Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

[album][album]Well I have been reading these forums for the past 6 months but only joined last night! This site/forum has been a great help in designing/construction of my IBC system... so Thanks!

The system has been cycling for 2 weeks now and I have some photos that I will be putting up since I have noticed you guys all seem to like that. But for the moment I will just give a brief description of the system.

IBC system CHIFT PIST Constant Flood
- 4 IBCs used
- 3 growbeds 30cm deep (2/3 Gravel - vinegar tested and 1/3 expanded clay)
- 1 Fish Tank full IBC
- 3 sumps approx 600 litres each under growbeds and piped together
- Hailea Pond Pump H 6000 (head approx 1metre)
- Air pump with battery backup (small one)
- 12 volt bilge pump connected to 110 Ah deep cycle battery with auto switch for when mains power gets cut
- greenhouse built specifically for aquaponics system with a green roof ( and a chicken coup next to it also with green roof)

Unfortunately for me but fortunately for my parents I rent so like many of my other projects (pizza oven etc) this one got built at my parents house on Russel Island. The house is on a steep slope with many garden terraces..one of my first projects was to concrete a staircase (approx 60 stairs) to provide access to the terraces and the water. So carrying the gravel for the growbeds was a piece of cake compared to carrying the buckets of cement required for building the staircase 3 stairs at a time.[/album][/album]

Welcome to the forum

wow, that looks really cool!

more photos

I can't believe they let you start a new project before finishing the last one! When are you going to finish tiling the Pizza oven!

Nice tiling by the way, lots of even spacing between the tiles! My half finished pizza oven is mostly painted but apparently I can't start the Aquaponics until it is fully painted, doesn't seem to affect the flavour though.

Looking good so far!

more...

Thanks.. well actually the tiling is complete, my mum liked the way it looked partially tiled so it stays that way, i dont mind as it was a pain in the but tiling job

more again..i hope lots of photos is alright?

more..

Last one I promise..

I like the rooftop growbed idea

yeah it would have been a good use of space but not very practical for my retired parents to clamber up to to harvest although perhaps planting pumpkins, watermelon etc with vines running over the side would have been cool.. i may do something with it in the future but first will be stage 2 by placing strawberry towers along inside wall.. im thinking 15- 20 short towers ( approx 1 metre tall) with 4 plants in each

umm... WOW!!!

so where in brisbane are you. those views are proper amazing...

Hi, well I live in West End but I built the system at my parents house as I rent.. their house is on Russell island overlooking Canaipa passage, across the passage as you can see in one of the photos i posted is North Stradbroke island.

I saw some of your builds..WOW back at ya... love the window on your parents system, I was thinking of doing that too but i got a bit lazy