Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

well after months of lurking and crawling through the posts in the forum. I've decided to post some the picture of my experimental AP system. I live in malaysia and the weather here is summer all year round. my system is currently at 34C at it's peak.


I've started my system about two months ago. My design revolves around an unused hydroponic holder, a 2 feet aquarium and lot's of aquaclay. The principle of the system is to pump the water from the aquarium at the bottom to the grow bed at the top. The pipe from the pump is connected to a spray bar (leftover parts from aquarium filter) and is use to flood the grow bed. Water flows back to the aquarium via garden hose and generating aeration in the process.

I've used Simmo's upturn U-design autosiphon for my flood and drain system. I bought an el-cheapo powerhead to use as pump for my system. The system takes about a minute to fill the grow bed and about 5 sec to drain.



Well my system started with me using 5 pieces of my stunted and those not so pretty discus fish to cycle the system. The growbed was 80% aquaclay (expanded clay) with about 20% small pebbles at the bottom. I know it should be the other way around but I'm too lazy to take out all the aquaclay and replant the vege again.

I'm currently planting bak-choy. This was when the layout when my system just start out. notice that the aquaclay was still floating.
(The piece of 40mm pipe jutting out is the outer pipe to prevent the aquaclay getting into the drain pipe. The cover on the pipe is to quiet down the system as the water gurgles down the hose towards the end of the draining process.)


2 weeks later, still using discus.


then after running my system for one month without much growth in the plants, i decided to switch. I replaced all the discus with two adult red claw and two younger ones. this is currently the growth of my plants after running the Yabbie-ponic for one week.

2 weeks later, running on redclaw now


taken today


The plants only receive sun light during the evening / sun set , and maybe that's why it's not growing well.

Currently, i've just discovered that one of my female yabbie has just started berrying (is this the correct spelling). i've made a bad choice by forcing it into one of the plastic container to take it's photo and it has drop some of it's eggs in the process.



i've taken some nitrate and ammonia measurement few days ago just before sunset. ammonia is at 0 ppm and so is nitrate. Is it because i'm using too much aquaclay ?

i thank all the BA members for sharing their ideas and system so i can build my system. merry christmas and happy new year.

Well Done, easyihzy!

The 0-ammonia is good. That means your nitrogen cycle is established. The 0-nitrate is because you need more fish/yabbie in proportion to your plants. The aquaclay/rock only provides a surface for the bacteria to live. I'm not sure you can really have too much of that!

It looks really good easyihzy. Is there a way to get the system more sun? or grow something that needs less sunlight? Janet and others can tell you that it is possible to obsess about water conditions. As Janet says, get more animals in there to drive your nitrates up and you will need more as you veggies mature. Also you might want to add another growbed or have som veggies ready to transplant as soon as you harvest what you have because then the pendulum will swing the other way. Your nitrates will skyrocket and so will amonia.

Your setup is really nice. Merry Christmas.

Your water is 34C? That seems a little high?

Correct about the NITRATE going up if you harvest a complete single bed, but the Ammonia should never move off zero once a system is cycled.

That's pretty much what I'm about to start on during the holiday week. I FINALLY got permission from my better-half and dug-out an old acrylic tank from the attic. It's a similar size to yours and I'm planning a similar size GB and exactly the same setup.

One thing I had already thought of was only using half of the bed for growing until I get a few nice plants started. Then plant the other half and hopefully just keep cycling "harvests" back and forth.

Just gonna start with some goldies and see how it goes...

my max temp. recorded was 34C in the afternoon while the average temperature is around 32C. I tried to cover the aquarium with cardboard to prevent sunlight from the tank. this is suppose to reduce algae growing in the tank.

Neat set-up you have there easyihzy.
Your other pics of discus fish look awesome too
well done

sure is neat and tidy!
Keep the camera ready for the baby yabby pics - we wanna see pics of your new kiddies

I'm wondering if part of the problem is the depth of your grow bed...

I have no experience, and am just thinking that may be the case based-on previous reading/discussions. Most here would say that a 12" grow bed is preferred, how deep is yours?

my grow bed is just about 4-5" deep, wouldn't want it to be too deep as i'm afraid that the stand might not be able to take it

Yeah, I can understand that! I was hoping to start-out with something shallower as well. If you do manage to get the culture going correctly I'd love to see it! Not to mention the back-aches it might save.

On that note:
Does anyone think it might help to cut a garbage bag to match his plants and GB and lay it over the top? I would assume the main thing about the 12" preference is to guarantee enough dark space for the bacteria. Covering it (as much as you can) with a dark top should help in that regard.

Thoughts?

I'd say the 12" is more an idea depth for accumulation and breakdown of solids.

I know that when i dig down past about 8" there is a LOT of sludge there, but it doesn' seem to rise any higher.

Running both my little systems with shallow (4 inch) pet watering dishes for grow beds, not a problem for the bacteria growth, but if I was to grow something with a root mass, that would be another thing to consider.