Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Nice problems to have Mark. The next green house will need to be 2 stories high on the inside the way you are growing.

All of my tomato seeds are doing better now and are taking off. I have 3 plants transferred to a bucket and the transplant worked this time. They are in competition with the pumpkin now. I have another 10 ready to move up from cups to buckets also. All made from garbage tomatoes. So it looks like we will be eating some this season.

They seem to really like a lot of AP water. I can stunt them by just lowering the water level a half of an inch. I am working on getting 6 inch net cups for the larger vine plants. I hope to have everything I grow in Net cups and just move them around with ease.

Do you make tomato paste or sauce?

This is what we like to do with extra tomatoes.
pico de gallo.



New lettuce

When I was living in Mexico we had this with taco chips all the time, less the Salantro for me.
I did find 6-1/2 inch net cups and will be changing over on the next seed run for any vine plants. All vines will go to buckets. On the seed starting beds, I also kept it the same material and method, just used net cups. I have new lettuce coming up already and have no plans this time of transplant failure. If I had your plugs, I would try to start them in them and then just move the plug.

I also found some really small water pumps and will be trying single jug ponics.

Mark can you post a pic of the whole length of your growbed? I'm green with envy =) I have started pouring concrete for my foundation of my greenhouse but it will be another season before I really grow anything inside the greenhouse I think. It would be nice to get started on the growbeds like you did prior to building the greenhouse, but I'm afraid that I wouldn't be able to work around them doing this by myself since the wife won't be able to help much.

I have been getting fine solids in my DWC. I drained it out and cleaned it out. I welded up a small stand for the new filter. I need to add some fine filter material to it.





http://www.johnnyseeds.com/p-9761-tomah ... count.aspx
http://www.johnnyseeds.com/p-5958-tomat ... -roll.aspx
This is $49 for 100 hangers with a lot of twine left over.
I have ¼ cable so each side needed bent to fit my cable. My son bend the 100 for me then wrapped enough twine for two seasons.


It really is hard to get a picture of the whole grow bed. It was just me and my boys putting up the walls but the roof and the rest I was just building it by myself. It is harder building over the system. It would have been supper hard to dig the hole for the sump tank after the greenhouse was built. My fish tank would not fit through the door.

That's massive... all tomatoes? Were you moving everything else in to the DWC?

I am planning on having the tanks (two IBC totes) in there before I build the walls because I know they won't fit through the door, and I'll probably dig the hole for the totes to be partially below ground before I build walls (after I have cinderblocks in place for my foundation to have a good measurement for where the totes are going). I still need to do an overall plumbing layout to know how my flow is going to work in my system to make sure I put everything at the right heights... I wasn't planning on having a sump tank (doing constant height in the growbeds since it sounds like it's just marginally better in flood/drain systems) but the more I think about it I think I will have a glass fish tank under one of the grow beds to use as a sump so the GB's can drain in to the sump, then pump from the sump to the taller of the fish tanks which then overflows in to the smaller fish tank then overflows in to the grow beds. This way I can easily "T" off to add some gutter systems later on that would also drain back to the fish tank.

I don't have as much space to locate things so I think it would be really difficult to build around the growbeds in my smaller greenhouse... I'm planning to have the growbeds across the south wall right up against the wall, so I'll just make do for another year in the garden and hope the greenhouse is ready for an early start next year.

We have four or five pepper plants. We have some young cucumbers plants. Four strawberry plants some young lettuce starting. The lettuce will go in DWC two cucumbers in DWC two in grow bed. We wanted to compare how they do between the DWC and the GB.

We did not plant even one of the tomato plants they just came up for last year’s tomatoes.

Hello, With your new fine filter it is beginning to look like a Koi filter. One problem they have is if they clog up then they overflow. The ones you can buy have the top section clear of anything or free space. When one sees the water in that area they know the filters need to be changed. Some even have filter alarms there. You could pump all the water out of a tank over night if it stops working and over flows. All of my fine filter material clogs in 3 days to a week. I can tall by the sound. it turns from a nice soft tone to a sound like rapids as the water just cascades over the material.

Maybe at least cut some channels in those 4 tall ones equal to the height of the short one. give the water an out if needed.

What will go wrong does and it is always when we are not there to catch it.

@Deuem
Good spot. Yes that is a great idea. I will trim all the filters down some. Like you point out if the filters clog it will just go over the filters.

Thanks for the great advice!

A couple things I really like about this forum is that every system is different. You can learn something from so many different systems/ideas.
Then you can get some really good advice or be able to help someone else with good advice.

Thant is why we are here Mark, Somethings we know, some we guess on and some we learn. I like to learn something new everyday. It keeps the mind alive. Sometimes the harder the better.

Glad to assist, With out you I still would be pulling my hair out on seedlings. Now I grow them all the time.

On the filter, make sure they are trimmed or cut slots enough to handle all the water flow. Maybe block the filter with a piece of cardboard or put one in a plastic bag in between 2 of them and run it to see what happens. After the test , toss the cardboard or give it to the worms.

With all of my solids I make poo juice and give it to the container plants. Why waste a good poo! lol

That filter material I see can be used for years, Squeeze it to another bucket and save the juice, Mix 30/70 with FT water and whatever and put on some plants. My wife has a flowering plant that flowered after a few weeks of getting this to drink and it hadn't flowered in years.

I bought a step stool for the greenhouse. I really like it and it is only 7.5 lb.
3-Step Aluminum Step Stool Ladder with 225 lb. Type II Duty Rating

Gorilla Ladders 3-Step Aluminum Step Stool Ladder with 225 lb. Type II Duty Rating-GLA-3 - The Home Depot

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Gorilla-Ladd ... /206265913

This will make hanging and picking tomatoes much simpler.



I transplanted my lettuce hopefully it was not too young to move into the DWC bed. This part of plants is totally new to me.




Do you think this lettuce is old enough to put into the DWC.

I got the same step stool for Christmas, it's so much nicer than carrying the step ladder around inside the house...also got one of the aluminum bench stools that are about 3 ft long, absolutely love them for all of the project work I've been working on.

I miss Christmas, It is a religious holiday and not happening here. I miss snow also. Send some.

Mark, how did the lettuce make out? Were the new blocks you have easy to use or all thumbs doing them being so small?

I am now having better luck with the same system of growing the seeds, just putting them in net cups for the first move. Can you start your seeds in the blocks. maybe drop in 2 or 3 seeds in each one and then just move them to the DWC. I think it is worth a try or 2. Less work in the long run and no transplant danger.

are you guys using water out of your systems for the seed wicking trays? I have a bunch of lettuce seeds in a wicking tray and have only got a few sprouts out of them, so I'm not sure if it's because I'm just using tap water since my system isn't operational yet or if it is because my water level is too high/low or not enough light or what the deal is.

for any thing I do with the seeds or plants I use FT water. If you don't have any try soaking a hand full of rice in a liter of water for 2 days and use that/ You could also use the water from boiling rice if you have it. In 3 days it will start to ferment and really stink if you don't separate it from the water. Add some ash. Don't drown then, just get them wet enough to germinate and let them find the water table below them. All my lettuce starts in 3 days now. The seeds don't really need light until they break the surface. All of mine sprout in the dark at night in the pitch black. Over watering them is death to a seed. Dig them up and if they are all mush then they drowned. My water line is about 1/4 inch below the seed line. With the wicking trays we never add water from the top. Let the seed send down a tap root to find it.

My problem now is figuring out how to do the larger pits or seeds from trees. I seem to be killing or drowning them also. I can start them in dirt but no luck so far in an AP wicking setup. I would like to get to over 90% if I could. Good luck. My wicking tray looks a lot like the photo markb attached. If in doubt about water level. Let it fill up by dripping away. See the level, add a thin layer of gravel (wet) then seed it and add a cover layer of wet gravel. Everything is wet when started for me. The first time I did it I added too many seeds and ended up with a green lawn of intertangled mess.