Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi everyone!
My name is Lizzy and I am a rising high school sophomore. I have to do a science fair project this year and have chosen plant production in an aquaponics system vs. soil. I am getting ready to put a microsystem together and am using this site for the bulk of my research. Any advice is welcome and will be appreciated. I'm sure I will be following up with questions very soon.
Thanks
Lizzy

Hello Lizzie and good luck with your project! You won't find a better place to get real life facts. Starting early too, the schools over here don't start for another couple weeks.

Good morning Lizzie and welcome,
Look forward to see it all unfold. We love pictures

Faye

Welcome Lizzy

Welcome there Lizzy. Any chance you will be able to keep said project going for two years? See the first year comparison might not show very favorable for the aquaponics since the first couple months of the system operation are usually spent just getting the bio-filter established and it is not until the system has some maturity that it really shines.

Anyway, good luck with it. We love pictures. Good thing you are getting an early start since it takes some time to build and get things going before you can really get things planted and do your comparisons.

Probably be a good idea for you to get a thread going for yourself over in member systems. Let us know how much space you have to work with and what materials you will use etc.

I have a 10 gallon aquarium that is hooked to 5- 5 gallon buckets and another container as the sump tank and it does well growing lettuce indoors here when it is too hot outside to grow salad.

Welcome again, start off by reading up on the basic info and useful info sections of the forum so you understand some of the process and chemistry involved.

Hey everyone, thanks so much for all the welcomes and advice!

I was planning on using a 10 gallon fish tank with goldfish and a 14 gallon growbed. I have a large source aquarium that i was planning on starting my water from in order to speed up the process a little.

I have 3-4 months before i need to plant. Now i'm worried this may not be enough time. Any suggestions??

Thanks

Sounds like fun Liz,
If there is someone nearby with a mature system (1-2 years +) who is happy to help out you could do

Soil v's New AP v's Mature AP