Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Greetings,

I am new to this concept and enjoying all the info on this site. I have been growing heirloom tomatos for for about 15 years but would like to extend my growing season and since I love fish to I thought that this type of system would be great.

I work in a cereal plant and have an endless supply of blue or white plastic water barrels and have found many that use them on this forum. I am in the planning stages now and hope to be up and running by feb 2010.

David Curneal

careful Dave, you'll have AP enthusiasts breaking down your door

In all seriousness welcome to the forum. It's great to have you. Have a read, then share your variation on design with us. It's always good to see somebody else's interpretation.

With endless supplies of barrels, Definitely look up the Barrel Ponics Manual (I think it is down in the Links and Downloads section)

It is a good way to start a first system and get some practice. (Personally I don't like the Barrel as a fish tank but other than that, I think the barrel ponics system is a really good small starter system-Just use a different container for the fish tank.)

Welcome

Please don't hesitate to start a system thread for yourself in Member Systems. Even if you don't have a system built or heck, designed yet. You can show pictures of possible system locations and see if people can help you design you set up. Can often help you avoid some of the mistakes of others.

It can also help you to outline your possible system desires (type of system and size) and your climate situation and perhaps members will point you to other member system threads that might be similar to your situations and you can read through them to see if there are things you will want to change before getting started

--Most of my tomatoes grow in AP since tomatoes grown in the ground here tend to get problems with nematodes in our sum-tropical sand.--

Thanks guys,

I found the barrelponics link it is full of great info. I have forty or so of thses barrels and a pond pump looks like I just need a tank some water and fish. Here is the link if any of you want to take a second look http://www.aces.edu/dept/fisheries/educ ... ponics.pdf

Can a person use pumice for a growing medium?

How long do you need fish before thier are nutrients for plants?

Any fish suggestions for northern Utah zone 5?

Thanks folks,

David Curneal

Hi David,

If you're using the blue barrels, I'd suggest going for something like this:




No idea on Pumice, but being that you're in Utah you can get red scoria super cheap. Trout, Bass, Crappie, Sturgeon and I'd bet bullheads would all work well for an outdoor system.

You can get plants started before you ever get fish if you like. You can also cycle up the bacteria for the bio-filter before you get fish. Look up fishless cycling, much less stress than doing the cycling with fish in the system. I personally highly recommend fishless cycling big time.