Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

My wife is a long time science teacher and loves our Aquaponic system that we've been experimenting with at home so I decided to build her a mini system in her classroom. She already had a 10gal. aquarium that she has had for several years, so I added a 10gal. container with river rock on top for a grow bed. The system is by a window but we will be adding a grow light. There is only 2 small fish in the aquarium right now so we will be adding more soon. She is planning to put a bulletin board above the system and track the water tests and plant growth. I thought this would be a great hands-on experiment for the kids this year. Here is the pic of the setup, I will add more as the system comes along.

Fantastic, this is the type of education our kids need. Well done

Coolies

Here are some pics of the bulletin board that She set up in the classroom today for the kids. They took water tests yesterday. I added several gallons of water from my large system which is completely cycled. Hopefully this will help the system cycle faster. Does anyone have a suggestion as to what kind of grow light to use?

Not being an expert on lights, but loving this idea, from the pic the set up looks like it's near a window... good light and I am led to believe things are grown quite well hydroponically with fluro lights!! What year is your wife pitching this at?? I want my kids to know how to be self sustainable, my main reason for aquaponics. So well done for supporting her?

Thanks for the comments, She is teaching middle school science so this is being pitched at 5th-8th graders. The kids seem very excited to learn about this. I have 3 boys ages 16, 12, and 9, and they have been hunting, fishing and gardening with me since they were old enough to walk. The rule in my house is if you catch it, kill it, or pick it, you clean it and eat it!! The system is right by a window I just was unsure whether this would be enough light or I would need to supplement it with a grow light.

This is complete awesomeness! I would skip the grow light. It should be getting enough from the window. Unless it is lowE glass. Then add it.

Great learning system, I would ditch the clear tube around the grow bed in case algie or mould starts to grow in it

Or just cover it with something to keep the light off of it.

Hi Papaz, this is a couple of pics of our indoor AP using a blue barrel as the fish(13 Barramundi) tank and 5 converted toy boxes, as grow beds.
System runs 24/7 and we have to also run a water heater at 22c to keep fish alive but only feeding min food to try and keep growth to a min during winter.
As you can see, we have 1 tomato near ripe with further fruit still growing. Due to being indoors, on the north facing windows(direct sunlight). However, due to lack of bees, hand pollination was required .
PS our 9 year old does some of the pollinating and is much more interested than our 14 year old

That's a great indoor system!! Thanks for all the replies, the wife is really having fun with this. Her plants have started to sprout so I'll take some more pics soon. I'll keep an eye on the clear tubing and if it starts growing algae i'll replace it. She said the kids are excited and have had lots of questions!. Hopefully it will inspire one of these young minds to build their own one day.

Thought I would post a quick update. The plants are coming up nicely, and with only 2 small fish in the tank the ammonia levels now are at zero as are the nitrate and nitrite levels. Going to add some more fish in the next couple of days. This was already an established aquarium so I just replaced the filter with the growbed. The students are excited!! Here are a couple of pics!

That's awesome! I'm a substitute and know a lot of teachers, and I was thinking about pitching this idea to some of them. How are you draining the grow bed? Has it been distracting to have in the classroom at all?

She says it's not distracting at all, the kids love it and ask a lot of questions. I have an overflow pipe in the middle of the perforated drain that runs via a piece of hose back to the top of the aquarium. I am running the system as a CF system.