Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hi all,

I posted a little while back in the "fish" discussion section, before realizing about the new "member introductions" thanks for the info to those who replied! Attached (hopefully) are the pics of my first set up, in my living room, I know how people like pics! The tank is 150 lts and the GB is around 40 i guess. I have 4 15 watt (real usage not equivalent) "natural white" LED bulbs. Which i still have to set up. I also have yet to add the grow media (mostly volcanic gravel and some clay pebbles) Though perhaps i should glue down a sleeve to slot the siphon guard over first?

The water has been in the tank for 3 weeksish with a few flakes of food for activation, and the fish (2 small comet goldfish) for 1 day. I think the water became somewhat "active" a few days back when i noticed a very fine coating of sliminess; bacteria/algae/protien?

So my main questions are concerning how fast and in what order should i go about stocking with more fish and plants.

I'm thinking of stocking 6 comets max, as fish welfare is fairly important to me. Some other species would be nicetoo, Where i live the temps are roughly 28 max and 10 min. I'm thinking of growing some herbs suchh as basil, mint, parsley and coriander, and some lettuces. I plan to have some plants in pots surrounding the GB to make use of lighting, and water them with the FT water.

Any ideas, advice or recommendations welcome! And I hope you're all having a nice day!

Cheers!

Hi Danny,

I like the way you have the grow bed directly over the fish tank. This is the way I used to have an indoor flood and drain tray and I think this is the most trouble free type of arrangement for growing indoors since you don't have to be as concerned about leakage.

Hi Scotty,

Cheers, yeah it was a concern I had when deciding on the design. The only disaster that could happen now is the pump hose coming loose from the grow bed, flopping over the side of the tank and emptying the contents onto the living room floor. This shouldn't happen though as I have it firmly cable-tied in position on the inside of GB, but the imagination can run wild as the consequences sure would be devastating!

Ok, so its been a few days with 2 small comets, and all seems well.

Can I put n media and plants and build up slowly with close observation, or is the purchase of master test kits a must?? I was hoping the money spending phase had more or less passed!

Can you cycle, no tests, with minimal fish and plenty of patience without too much risk?

Cheers

Personally I would suggest changing the way the grow bed will sit on the top of the structure... having the boards supporting it attached from underneath scares me that over time they could loosen up and eventually cause the growbed to fall which would lead to disaster. The other thing is I can't tell where the pump is at for moving water up to the grow bed but I would make sure it is fairly high in the tank otherwise you could accidently pump all of the water out and kill the fish.

Hi Rob,

Cheers for the advice! Yeah I had originally planned to have the boards resting on top, rather than underneath, but due to previous miscalculations I was not happy with the height of the GB above the tank, and wanted to reduce it, thereby also providing a kind of lip/raised boarder to the structure. The integrity of this design change also worried me at the point of building, but I have tested it with my body weight and am pretty confident in it; each plank to frame angle has a metal right angle piece screwed in with 4 stout screws (32 screws in total) plus there''s 1 large screw through each end of the planks directly into the frame above.

I hadn't considered raising the pump that goes to the GB, (the one on the left is a cheap second hand one that wasn't good enough to fill GB, so I positioned it towards the other pump to push waste towards it) but doing so would of course reduce risk. It is currently at the bottom right back corner. But might raising it reduce [re]movement of solid/partially solid waste to the GB? My pump is a standard small submersible aquarium pump, so maybe it will hardly remove solid waste anyway? The hose is firmly cable-tied inside the GB, so I guess it's pretty safe... what should I do?

Cheers!

I would be surprised if the pump will do a good job at removing waste. It will remove some that floats near it, but the waste will likely find an area with lower flow and settle there.

Finally finished the lighting today, it's a bit of a botch job, but it will do till i come across some more and better condition free material, and a bit of free time, to make a better version with more planning etc.

It's got four 15 watt LED bulbs (6400k) which cost me 4.50€, made in china of course.

There are 3 baby lettuces in the GB which i hope will indicate cycling completion with signs of growth. I have had 2 small feeder goldfish in there for about 2.5 weeks, and will grab a couple more this week. No, test kit yet, so taking and patiently maybe too slow

Bit of a botch job, but will work in the mean time...

Well I feel things are going well with my system. Here it is just about a month later.

I have a build up of algae in my transparent hose tubing. I hope it won't cause any issues.

The algae does use some of the nutrients that would otherwise go to the plants. You could wrap the hose to block the light and that will take care of the algae.

Cheers Scotty, I should do that, I'll give the hose a clean out and cover it with something.

Looking good! I see your mint there, plotting world domination.

Algae can also mess with your pH and grow into clumps that can block things, so yeah, I'd do something about that. You can get black flexible tubing too.

How do you stand the blinding light and the noise created? I'm assuming by living room you don't mean some obscure sound proof room you never use.