Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi,

To quote Jen, (just spoken), "Experience is a hole with money thrown into it."

Our system started out much different to what it has grown into. We started with a 12 foot diameter vinyl pool, with the intention of stocking it with perch and growbeds on stands above it, but that quickly changed once 75% of the rather small backyard suddenly disappeared under vinyl and the damned thing STILL didnt fit.

Exit, stage right... to the evil B's.

5 x 500litre poly water storage tanks, several childrens wading pool/sandpits, and quite a few hundred dollars worth of wood and irrigation supplies later... we are back home and avidly 'discussing' frame design to hold all this stuff together. Several 'on paper' designs further down the track and we are finally cutting wood(yay!).

This all comes together easily till its time to get the beds draining(shudder). We spend many hours researching siphons and finally it comes down to a 2'6" length of garden hose plumbed in with the right bend to it, but then the sealant decides it's the wrong type and it all needs to come apart, be cleaned up and redone, this time with a cheapo hot melt glue gun originally purchased to fix a pair of shoes the day before. Oh yes, and dont tell us it isnt interesting walking into hydroponics stores to buy hydroton(expanded clay) in Sydneys western suburbs considering the number of police drug raids on houses recently. Laugh of one day is biting the head off a store clerk who comes across as what seems like an off-duty cop when he offers to sell nutrients that are better used for growing pot, then having to patiently explain that we arent growing dope, but starting up our aquaponics in our backyard(We still think he thinks we're growing dope, but seriously, organic food prolly costs more anyway).

So, at present, we have the system up and cycling, flushing the growbeds, which will, after the system is emptied of water and refilled, primed with some local pondwater, and then planted out with a whole range of seedlings within the next few days.

howdy sounds like a fun story

Hi Mari and Jen... welcome to the madness but satisfying world of aquaponics....

Looks like some nice ideas in progress... please keep us posted of your progress as you cycle and develope the system.

Looks good, however, is that treated pine?

I like the use of childrens pools Your gonna need a ladder to harvest things!

doesn't look treated

G'day, and the story made me smile

Hi and Welcome.
Have ou plumbed the tanks together ?
I have a similar setup. I made the mistake of using only a 25mm manifold. way too small!
Think what size you will need and then double it. !
Good luck

Hiya

Ok, here is the update and some answers to questions raised so far.

We are cycling, hopefully we just solved most of the teething issues except for the water temperature issue, the solution to that being in the planning stage right now.

The framework is built of untreated pine, with the intention to dress it with olive oil in the near future, the use of treated pine deemed unacceptable due to the chemicals involved and our wish for food as chemical free as is possible.

The height issue isnt one, especially if you are 6 feet tall like we both are

We plumbed the tanks together using the supplied taps(from evil B's) and 19mm piping, which, due to our pump selection works well and keeps the tanks on a pretty even waterlevel. We also have another 500L tank to plumb into the system as a buffer tank when we start expanding and bringing other growbeds online. Btw, our pump is only a 900L/hr submersible with a return circuit so as not to flood the beds too quickly. Even with this we are cycling twice an hour with the intention to slow it down considerably soon(fast cycling is eliminating the need to hand wash the clay... ).

So thats where we are right now....

nice, and plants ready to go

When you say "cycling" you do realise that in aquaponics terms this relates to the "nitrogen cycle", the colonisation of the two beneficial bacterias that do your fish waste conversion.

As such you'll need a source of ammonia or urea as feed stock for the bacteria.

This can and has been accomplished a variety of ways

stock a Small amount of fish and once "cycled" add the new stock in small batches
or
dose the water with "liquid gold"
or
dose the system with a prescribed amount of urea fertilizer

TClynx will be able to help you with the second option

various other will be able to help you with option 3

Hi,

Thank you to everyone for the welcome, encouragement and willingness to help us newbies.

In '2 girls just doing this for the first time' lingo, 'cycling' means getting the water from the tank to the growbed with the least possible issues, preferably losing none in the process or overfilling growbeds, and back to the tank but we will keep the aquaponics version in mind for future use.

Ok, in option 2 supplied by Steve, ummmmm, how well do fish stand alcohol in the 'liquid gold'? (j/k)

I think we will go with option 3 for starters and work on the water temperature issue while the bacteria get fed and populate the system.

We've read in the forum about some peoples issues with temperature, and as our water temp is 9 degrees Celsius at 4pm on a sunny winters day, we are considering some alternative options in water heating(more on that as the plans and prototype comes together). Jen is playing with passive solar while Mari is just a tad more aggressive/geeky with a waste vegetable oil fuelled water heater/furnace.

In time you will appreciate the ease of stocking the right fish for the season. and 'tis the season for trout!

Hi and welcome to the forum, it is beneficial if you could add what suburb/state you are in as then locals can give added advice

Love the setup and how it is neatly laid out, would have preferred the GB depth to be greater (most of us work on ~300mm), this is basically to give the plant roots a bit more area to give support to the leaf/vine...this is not a big issue as tomatoes, beans etc can have structures to help (gonna need all of that 6' height tho )

Looking forward to seeing it come together with the associated HSM

keep asking the questions

interesting heating ideas,,,please keep us informed. The beauty of having a heated and non-heated system is variety,,,,can't eat trout every day..

Gotta agree,,growbeds better if 30 cm + deep,,,,algie likes the dark.

Cheers

LOL, nup, thats what summer is for.

As ever, things evolve and we feel its been a sizable change since we last updated. Much research has gone into the heating issue, with many avenues explored, especially in the way of solar pool and spa heating, design complications over the use of waste oil in a reliable and safe manner, and now we are examining the possibility of using a kerosene heater modified to heat water running through coiled copper piping to raise the tank temperatures. Hopefully a prototype will be up and running by the end of the weekend, and we're praying it will be a practical and economical solution to the problem.

As far as the system goes, we have considered others posts regarding the lack of tank depth -v- algie(bacteria) liking darkness thing and have come up with a novel approach to this, by changing the growbeds to include some large modified tubs filled with coco medium that should give the bacteria a safe haven. We took into consideration the cocos' habit of 'shedding' material by the use of filter sponge in the bottom of the tubs, and hopefully this will contain the medium to its confinement while giving us the benefit of its water retention and 'darkness'.

We finally got the first of our plants into the growbeds(Yay!) and after a visit to the nursery, seedlings about in their punnets, ready for planting later today. It will be great to see the system start to live.....

As ever, things evolve and we feel its been a sizable change since we last updated. Much research has gone into the heating issue, with many avenues explored, especially in the way of solar pool and spa heating, design complications over the use of waste oil in a reliable and safe manner, and now we are examining the possibility of using a kerosene heater modified to heat water running through coiled copper piping to raise the tank temperatures. Hopefully a prototype will be up and running by the end of the weekend, and we're praying it will be a practical and economical solution to the problem.

As far as the system goes, we have considered others posts regarding the lack of tank depth -v- algie(bacteria) liking darkness thing and have come up with a novel approach to this, by changing the growbeds to include some large modified tubs filled with coco medium that should give the bacteria a safe haven. We took into consideration the cocos' habit of 'shedding' material by the use of filter sponge in the bottom of the tubs, and hopefully this will contain the medium to its confinement while giving us the benefit of its water retention and 'darkness'.

We finally got the first of our plants into the growbeds(Yay!) and after a visit to the nursery, seedlings about in their punnets, ready for planting later today. It will be great to see the system start to live.....