Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I have been reading and absorbing as much knowla,dge as I can in the past few months and decided to start my own small AP setup. I have had a small container garden on my deck this summer and was looking for a way for us to extend our fresh food production into the winter. When I came across this idea, long story short it is right up my lane. I get to tinker and build something that will hopefully produce something edible. I started off with a IBC tote I found for cheap that was clean, then I cleaned it some more just to make sure it was ready. I then went to cutting it up and assembling the pieces. I went with a FD with a bell shipon to minamize parts need and simplify the system for my wife for when I am not around to take care of it. Being that it is and indoor system I had to get grow light for it and that ate up a huge chuck of my budget but they are bright, the tank also has 2 300w heaters and an extra powerhead I had laying around from a few years ago when I did some reef stuff. Just waiting on fish now, I'm very new to this so if you see anything i missed of could make better please let me know.

Hiya chaser, nice start, now for the cycling waiting game.
Couple of things, your gb may need some extra support beneath it, generally the ibc base is used for the gb for the support. The distributor pipe also needs to be on the media surface to keep the water beneath the surface so algae doesn't start growing where the water is splashing. All else looks good, well done and good luck.
Oh and maybe resizing the pics 600x800 so I don't have to squint too...

Yea, great start. Generally people use the pallet to hold the grow bed. There is no need for it under the fish tank. You definately want to keep the top of your media dry, so lower the distribution pipe to right on top of your media. That particular bell siphon style can be finicky, so you should look into Affnan siphons. They are a bit more reliable. Finally, max width on pics is 800. We want to keep his readable for people using tablets.

Sorry about the pictures I will try to fix them at the first chance I get(tried to resize in photobucket but didn't change in here). I have two furring strips supporting the center of the GB. I may add more support in the future; maybe I can work it into making it look pretty too. I will move the spray bar down under the bed, I never even thought about it causing a problem with algae growth but I can see how that would be bad. As for the siphons I have all the stuff for one of his siphons, I read about it after spending the time getting that one to work so I might just swap them out when I cut the outer pipe down. Thank you for the ideas and improvements , I will try to update as I go with proper sized photos of course.

First little sprouts coming through.