Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

This forum has been a great source of info and help to make this work, so i think i owe you some pictures!

I think the first time i hear about AP was with the preppers show from natgeo, that idea stuck in my mind and finally the last year i could get some time to start a little test system. In my experience one of the best perks of AP is that you learn a lot about a lot of things, before this i have never grow plants or anything, and now i have a little tank full of living things!.

I live in a big city so the space its the main concern (I envy a lot of guys here having lots of land ), so the requeriments for my system are:

- Compact but still capable of produce food
- Very symple, for easy construcction and little maintenance.
- Energy efficient
- Portable
- And most important... low cost.

3D model:



I decided to build custom tanks after i couldn find good ones around here. i choose some pine wood because is dirty cheap and put the first screw around the first day's of november:



The main structure, as you see, its just wood, for cutting cost i cover the tank faces with 3mm MDF, it was all protected with good quality poliuretane paint, so none water or insects can damage this think. At that time, i didnt know where to get good quality liner, so i choose polyethylene plastic to cover the tanks. Bad idea, the plastic was to thin and i got a lot of problems and leakings... in some point i get frustrated and decided to cover the tanks with 3mm glass (No leakings with glass right?).... i went for 3mm because i already have the 3mm MDF, so probably was enough. 6mm glass was to expensive... at the end, the glass was a terrible idea and gave me a lot of trouble as you will see....


Filling with water


Radial flow Filter design, it has a cage to contain bioballs and help with the biofiltration (I choose DWC as growing media so every little surface helps). The cage its easily removable for cleaning. The water container its great because have a conical base, handles 20lt of water and you can cut the plastic easily.


Testing



Fill with water, pump, water heater and temps reader added.

With everything working, the next step was the cycling. I choose the pure ammonia method because i dont want to kill some goldies just for get some bacteria. I bough my testwater kit:



I recommend this one becase have a larger range than the API test kit. I got some ammonia from a local store and contact with the phone in the label to know if they put anything else to their product. Pure ammonia they said, and i just pour some of that in the water. I recommend to calculate this because this because ammonia is a very strong chemical and just a few drops where enough to overdose the system:


+7.3 ammonia , after some water changes i was good to go.

To accelerate the cycling, i turn on the water heater up to 26° - 28°, get an airpump and turn it to max.. same with the pump. With this i was able to cycle the entire system in 2 - 3 weeks in the middle of the winter season... not bad

Meanwhile i started to build the DWC bet with some polyestirene, paint it white for sun protection and added the little containers for the plants. Put the seeds and in a matter of 3 weeks (I think) i got my fist plants:


Lettuce, broccoli and spinach.

The system was working good, i liked the 2 floor design because it occupies little space, but still have a relative good area to grow and a relative big tank for the fish. The DWC tank was about 1.5mt above the floor so i can get enough space to work in the fish tank, because of this the fall of water is fast and i got some extra aeration from the waterfall... maybe i wouldnt even need an airpump!.. About this time, its when everything goes to hell ....one night i was chilling in my house when i hear a lot of water int he back yard. The glass fails and all the water its leaking... it was very fast and i coulnd do anything. Fish tank was the fail, so i was lucky enough to still have the DWC tank intact. I reapired with more glass the next day and naive me thoug that it was solved.

With the plants triving, the system cycled and everything working, i was time to finally get the fish, continues....

I locate a fish farm in a city next to mine, travel its about 2hrs so i was worried about the fish soffocating. Get to the farm, and the owner give me around 18 little tilapia for free.... i planned to get just 10, but if i didnt get all of them the rest were going to die. So i bring all the fish in a plastic bag, they didnt have pure oxygen so i needed to be fast... but still give me time to buy some fresh tilapia to eat

The fish arrive their new home in good shape, i didnt did a quarantine.... (Didnt have other tank) instead i put them in a bat salt (6-8ppt) for 15m and i get rid of any potential diseases or parasites. After 2 days, they look happy in the new tank and start eating a lot!:



The fist days i got some nitrite and ammonia spikes, so i salted the system to 3ppt, i didnt know if the system wasnt fully cycled, or i just put too much fish... maybe the tank leak for days before affect the bacteria... who knows..

It wasnt a perfect start, but still good. I manage to keep mostly all the fish, i have 3 deaths in total, one of them was to small and never feed, another jumps out of the tank and i dont know what the hell happen to this one (Maybe bitted by others?:



Afther this, everything was ok for a while, i even go for vacations for a few days and with the automatic feeder and a nobreak the system survived; plants anf fish bigger and bigger.... but arount this days... i hear the same familliar sound of failure again, wather leaking from a tank, another glasss broken! ... i was lucky because the DWC was the problematic, so the fish didnt get affected:

At this point i didnt trust glass anymore. What its weird its that DWC manage to survive for almost a month, and randomly one day decides to fail. Probable the difference of temps between day and night dilates the wood and the glass just breaks for stress. This could be solved with some elastic material between glass and wood.... but to be honest i was tired of fighting with leaks, so i decided to turn of all, put the fish in another tank an reconstruct everything...

Looks good.

If it was just plain silicon you used for joining the glass together, it'll only last for so long before failing. But pond liner is cheaper and easier. Or use your wood, and seal it with a paintable pond liner, and waterproof everything.

If the ammonia spike continues, stop feeding until it goes down. They can survive for a while without food.

Just make sure you have enough filtration for when the fish get bigger!

Hello Colum,yeah, i used silicon that was supossed to be special for aquairums, dont know if its stronger, nevertheless that was not the problem because the glass just failed me the first month.... and crack around all the face, letting the water leak... Like i said i suspect of the temp and wood variations during the day. Pond liner its definitebly the best option, but at that time i was jus starting and didnt know where to get a good one (I found one in Home Depot but was PVC, and i was looking for PE).

About the Amonia Spike, yeah i let the fish without food for some days, and works good, but the bitted fish of the last photo appear during those days and i cant avoid to think that they where triying to eat something

You hit the nail... i didnt have enough filtration for 16 big tilapia, that and the glass fail's make me reconstruct all the system... but it worth it!

System v2.0, a new way!

So like i was saying... this factors help me make the decision and rebuild the system:

1.- Glass fails
2.- With DWC and just a RFF, i didnt have enough biofiltration for 16 tilapia
3.- The system was design for 8 fish, not 16, so i didnt have enough space.

So afther the last disaster, i just get the fish out of the system and put them in a temporary tank with the RFF full of bioballs to help with biofiltration meanwhile i was building the main system.

I finally got some good food grade polyethylene liner, cost about $80 USD for a few meters.. a little expensive but they used the same for tilapia farming in my country, so it was perfect.

Fist of all, i increase the tanks dimensions with some wood extensions, with this i get around 30 - 40% more water capacity.

Then i put the liner, its about 1mm thick so it was a hell to put it in those small thanks, but afterall went good. Bulkheads are not avaibable in here, so i used some cistern connections instead:



Liner in place:


To increase biofiltration, i decided to get rid of DWC and use hydroton as media, i bought around 5 bags ($200 USD total) and it was very difficult to clean them, i know that its not necesary but i like cristal clear water .

Mods where done in just 2 or 3 days so i was able to put the fish back in, they seem to like more the black liner (At fist they where confused with the reflective glass tanks)... and for sure they like the extra space. As i conserv the RFF with the bioballs, the bacteria ecosystem was good enough so i didnt have to cycle again....

I was using a small pump (Around 4w), with the 1.6mt head ididnt receive enough flow, so i get a more powerfull one:


Active Aqua, Around 1512 ltxhr at 24w

With the old pump all the fish waste used to stay in the botton of the tank, this new one was capable of suck all the waste so now i didnt have to clean the fish tank

Final specs are:

Fisth tank: 350lt
Grow Bed: 260lt
Total water: 510lt
Grow Bed surface: around 1mt2

And this is the system finished.


Water heater, pump with venturi aerator


Fall from the GrowBED, the pvc tube has small holes so the water is presurized and aerates the water.


Some lettuce survive from the DWC to growbed transicion, most of them die because i let them to much time without water.



I was very satisfied with the results, the liner its much better than the glass that i used to have, the fish like the extra space and with the black tanks they fell less exposed (Its more difficult to see them). With the water increase (350 to 510lt) and all the extra biofiltration of the hydroton, i think im able to cope with 16 big tilapia... or at least i hope

Its been 5 months since i start the system, its going very good now... no matter all the troubles we have. With spring starting, i already have some big tomato plants and the fish are very big now!... around 4 inch and 250gr each....

Thats was all! i will search for more recent photos of the growbed and will try to film the fish too

I would like to express my gratitude to this forum and all the people that help me with my questions... see you around!

Little update

Last photos where taken in the past months during the building of the system, this are fresh ones

During this days I modified the flowrates and pipes to get more aeration, cover the RFF because i was getting some algae, build a little semi-closed greenhouse to protect the system from rain / excess sun (Sun is no jokes here, burn my lettuce in the 3 days without protection) and of course the plants are bigger now, tomatoes and peppers grow some flowers and by now everything its going great




Pepper


Overall system


First flower


How much time to get tomatoes?


This is the outlet from growbed, water its presurized and aerates very good!



This is a little surprise that i found in my RFF, some people told me that its a planaria.. its look like it...


And another not identified organism, probably more planaria or glasswrorm.

In that RFF i have a lot of life!.... bloodworms, red wigglers, mosquito larvae, the usual bacteria, probably the planaria and glassworms, and some mosquitoes and midges too!

Will take some photos of fish the next days

Plants are looking good Dvid and I like version 2 but it Looks like that bottom rail is sagging, can it be braced or is it OK?

Hi Scotty, yeah plants are growing very good with the spring sun, i actually got my fist tomato a couple of days ago

About the bottom rails, its on purpose . I tried to make it that way to push the waste to the pump... it didnt work as i expected because i should add a higher angle... but it helps a little.

glad to hear it's on purpose

Very nice system