Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Have had some issues that slowed down my start time on my build but I'm starting it up!

CHIFT PIST

2 55g blue barrels for FT
3' x 7' x 7" GB with EPDM liner, media will be either gravel, vermiculite or pearlite
2 55g blue barrels (water bridged together) or a 100g Rubermaid tank
2 or 3 4" NFT for lettuce and other leafy greens

Feel free to critique or comment.

Few pictures:

Materials and Site, going to be next to my lasagna garden:


Frames and legs:


GB framed up with EPDM liner partially installed, left one end untacked so I can install drain/stand pipe plumbing:

Welcome Will.... looks like you've got it all figured...

Well done and welcome to the forum you have started into the abyss

If the vegi's in the back ground is anything to go by , this system will be a huge sucess

Great to see a start champ

I believe perlite is a real bugger to use as a media as it floats through piping etc, go for the gravel.

Yep perlite/vermic is a pain if it gets into the water. I still have it in there after a siphon flooded a floating pot i had that had a little of that mix.

Zucchini, yellow sqaush and tomatoes in the garden. Wife loves zuchinni and sqaush and who doesn't love tomatoes??? My father in law teases me because my tomatoes aren't fruiting like his but I point out that I started from seeds.

I may pick up an IBC tomorrow, I don't want to have to replumb a larger FT when I build more grow beds.

Dang.... hard storm started up, thought it was coming tomorrow. Had planned on filling the GB and letting mother nature wash my gravel. Ah well I'll get to test the strength of the GB as it fills with water.

sadly no storm, no matter how hard, will wash your gravel for you. Unless perhaps you spread it out thin over a large paved surface. Being such an effective filter, it is actually quite hard to wash dirt out of gravel. Water from above on a pile does little to clean it. Guess how I know

Your growbed looks cool. Should work fine.

Well it was a thought maybe not a good one but a thought nonetheless.

Couldn't get much done with the storms but I did get my drain/standpipe plumbed in. 2" pvc for drains and standpipes. I slotted some 4" pvc with my angle grinder for gravel guards. Assembled with aquarium safe GE silicone.

The drainpipe goes through a small hole in the EPDM. It's coated with a thick coat of silicone, slid back towards the outside of the GB and then clamped. I used to be a certified EPDM roofer and this is similar to what we would do with projections through the roof. If it does leak I can use a pond liner patch and wrap it but it's not leaking at the present. The clamp fits back into the hole in the side of the GB to prevent it from cutting the liner.

Didn't get to do much yesterday but made progress today.

Cut a hole in the side of the IBC but didn't take the kerf into account leaving me with a huge hole:



Made 2 flanges from the IBC top and used the proper sized hole saw. Both "flanges" will be coated with silicone before tightening:



View of the sump tanks, how they're connected via 2" pvc to give me around 100g of sump and how the NFT dumps into the sump via 1" pvc:



Overall view of the plumbing, 4" NFT is on cantilevered 3/4" treated plywood:



I did get about 1/4 of my gravel washed and in the GB, had to cover all that black to make it look like I'm making progress. Hopefully I'll have it washed tomorrow and cycling.

I have to slow down the first 2 pipes feeding the NFT because they're starving the last NFT. I'm going to try tape, then reducers then I'll have to bite the bullet and get 2 valves

Comments and critiques welcome!

Got a lot done yesterday.

Gravel washed, ummmmm go to the store and buy your own colander, apparently wive's have no appreciation for my attempt to save $2. Wash tubs elevated because I've had back surgery and tend to try to work smarter. I used bagged gravel because the delivery fee was equal to what the gravel from store would've cost, I didn't feel like having to shovel it into a wheelbarrow and didn't want to spill gravel all over my yard moving it from the front to the back:




Well it's finished. Seeded the GB with gravel and water from my water feature in the front yard. I've had fish in it for 9 months and only run biological filtration, I hope it's full of good stuff. Got some goldfish in the FT (they'll either stay there or go into my water feature.) Just waiting for the cycle to finish. I do have to drill the holes for 2" net pots into my NFT, thought it better to get the cycle going to better manage time:



As always comments or critiques are welcome!

edited to add (for the benefit of search engines) This is an Alabama aquaponics system.

looks like a very neat system

Your system is a work of art, will46r. I especially like the way you have plumbed two drums together for your sump. Have you used a standard fitting to attach the pipes to them? I ask because, thus far, I personally have only plumbed straight through the side walls with the drums upright, using uniseals.

Thanks for the kind words guys!

Yeah standard 2" pvc male adapters fit right into the blue barrels. I'm not sure what that comes to for the metric part of the world I just took a bung to the store, found a female adapter that fitted and then got the male size. One of the advantages is that it doesn't take much for me to add more barrels into the system so it's an expandable sump.

I've got to put up about 32' of privacy fencing to cover the area left open by my hedges. A neighbor popped up to the fence and asked if I was making moonshine. I offered her some zuchini from my soil garden but she wasn't too interested in it. We don't have a neighborhood committee or anything but it's a pretty nice area. While I don't care about keeping up with the Joneses a lot of people do know my wife's family and complain to them and then it gets back to us.

Thanks, 2'' is same as 50mm - I didn't realise that the drums would accept a standard fitting. My options have just multiplied.
Can I suggest that you consider creating a living screen of clumping bamboo, in particular Slender Weavers Bamboo (Bambusa textilis gracilis). It is elegant, fast growing, upright, handles frost, high temps and wind, isn't bothered by pests and has no vices.