life of the things ive just mentioned is the most likely for the greatest number of us to have done for a substantial period of our lives, ie eating process food. Its bad weve all done it, though hopefully we now know better, but even i still give in to the call of a nice meat pie mmmmmm love those trans fats !!!

If we keep going this way then the feacophobes have won because untill we start composting and utilizeing a resource that we have been taught from the cradle is waste then we are well and truly in the sh*%$#@t.

Cheers Tim

You are right that we each must choose our level of "risk" as best we can. And Heck, a huge amount of the farmed fish in the world are fed on algae which is bloomed using fresh chicken manure.

To each one's own. There is at least one member on the forum that has a few chickens staying the night over part of an AP system. I wouldn't do it here in the states with all the panic over salmonella lately (even though the contamination of the peanut products has to have happened post harvest since the roasting process would have killed the bacteria.)

And I am definitely not happy about the rodent raids!!!!! And they are getting smarter too. Luckily they are not nesting in the system since they like dry bedding.

Sigh, gotta run.

+1There is a huge difference in the occasional accidental contamination compared to deliberately arranging for direct contamination by most of a flocks waste.

Recycling human urine as done by TCLynx is safe as urine is relatively sterile and the storage improves on this.I agree, I just think there are better ways to do it than straight into an AP setup

I have been adding 20 ounces pee per day to the new part of my system. Its about 1500 gallons. No ammonia showing up yet. How long does it take for pee to break down into ammonia?

Some where between a week and a month should see bottled urine's urea content turn to ammonia. I'm not really sure how long it takes when diluted and out in the open. I managed to cycle my big system only using about 500 ml every other day of bottled urine. At the time that system was only 600 gallons or so of fish tank.

allright. Then I should not be to far off track then.