Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I'm a young gun! I live south of Kansas City Missouri. I've had a garden all my life and love fresh corn & tomatoes.

I'm looking for a year round veggie solution. I'll be starting small and have enough resources to go large. I think the green house i've got is an 8x12 that needs to be put together. (Hey it was free). This time next year i'd like to be living better and feeling better! I think this is a great step in that direction.

Hi Enuro....

Any idea how you are going to get started? IBC's perhaps?

Thanks for asking!

I'm playing around with sketch-up to get an idea of what i plan to do. I'd really like some input from the community on everything. I read the IBCAquaphonics1 as well as that Aquaphonics4You paid for PDF. (Had i found this site before i paid for that manual rather than after...)

I really want a year round solution. So the hard part of this for me is researching solar green house designs.

I'm actually leaning towards custom built tank and grow beds. I have a son and another arriving in a few weeks. I really want them to be interested so i plan to have a sheet of Acryllic so they can see the fish.

Most of all i'm trying to not ask to many silly questions, but i've defiantly got a list. Should i start a build thread or a questions thread or just post every question in the proper forum area?

You would probably do better going to the individual forums. Btw welcome to the USA side of aquaponics. I wish constantly that it was as big here as it is in Australia so I'm always glad to see another american come onto the forum.

Thanks! I too noticed lots of Aussies! I've been looking for a way for more year round food. Between a rocket mass heater and this i'm very excited to see what will happen!

Lol there are a lot of Aussies but they all give me a good laugh. Aquaponics will definitely give you year around operation if you try. I have been working for a couple months now to get my winter one up to par.

Just ask. There are no dumb questions. Would be prudent to use the search function first though.

Your weather pattern is temperate looking at the climate stats. Form a hot summer to a cold winter. Do you get snow? With a greenhouse/hothouse/shadehouse you should be fine, but I suggest you dont fight your weather and plant/stock appropriately.

Thanks for the advice & excellent advice it is. I'm really wanting to grow tomatoes year round. My plans include solar powered LED grow lights, rocket mass heater for the winter and several additions simply for testing solar thermal heat transfer options. I guess it's 1/2 Aquaphonics and 1/2 solar experiments.

I guess what i'm saying is i'm adding lots of non essential features simply to learn about them.

About weather. We never know what were getting here. Several years we got 1" or less, last year we got over 48". Typically our winters are cold and sunny.

I found a great book on solar greenhouses at the local library, and it was very informative. South-facing is best for capturing the sun through winter. The north wall should have some form of heat absorber that stores heat during winter...and many other ideas.

welcome,

jeff c

Hi enuro12,

I'm probably not too far from you on the Kansas side.

I would like to include many of the same ideas in my eventual system. I've been trying to convice the DW we need a greenhouse. I don't see it happening soon though. I'm wearing her down about as fast as the Grand Canyon.

Good luck with your build. PM me if you need an extra pair of hands and you aren't too far away.

Doug

Thanks Jeff! I've been reading about them for a few days. I'll be insulating both the north and west walls. I'm hoping to heat the green house via solar energy stored in the water, but i'm building a rocket mass heater just in case.

Doug, Luckily for me the wife is on board. She's pumped about the possibility of tomatoes during the winter. I'm only about 1.5hrs from Micro Center off Medcalf. You're welcome anytime. Next weekend i'm hoping to dig out the hole for the IBC's.

That's just so that you can say, "Oh yeah, I built a rocket, do you want to come out the back and have a look?"

Well there is that

Welcome Chuck!! I'm pretty new here myself and likely not too far from you as I'm in Raytown. If you haven't assembled your green house yet, I would likely be able to lend you a hand if you needed it.

I guess we're getting some good representation in here from the Heart of America with, you, Doug and myself! My wife is all about homegrown tomatoes and greens during the winter months. I've got my system in my basement (right next to the floor drain, just in case) but it's a small one right now. Grow bed is only 10 gal. with a 15 gal FT. It's designed after a barrelponics system.

I do, however, have my 2nd system in the works, gathering all I need to assemble it and get it running. It will be kind of a hybrid between barrelponics and CHIFT PIST made of 55 gal barrels. You can see some early pics of my system in my intro thread here;

Aquaponics My New Focus (and LOVE??)

Hello Steve!

Thanks for the warm welcome! I originally was going to accept some help on this project. I'm a small guy and laying panels (in my mind equivalent to sheet rock) was daunting. However yesterday I paid for my 4'x8' sheets of polycarbonate and they weigh about 5lb each. I'm extremely excited about getting this thing done now. I'm just amazed how light those things are.

On a note about your 55gal system. We got them for $12 a barrel down here.