Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Hello. I just wanted to say thank you for all the great guides and videos. I just stumbled upon hydroponics last saturday. I feel like I've stuck a gold mine. There is so much useful information available here.

I read the IBC guide, and I'm going to start one of my own soon. Thank you everyone who contributed to the guide it has really open a whole new world for me.

With that said, please excuse me while I go feed my brain more juicy information.

I have a few questions that I have been unable to answer using the search of browsing the faq.

I've decided to start with a small micro system to get my feet wet asap. Something like regular size home fish tank with a small window planter as a growing bed. I was first wondering if that is a good enough size for stable biosystem. I've seen some small systems on the web, but I wasn't sure if they require closer monitoring or if they stabilize just fine. I'm planning using a constant flood for this, and growing basil since it appears that it performs well under those conditions, and using gold fish. Are there hardier combinations that I can use to start a system?

I think I can setup the bed to drip into the tank for aeration, or put a stone under the bed to better supply the roots and growing bacteria while the system builds a cycle. I thought of using small bead fish tank rocks as a media for better surface area for the biofilter.

I plan on using this as a test bed to seed a later ibc system. I would go ibc off the bat, but I'd rather get my feet wet on something cheaper and less invasive before I dive deep.

Does this setup sound fine? Can anyone suggest an improvement?