Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello everyone! I admit, I'm a really newbe, but I decided to try building my own system as my graduate thesis.
However, first of all I have to ask if someone could help me choosing the best parameters for my plants, cause I chose not easy ones... in particular Citrus meyeri and a cultivar of Washington Navel orange.

I read here that someone had success with these kind of plants, but I really need every detail to growth them successfully (nutrients, hours of daylight, pH, DO, ecc ecc), but, obviously, I do not pretend you to list me every single parameter, but at least show me where should I look for them (I searched in every database my university provides me, but it's so dispersive... I found everything and nothing at the same time )

To complicate, I anticipate you that I have to get the Meyer lemon from seeds and the Navel orange from cutting and some lobsters will support my system

Hope someone could be so kind to start suggesting me some tips and tricks for my plants

Have a nice day, thank you in advance!

Citrus in an apartment system is not something that is commonly done so information could be very hard to come across.

Ive no doubt Citrus would grow , when I moved I put cuttings in my system from my favorite lemon tree and they all put out roots in no time at all .

Long term problems you will have are blocked growbeds from getting rootbound this can lead to zones that go rotten causing fish deaths ect ect , growbeds can split from the pressure of large strong root balls .

If I ever get around to it I want to have a go at growing blueberries they are expensive hate alkaline soil and love acid conditions so I am up against it here , would have to grow them in pots , our water can sometimes have a very high Ph so even in pots they just wont be successful.

Not very hard to have a low Ph aquaponic system driven by goldfish

I have a idea /plan to experiment with perennials , I think a large shallow sloping tray with a header tank that dumps in the tray a few times a day so bed floods for a very short time and drains quickly , frequency can vary during hot / cold seasons , a tipping bucket could achieve this at even 10 litres of water an hour or less .

As there is always a cost to run a growbed , lets say a navel orange has a crop over a month , 11 months of the year it produces nothing so the running expenses daily must be very low .

Have a biofilter of some sort to do the conversion of fish waste to nutrient and perhaps a prefilter for the water going through the citrus.

With nutrients I would look at commercial citrus fertilizer and come up with your own best guess variation of this with fish friendly inputs .

Citrus are a tropical plant so hate cold and especially cold roots , so if you are in a cold area best select (trifoliata root stock) which is the MOST cold tolerant , the dwarf rootstock (Flying Dragon) is a variation on this and would obviously be a good choice . These rootstocks are ALSO the MOST tolerant rootstock of poor drainage so would be the best choice.

Citrus also hate wind as small trees in the wind they will just drop dead so protect them .

Hope that helps a little good luck

Come back we love photos

Thanks a lot for your replies!

I'll try to describe better my system, maybe it be useful to you for letting me know if it could be nice or it need improvements.

I decided to use media beds, full of expanded clay, one for Meyer lemon, another one for the navel orange (these multiplied by 5, as I need to check the results at different salinity levels).

My animal compund is formed by lobsters and another crustacean, maybe Procambarus sp., I have not chosen yet, not fishes (cause Italian's law is very strict and I won't bore you with the details). So, 5 tanks, each of which serve at the same time a lemon and an orange.

My idea was putting a pump that get water from the crustaceans to the plants and than, for gravity, let the water come back to the crustaceans' tanks. (I surely need timing data, but hey, I'm here also for these! )

Temperature and wind are the least of my worries, because I'll build the system in the very basement of the university building, and these parameters are under my control, more or less. So maybe the worst problem could be light.

Finally, my aim is not getting plants to fructify, I need at least that they get by well (ideally I have a year to have my thesis done) and expenses are not a worry, luckily my university let me spend a large amount of money, almost everything I need

So, let me know if these system is feasible in your mind, or if it's too complicated. Hope these details will help you in helping me.

Bye, have a nice day!

Are you setting up a system to raise lobsters and use salt water for the plants?
I don't believe citrus is tolerant enough of the level of salinity needed to raise sea animals.

Hi Aufin, thanks for your reply!

Yes, I'm setting up a system to raise lobsters and salt water for the plants. Of course I said myself the same thing, in fact, at the very beginning I thought that it would be crazy, but I read many scientific papers that told about raising some Citrus species in salt water and the tolerance depends on which species.

However, please note that I want to set up 5 systems, each of which has different salinity, from seawater to freshwater, just about to underline the differences in growth, salinity tolerance, ecc. and to verify if one or both the Citrus species could be grown in so particular and extreme conditions.

Do you have any suggestion for me? Are you able to tell me some fundamental parameter to set up correctly my system (with particular reference to the plants ones)?

Have a nice day! :-)