Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

This is just to introduce myself and post a few pics of the system that I had for the last couple of years. I shut the system down this Summer and am dissasembling temporarily until I can find a better location.


For some reason I can't add two other pics so this will have to do. This is a 150 gallon rubbermaid tank underneath with 2 50 rubbermaid growbeds above. I actually had 4 50 gallon growbeds but only really had space for 2 so I had to run a filter on the tank which was no fun but it did work. Started with some feeder goldfish and then switched to trout. When I closed the system down in July one of the trout was 19.5 inches and close to 3 lbs. The idea of using rubbermaid containers I owe to Janet who was active here when I first started. I eventually did away with the loop siphons and switched to bell siphons which I found to be more reliable.

You can only post 3 pics per posting. To post more you just reply and stick some more pics in..

Sorry you had to shut down the system. Nice trout. Tasty? Our largest was 42oz, but we seem to enjoy the flavor of catfish more. Too bad they are not as much fun.

looks like it was a really big homemade system, cheers :]

tragic you had to shut it down, quite neat and organized, woulda looked real good with the plants grown out.

Set it up again!

Hi guys, yeah I had a lot of fun with this system. I never quite figured out and how to get rid of the tank taste with the trout. I suspect either more filtration or a separate tank for purging would have done the trick. Used the system for veggies; got some great basil, lettuce, parsley and mini bell peppers from this system. I was surprised the peppers (all year) and basil (in Summer) worked since the temp was low for the trout.

One thing I really liked about this system is just being able to throw seeds in and they would germinate almost everytime. The beds had Hydroton and some lava rock and the seeds would stick to the moist Hydroton about one layer below the top then germinate.

I'm still cleaning baypor/hydroton media and since I had worms in the grow beds, solids are not a problem (only have a little bit of flock suspended near the bottom of each grow bed. If there is any way I can swing it this system will return bigger and better within the next couple of years.