Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

The strawberry towers, being low, intermittent flow will return to two 220ltr black bins under the stairs....

One, under the stairs out of the sunlight will be for duckweed... the other for yabbies/marron....

The two bins will be interconnected and tidal..... emptying back to the fish tank by a straight overflow pipe from the front bin...

With lingering concerns as to the possible long-term effect of using the gal tank to house any edible fish, I’ve decided to stock it with goldies and place the emphasis on plant production…

The blue barrels, with looped auto-siphons will drain directly back to the tank….

So… to keep things as light as possible, and transportable if necessary, and as a comparative exercise…

I’ve decided to fill the blue barrels with different media…..

coco husk chips, hydroton, gravel, vermiculite/perlite mix (75:25) …

and will plant various plants in each media….

Got some gravel the other day…. Thought with all the rain that it would be pretty clean… no such luck….

Just looking at the silty almost cement like stuff in the bottom of the container I brought it home in, meant some true gravel washing was in order …..

After a quick rinse of a half a bucket, I thought I’d try and find a more efficient way ….

Humm.... wonder if they'd fit..... yep.....

Jiggle up and down and rotate back and forth like a gold pan.....

So the blue barrels end up looking like this…. (left to right) …

............... coco husk chips,........................... hydroton, ......................... gravel, ......................... vermiculite/perlite mix (75:25)

I’ll plant similar types and numbers of various plants in each media…. and compare growth rates….

Plumbed the return line for the barrels with 50mm pressure pipe ….

The rest of the plumbing ... dutch pots, strawberry towers etc.... have to be completed by the beginning of February as the landlady is due to do the first inspection in 5 years.....

Edited :

Above was from a document saved some time ago but not posted till now...

The inspection actually happened last weekend just gone.... and the landlady was quite happy... and interested in the AP idea....

Now I will admit that I didn't tell her about the plans for a bigger.... well mega system.....

This one will be fine tuned.... never finished the strawberry towers properly...... and stocked with goldies......

Then on to the mega system

I'll keep and report on this one as it goes.... it will be an experimental... if need be .... sacrificial system......


Will complete the strawberry towers and post photos of the completed system.....

looking very neat and swish mate. Be interested to hear how the alternative grow media perform.

Gunna use any NFT Rupe?

I reckon it's time he asked the landlady out on a date nothin like having mates on the inside

aaahhhh Rope - you are excelling (careful, Steve will start doing some on his system )

I agree steve we love pictures [an overall view of the backyard would be good]

awsome work! i love to see minds with simmilar enthusiasm, feels great!!!
have a great day!

Looking good, the beds remind me of the pick-n-mix sweets bins at Woolworths
It`ll be interesting to see the results from each variety of media.. nothing like a good experiment.

Make sure you put some gravel or even coarse sand on the bottom of the bins for the yabbies/marron, there has been studies that have found that their growth rate suffers when they are living directly on hard plastic or glass and it may cause conditions like 'tail blister'.