Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Good morning (afternoon, evening, night; take your pick) to all!

I'm Steve currently in Kansas City, MO but soon (hopefully) to be closer to our grandkids back in South Texas, which is where we belong.I was exposed to hydroponics about 10 years ago but didn't give it much thought back then since my career had a different focus.

I am a college adjunct professor of Anatomy, Biology and Chemistry at a local community college and do nearly all of my teaching for them on line. This does free me up, whenever needed, to pursue interests and hobbies. I was recently exposed to aquaponics ( Brother-In-Law and Travis Hughey’s Barrel-ponics) and now I’m hooked!

I’ve started a small system with a 5 gal. bucket and a couple of totes in my basement just about 6 weeks ago and transferred a few plants from my soil garden into it, to protect them from the over abundant squirrel population we have in our neighborhood.My wife initially referred to it as the “Mad Scientist’s Experiment”, but now that the plants are growing and a couple of tomatoes have started to pop up, she’s changed her tune!!!

Hoping to learn and contribute all I can here!!

welcome to the madness

Cheers
pete

No looking back now Steve....

I started with a small system in my garage too, and ended with a small system in my kitchen ... But I just moved into a new house and olanning something bigger in the yard!

Lets see some pics of your barelponic setup!

Delgrade - Thanks a bunch looking forward to great times here!

Earthbound - Nope, never look back!!! You might see that "They" are catching up to you!

Matt - I have uploaded just a few pics here but waiting for the approval to come through. I'll get those and some more updated pics loaded and posted soon. Busy time right now trying to get used to the new semester's schedule.

Welcome aboard.....good to see we now have a "mad scientist" , that will slot in nicely with us other 'mad' ppl....cheers!

drsteve

Excellent! We need whatever it is that college adjunct professors of Anatomy, Biology and Chemistry do.

You should fit right in.

Do you have access to anyone (including access to yourself) who can tell me in a convincingly scientific manner, why a swirl filter* does what it does?

To quote me, "I have reached that percentage of my life that any reasonable person would say is nearing the upper limit of the length of time one should spend watching fish shi() swirling around in a bucket before asking for help."

I realize that's not a very hearty welcome, but you'll feel welcome anyway without my input because these people are all great.

It'd just be overkill if I added my welcomes as well, and overkill is, well, overkill.

So just tell me what I need to know



*Bucket with a vortex of fish poop that drops solids out of suspension and collects them toward the centre.

There should be a fair bit of that info around online I would have thought... I know Carl bought his notes about swirl filters in from his Uni days a while back, perhaps I should have copied them while he wasn;t looking...

Any whirlpool will drag solids to its centre as long as the whirlpool is not too strong. We whirlpool our big pots of homebrew after the boil has finished by stirring in a circular motion as fast as we can go without spilling the brew all over the floor and self. Walk away for 30-40mins and the brew will then be crystal clear with all the hop solids and hot break material settled into a neat cone in the centre of the pot. The brew can then be siphoned off almost completely without taking and solids which we dont want.
I'll take a pic tomorrow of the pot after the brew is drained off
Sorry for the thread hijack but it was Bullwinkles fault

Not entirely sure but I think I'm running into a bit of an issue with my system.
though I'd prefer the pH to be a bit higher, everything except the Nitrates is looking great (I think). Nitrates have shot through the roof and off the chart! Here's a screen shot of my data spreadsheet;


Thought maybe a partial water replacement??? Not enough plantings in my grow bed?? (I've got 5 mature tomato plants, small rosemary, a sickly looking banana pepper plant and 6 onions and I know the tomatoes are heavy feeders)

Any advice?


Big Picture


Fish Tank


Grow bed flooded


Flush Tank

good start!
one point from me though.. you either need more media in the growbed, or less water - the water should come up to about 1" under the top surface of your media

Welcome, we like mad scientist.

Ya probably need more grow bed, more plants, and more light to keep up with the nitrates.
A pH of 6.4 isn't bad but you might need to add a bit of potassium bicarbonate alternating with some calcium carbonate since you don't want the pH to fall off the charts. Most plants like a pH of 6.4 though but the bacteria could suffer if it drops way too low.

Many people will give a specific number for a pH that they think is best like say 6.8. However, whatever is stable and seems to work for you will be what's best for your system. It will vary based on media, source water, plants, fish and your access to buffer materials.

Anyway, looks like you are off to a good start.

Thanks Keith and TC!! I thought I likely needed more media, and actually added some over the weekend. Also added 3 more tomato plants and 9 or 10 small mustard seedling sprouts. I also did a change out of about 2 gallons on Sunday and pH is now up to 6.6 and NO3 down to about 120.

Using this system (dubbed "Mad Science v1.0) mainly to "get a feel for things" and already have "Mad Science v2.0" in the works. Got my hands on two 55 gal. barrels and have a fish tank and grow beds roughed out of them. I really would like to get enough experience to propose a system for our Department at the college and apply for grants to do some research on it.

System is doing "OK" for now. I've added more pebbles to the grow bed, more plants in it too, and doubled the lighting with new "daylight" bulbs putting out 65000K. I've also rigged a little incubator for cloning some of our favorite plants around the house.

Here's a few updated pics.